Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How many reloads before you settle on a load?

How many times to do reload before your happy load?

I must be fuzzy?. Fuzzy, that is new to me, LOL Get a new gun, reload and get acquainted with the gun.
But seems to take forever at times , testing testing etc...
One day I will shoot am awesome group with a certain load, next day it is like WTF?
. Problem for me is it takes a lot of shooting to fine the right powder, bullet combo, ETC... For me anyway. Not that I mind,

So as a reloader! How far do you go? I mean I always want clover leafs at 100 yard as that is basically all I need in my area of hunting/

I usually buy a rifle for hunting, either deer or varmints, and informal target shooting.
That said, a new to me caliber, is always asked about to others on this forum. There’s a wealth of knowledgeable people on here, and most are happy to help you out and share information.
When I get something new, I figure out what bullets I want to use, and powder based on what I have and what I can find without a hassle. Also take into consideration what kind of velocity range you want.
After doing a little homework here and in my loading manuals, I’ll start to work up a load using the smallest amount of a certain powder. I use different color sharpies on the primers, and I put a note in the cartridge box what color corresponds to what powder charge I start small and I go up in half grain increments.
I load a couple to shoot to get the speed, and usually 5 for target shooting.
Once I see what velocity and accuracy I get, I make another batch to try, increasing charge by 2/10s of a grain.
Always watch you primers with a new load. If they’re backing out or cratering around the firing pin, you’re probably loading it too hot. Decrease your powder charge.
Some guys think it tedious, but I like shooting and I enjoy the process of loading.
I hope this answers your questions.
Also keep in mind that most rifles won’t shoot real good out of the box. Sometimes it takes a little shooting to get a barrel broken in.
I got a Ruger 77 in 7mm Rem Mag that took about 100 rounds before it really tightened up the grouping.
Reon

Pretty good thread titled “Painless Load Development” on Rokslide.

I employ the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle to reloading, it's already tedious enough. That said most reloading manuals list an "accuracy load", also the late Ken Waters "Pet Loads" is an excellent reference resource when developing a load. I start there and take a couple sample batches of accurate loads to the range for testing. I don't get terribly involved with the minutae like bullet seating depth etc. I use SAAMI O.A.L. info and test rounds for feeding in my rifle(s). Taking this route most often produces a load that will group satisfactorily. This has been my load development protocol for the 50+years that I have been reloading.

Not sure why the struggle. I take a load with a specific powder that im going to use and start with 4 rounds loaded at a specific grain. So if im loading say 4350 for something and book max is 56 grains, ill load 4 rounds at 50, 51, 52, 53 and 54. Shoot 4 shot groups and see when it tightens in those. If 53 was the tightest, ill then do 4 rounds starting just under that. 52.5, 52.7, 52.9, 53.1, 53.3 as an example. Then find where its most accurate. Only requires two range trips and has always worked for every gun ive ever used

Most of my rifle shooting is at animals. At short ranges. If they fall dead after shooting, then that load is good enough for me. No paper punching or soul searching.

It depends upon the gun and the intended use. My Ruger UL 257 Roberts is a woods rifle with a pencil barrel. I'll never shoot it at anything beyond 150 yards. I stopped at a load that gave me 1.5 MOA. I have done a lot more load development with my Remington 700 223 target rifle.

Seems like two or three. Most of my loading is for hunting so a decent velocity and inch ish groups at 100 yards is good enough.

I pick a bullet and work around it staying under max

With a new gun working up loads helps in several ways. Trigger Time, Breaking in the Barrel, as well as finding a Load the Gun likes best. MY 300 HAM'R is a good example. I am at around 120 rounds through it now. The last trip to the range with it, I got the best groups so far.

My 22 ARC has mostly seen factory ammunition so far. It is shooting great, however the factory loads are leaving swipe marks on the brass. I plan on pulling the bullets on the 50 I have left, and down loading them a little. It is hard to look for pressure signs, when the factory once fired brass all has swipe marks. My CFE223 powder looks to be a slow lot. I need to change powders and see for sure. Then we have which of half a dozen bullets looks to work best.

Reloading for Accuracy is an Adventure.

Along the same line is Deer Season. Between working on Stands, and Stand Locations. Figuring out which handgun I will hunt with this year, and working with it. Picking the best Bullet. Then Trigger Time with both the handgun I plan to hunt with, as well as my XP100 22LR. I can get months of enjoyment out of a week and a half of Deer Season.

