Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Documenting Reloading Results

I just try and make it as complicated as possible .

The more complicated you make it, the more things you have to study, and thus follows plenty of justification for more time at the range and the bench...

Good plan. You an engineer by chance?

I post mine on here and use the search function to find them later.

I'm great at documenting everything...

and never organizing it...

You may be on to something.......:

Grin....

I'm pretty simple.

1. I write it on a piece of paper and tape it to the ammo box I put the rounds in...basic info, brass, primer, bullet, oal, powder/weight, and velocity.
2. I put the same info in an excel spreadsheet on a line with the rifle and add sight in distance/drops.

Those are nice - what graphing program do you use?

I use the graphing function in Excel.

It is easy, too. Once I set up the graph the first time, I just reuse the same file under a new name for each new load. The graph is automatically made as I type in the data.

By graphing the results, I can fit all the results of a particular bullet/powder combination, from an initial rough powder test to final fine-tuning of charge weight and seating depth, on one sheet of notebook paper. Plus, I've got a good record of what didn't work, as well.

Probably overkill for most folks, but I find it useful to keep track of what I have tried, and to spot hidden trends with a particular rifle.

I'm with some of the other guys on the three ring binders. I use targets from either the 6mm br site:

https://www.6mmbr.com/targets.html

or beartooth bullets:

http://www.beartoothbullets.com/misc/targets.htm

I keep the load info with the target in three ring binders by cartridge and then page dividers in it by bullet maker. I can access most loads I've worked with fairly quickly.

I don keep targets anymore, but when I did I usually just put a picture of it on page 2 of an excel spread sheet. Now I just make a note like (sucks, good or retry) of average groups. For me the load data and chronograph is more important. When at the reloading bench I have a little notebook that I write all pertinent data into then after testing I load chronograph and load data into excel. I don’t have one on this machine with picture, but kinda like this.



If the load performs and deserves a better look, I have another spreadsheet to use 30 shot chronograph data to see how the load actually performs over a wider number. This has all the load data on it also.

I have a spiral note book that I record reloads as I make them. It includes the date, intended rifle, and everything I need to know to duplicate the ammo. A friend of mine goes on step farther, giving this a lot #.

Every round that goes down range gets documented in a Word file for that rifle. The documentation varies according to if I was evaluating a load, or shooting for some other purpose. Three-shot load evaluations a documented for the group size and POI. For ten-shot load evaluations I measure the windage and elevation of each shot to the nearest 1/32", and plug these locations into an Excel spread sheet I made that give me the average POI, median POI, mean radius, and some other stuff. This gets transferred into the Word file for the rifle. I used to also compile Excel results of all the rifles so I could compare them directly, but now I now what the numbers mean well enough that it is no longer useful.