Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Organizing Load Data

Ive been shooting for 40 years, hunting for 37, and reloading for 29. I'm a meticulous note taker. I have books and books of notes on load data, range sessions, rifle DOPE, etc. I started with a notebook for each rifle and a section for each bullet. Over the years rifles have come and gone, sections on some bullets have overflowed as new powders become available, and now I have a pile of paper the size of a small car in the corner of the shop. Does anyone have any tips for organizing reloading notes either by hand or electronically?. Is there any software available? There probably isn't much hope for the old stuff. Moving forward it would be nice to be able to enter data in some searchable format, maybe have it linked to an image of a target shot with that load... Do we have any programmers here?

I just keep mine in a simple Microsoft Word file. Delete the information when you sell a rifle, edit it if you add a new load for a particular rifle, etc.

I don't think it requires any special software or apps. I just record the bullet, powder charge, brass, primer, seating depth, and the die set up for sizing. Then add the velocity and relative accuracy. Doesn't take much time or effort.

I use excel spreadsheets for the load data, one workbook for each caliber and separate pages for each rifle.
If you’re familiar with excel I’d be happy to send you a copy of what I use to see if it would work for you; just shoot me a PM.
It’s pretty easy to customize the sheets to whatever you need.
For the rifle and scope dope I’m still using notebooks.

Excel would work. I’ll send you a pm. I don’t know much about setting up a template but if Inhave something to work from Incan use it.

I write up a range report and send an email.... with the words "range report" in the email title.
That is a searchable database.

After a lifetime of writing up lab reports on electronics development... it is just like being a work.

If I want to post some of my data on a gun forum, I can just clipboard and paste.

e.g.
Sun, Apr 8, 2018, 8:38 PM
to Daniel


I was at the local 22 yard range.
Got a 0.84" 5 shot group with CB shorts

"Delete the information"?

Sorry, but I quit deleting handloading information long ago--and still keep almost all of it on paper, including paper targets. There's always something rediscover, even with such "antique" data.

My one regret is that I did not record even more data in the beginning. These days it all includes the scope, mount, shooting conditions (temperature, wind direction, chronograph, light, etc. etc. etc.

The most important step ^ ^ ^ of reloading IMO

The man that taught me to load told me it was
extremely important to keep a written record of
everything you do. The people I've taught to load
were told the same thing

Ji,m Carmichel taught me to save every target. There's a LOT you can learn from them, especially if you record everything else, even years after they were shot.

I keep everything in a single tab in a spreadsheet, with columns that let me filter out specific rifle/cartridge using the standard built-in Excel filter function. Even though I keep backups I'll printout the whole page every now and again as a hardcopy backup.

+1.

If you go a couple steps further and take pictures of your targets, load them on a computer you can hyperlink cells in Excel and click the link to see the pic of the target. Keeps a record of the target without having to store piles of paper. Make a backup copy and never worry about losing data.

My system may seem a little crude to some, but it works for me; just wish I had started doing it in the mid-'60s when I began handloading. Thirty years ago, I began recording everything in notebooks. Periodically, I'll transfer the most basic of information to a 4" x 6" index card file that's broken down by cartridge.

There are two card files, one for rifle cartridges and one for handgun cartridges. The only subsection is for cartridges that use both cast and jacketed bullets; I separate the two types as cast data will contain additional information over jacketed bullets (different alloys and bullet diameters).

I use the card files mostly, going to the notebooks only if I need more detailed information. I'm not a target saver, but I record the particulars.

I'm the world's worst. My "notes" mostly consist of labels on cartridge boxes, and you know what happens to them. I do keep a lot of targets with notes written on them, but they're tossed loosely in a plastic tub.

I know I'm no good, and trying to get better. I have started recording the CBTO along with the OAL on those labels since I got one of those Hornady Thingys, which is a lot easier to use than the hex-nut device I used before.

This is exactly how I store my load data. As targets. With new technology, I photograph as well as store them and post my photographs to folders in my “notes” on my iPhone.

I once saved targets in 3 ring binders with the pertinent info written on them...... Until I got too many. Digital photography & computers took care of that problem. Got a folder on the computer for targets with a sub folder for every gun. So much easier to go back to research, review & compare stuff. Almost makes me feel like some kind of tech guru.

They'll have to pry my 3 ring notebooks from my cold dead hands.

And like JB, a notebook makes it easier to punch some holes and add targets to the load data I have written down.. I've never figured out how to stuff a target into a computer........and retrieve it.

Casey,

I have also never figured out how to add the sometimes necessary amendments and side-notes to a computer program.

Have also lost some computer info over the decades, whether due to crashes, changes in programs, or whatever. I may be a Luddite, but do NOT totally trust "the cloud," or back-up hard drives, though they have saved considerable info.

I do trust the thousands of pages of written data and targets in my line-up of 3" loose-leaf folders, and have learned how to organize them so it's all reasonably accessible. But as Eileen often points out, I am one of the most OCD people she knows. (She freely admits that it takes one to know one. She also keeps both computer and written records of the hundreds--thousands?--of game recipes she's developed over the years.)

We also still keep the tens of thousands of slides we took before going totally digital almost 20 years ago--along with the slide-scanner we bought at that time, and the old computer necessary to run it. The slides and scanner have also saved us considerable time every year.

And I'm glad Eileen turned some of that recipe data into cookbooks! And now that makes me hungry.......