Bob R

Powder availability being what it is, never.

Shotguns? - Zero
Handguns? - Zero
CF Rifles? - 2, maybe 3
ML? - until I get bored

1, maybe 2.

Pick an appropriate powder for the bullet I am shooting and if it won't show me around an inch or under with minimal work I move that rifle down the road.

Cannot stand a picky rifle and won't waste time or components to find that "magical" load for it.

That’s me. I pick a load out of the book, load them up. If it gets an inch or less, good enough for the hunting I do. I load to factory length to begin with. I don’t have time or desire to play around with different loads. I have multiples in many calibers, used the same load in all of them, 59 grains of IMR 4350 with a 150 partition in 30-06’s, 64 grains of IMR 4350 with a 140 partition in 7 mags. Those shot well in every rifle I had of those calibers, probably not the fastest, but they killed deer and pigs just fine for me.

I usually find a good load that I’m satisfied with after testing 1-3 loads. If I get to 3/4” or better five shot groups at a good velocity, I accept that load and move on.

For the majority of my 24+ career as a reloader, I generally took my first load as good to go. However, several things affected that decision.

First off, I was starting about 5% off MAX to start. Second, these were mostly hunting rifles and if I got a group I could live with, I did not pursue it further. Third, I was mostly working with one powder, H4895. It's a moderately burning powder that gives accurate loads even with a fair amount of downloading.

I had one exception to this. It was a Savage 99 in 308 WIN and I tried a bunch of bullets, powders and brass before I found something that would work. It didn't like the 150 grainers I wanted to use in it. Second, I was having sticky ejections with the milsurp brass. I think I did 5 different loads before settling on 165 grain Hornady over H4895.

Over time, I've re-thought a few loads. 117 grain Hornady over H4895 gave me sucky velocities, and after I had a couple of deer run, I switched to H4198sc. That got me higher velocities, but again, I had a deer run on me. My latest attempt is 100 grain Hornady over H4198sc, and I'm still waiting on a deer to try it out.

Most recently, I've retired. I now have time to do more exploration. One thing I'm doing a lot more of is loading at the bench. I bring a bunch of processed and primed brass and a Lee Handloader with just the seating die. I'll spend several hours exploring different bullets or powders or seating depths until I find what I want.

So far, I've done that with two .223 rifles. One is my Ruger American Predator that I use strictly for target shooting. The other is a Savage 340 I have set up for coyote.

Another project has been my TC Compass in 7mm-08, looking for the best load with some Win StaBall 6.5.

It's not about that selected group that was good but what are you and your rifle capable of consistently. Conditions change, wind, mirage, setup. Your loads will likely change depending on how much each brass case hardens changing the grip on the bullet. How consistent are your reloads? Barrels wear with usage. The throat erodes and seating depth will change. There are a lot of factors in considering accuracy. What level of accuracy do you expect? What level of accuracy are your loads capable of? What level of accuracy is your rifle capable of? just how much accuracy are you capable of?

Typically 2 range trips:

1 with the combo I want to use in .5 gn increments, usually starting 1.5gn under Quickload max. Usually 10 @ the starting weight and 5 each as I go up.

Shoot to see what groups the best and get velocity in non-FF cases.

When I get home, I cross-reference velocity results with QL velocity predictions. I measure water capacity of FF'd cases, plug that into quick load and cross-reference any delta between QL predictions and actual velocity.

Load up 10 each of the best 2 groups from the previous session in FF'd brass and assuming ES/SD are reasonable, run whichever one shoots the best.

At that point I'll typically load up 30 more cases and over the next few range sessions as other rifle barrels are cooling, shoot a few groups to get the brass FF'd and add to that bbl's data set. Load the group of 30 up again as FF'd cases and continue to bring the rifle to the range and work through those 30 again.

Once I've got 50 2x fired cases I deprime, trim, anneal, size, and load up that 50 and I'm "ready".

I have started fooling with the OCW in my changeover from lead to copper in 5 common cartridges...seems like it's saving me a lot of shooting and components. The chronograph shows that 'flat spot' of no velocity increase even though the powder charge increased...and then fine tune the charge in the flat spot.
What really appeals to me is it doesn't rely on bench skill or weather....until it's time to verify the final load choice.
Also, I have never been a seating depth tinkerer. Too many Federal Gold Medal Match loads shoot too well in a wide variety of rifles. But of course I'm not shooting F class or benchrest.

Start with Quickload, speeds up the process.