Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Reloding questions:

A previously asked question here.... you guys were unanimous in doing powder loads before bullet jump. Hunting rifle.

If I'm reading it right, Berger recommends doing the jump first, then going to powder loads development .

What say you? Again.

I had planned on working back from lands after powder load development, but Berger's method also seems pretty good. 24 loads in 6 rnd lots .040 apart, then refine from best. Anyone do this? Results? Problems? Do it again?

Finally, once jump to lands is found for one bullet weight and brand , will this hold true for others of different weights , shapes, or brands?

Example - going from 130 to 150 gr in a .270, or from Sierra 130 to Speer or Hornady 130, keeping jump the same (obviously to be differentially seated to same as needed because of ogive shape differences, if any.)

I set jump first. Usually there are established powders that work well for each caliber. Seating depth is more critical.

What say "me"? Again?

I never worried about all that.
When I'm loading ammo, I check OAL with a loaded round.
If it isn't touching the rifling and is within the loading manual +/- OAL, I just go to loading.

Lot'sa folks go through lot'sa different routines to load their ammo.
If going through that procedure makes you feel better about your ammo, by all means, do it.

Myself?
I adopted the "K.I.S.S." principle!
Keep It Simple, Stupid!

ALWAYS physically check each bullet type, you are going to be loading, for OAL to lands. Now write that down in a book. If you change lots of that same bullet, you may need to recheck your OAL to lands. For a hunting rifle, I always load .020" off the lands, for reliability. Then after that, it's about finding OCW. How you and others do it, is entirely up to you, but that is what I've always done and it's worked thus far. Your OP is referring to a "hunting" rifle, but this also works for all of my "precision" rifles. The only ones I don't do this with is my AR's. I load to .005" under mag box length for those.

Like martin strummer just said, KISS: Keep it simple stupid.. Oh, that may pizz some people off too..

Depends.

Berger's are really picky about the jump, so for them I start with the jump.


Typical cup and core's are less picky, start with your max length, work up on the power charge then work shorter in OAL.

Barnes seem to be more picky about powders, so start with a minimum charge for 4 or 5 powders, see what it likes best and work from there.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^


THIS

I've done both. Either will get you there, but bullet jump first isn't a bad way to go. I wouldn't want to bet my house that it will work out that way in all cases, but in general I feel like it's a more efficient way of getting there.

Not experienced with using Berger's. .040 apart seems excessive, you sure you're reading that right and they're not just saying to start at .040 off? Standard bullets I go .010 apart in 3 round loads to find my best. Then find best powder charge. Then might try .005 on either side of set seating depth just to see if there's any fine tuning advantages on either side.

In answer to your last question. NO. You have a heck of a blessed rifle if the best amount of jump holds true across the board no matter the bullet weight or brand/shape.

You might as well JUMP!

What say "me"? Again?

I never worried about all that.
When I'm loading ammo, I check OAL with a loaded round.
If it isn't touching the rifling and is within the loading manual +/- OAL, I just go to loading.

Lot'sa folks go through lot'sa different routines to load their ammo.
If going through that procedure makes you feel better about your ammo, by all means, do it.

Myself?
I adopted the "K.I.S.S." principle!
Keep It Simple, Stupid!

THIS! ^ ^ ^
A friend of mine called me in a panic a couple of days before deer season this past November. His son jammed a bullet hard into the lands of his .280AI. The kid tried to load a round into the chamber and the bolt wouldn't close. So he slammed the bolt forward closing the bolt. The kid tried to open the bolt and it wouldn't budge. My friend brought the rifle over for me to figure out WTF happen. His son was loading some ammo (140gr Nosler Accubonds), ran out of bullets and opened up a new box that had a different lot number on it. I measured the OAL of the bullet, it's weight and from the base to the ogive and the numbers were all the same. I then used my method to determine cartridge OAL with the new lot number, the OAL had to be shortened by .028" to accommodate the new bullet. I wish I still had access to a shadow graph to see what Nosler changed with the ogive.

Charge weight first to sort out accuracy nodes and scatter nodes, then seating depth to address barrel harmonics. Not many people are willing to wrap their minds around how OCW works.

Yep. Start at max COL and work up the load. Very few hunting rifles will be at the lands at factory mag length.

Start Barnes at their tested length and then fiddle fart from there.

Exactly. I've seen it many times. Especially with Hornady bullets. It seemed like everytime I turned around, those dang guys were messing with the ogive location. Messing with that "secant ogive", they like to talk about. Anyways, just something we should think about, with any bullet manufacture. A lot of times, I'll buy 1,000 of the same lot #, so I don't have to worry about it. Especially with my competition ammo, I load up. Don't want to get on the line, and have something go wrong, like what happened to your buddies son!!!

OCW works like this:


That's shot with one of my competition rifles. Some guys don't get it, you are right.. I always ask guys to post up their results, if they think they are doing something really better than I am. I may listen up?

AR loads:


There are definitely times when you need to adjust your seating depth. One of the reasons I shoot 10 shot groups to prove out a load. Generally you'll see when a load is not optimum, with more shots on target. After you verify your load, shoot your 3 shot groups:


Sub 1" groups at 400 yards, should be the norm, if you are doing your due diligence. Something to look for is a nice round group (for 5 or 10 shots):

You'll know the OAL is just about right. Then proceed to stretch that out to 400 again. If you are getting double grouping (which is real common, it seems), you should shorten your OAL a bit, until that goes away. The object here is to hit a good accuracy node. That is something guys don't get.

When I say "confirmed" load, this is what I'm talking about:


That yote was shot with a confirmed load, from one of my 308's. As was this:

Another one of my competition rifles.

Your ammo, should not be the weak link in the system.



Now it's your turn.. Oops, that last one was not sub 1" was it? ha ha. Here goes. Same load:

I would say starting from the same point every time would be a better way to evaluate the effect of the charge.... But like any testing protocol you only want to vary one input at a time....

"Very few hunting rifles will be at the lands at factory mag length."

That's been my experience with hunting rifles, too. Some have bullet jumps of a quarter-inch or more and still shoot well.