Home Forums Reloading Reloading Software What do you use QL for?

Ken/Tod,

Many thanks for the info on Vectan powders and where to order QL.

Mike

It should be noted that both QuickLoad and reloading manuals are only a guide. You should always work up you own loads. I no longer have access to a pressure transducer and other equipment to validate loads, so can't confirm the accuracy of QuickLoad other than velocity predictions, which tend to be pretty good.

Using the data QL generates, I have yet to see anything that looks dangerous. Most loads are on the low side when compared to loading manuals. But everything is fallible.

Smitty, I've got to disagree with your statements here. One ALWAYS assumes risk in this avocation and WHATEVER reference one uses to reload should be backed off at least 10% because of the difference in many factors, not the least of which could be the difference between rifle chambers. But even using a different brand of case or batch of powder than the reloading manuals are referencing could be enought to cause problems.

My almost 50 years of reloading experience and my programming background (I write my own ballistics software to check QL and LFAD) tell me the software is superior for predicting loads because, as Ken says, the manuals are based on data from one rifle. If you trust any reference for a starting load, you should find another hobby.

All one has to know about reloading is that you're pouring high explosives into a little brass tube and setting it off inches from your own face.

TheBigJonson:

That's OK.

Of course, there's risk involved in handloading. Handloading is fraught with risky practices. I�m sure there are other things that you would do, and I wouldn�t, and vise versa.

I consider it more risky to trust a computer model, over actual tests from "one rifle", or "one test barrel", or many of them. One doesn't have to use only one Loading Manual, BTW.

You can�t input every variable into QL. To me, that makes actual tests better, even if it may be from only �one rifle�.

You can use Loading Manuals in conjunction with QL, but many won�t do that.

QL can lead you into trouble, and that�s why it didn�t work for me, and why I wanted to offer that possibility. Hopefully, it will prevent others from rushing into the belief that QL is the end-all for handloading.

Smitty of the North

If you knew and understood the criteria, facts, principles, and logic that support my conclusion, you'd agree with me.

BTW, I don't remember recommending that anyone use only QuickLOAD as a loading guide, and I definitely remember saying that any trial load has to be tested in a specific rifle. Please don't attribute to me anything that I haven't said, especially when you want to discredit it.

Limited experience with QL, like limited experience with handloading, is a damn poor basis for offering useful advice to others, anyway.

I had accurate handloads for most of my rifles before I bought Quick Load. I use it to compare not only chamber pressure, but muzzle pressure and barrel time of potential new loads to the old, proven loads.
I could probably compare pressure graphs of the proven load to the potential load, but haven't bothered yet.

Ken Howell:
I�m sure YOU, know a LOT, with the possible exception of what you DID say, so let me refresh you memory.
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�I consider QuickLOAD a vastly superior substitute for a collection of handloading manuals.

Each manual reports results from one gun for each cartridge � a poor basis for assuming that the listed loads will produce similar results in your one other gun.

QuickLOAD, on the other hand, uses equations that ballisticians have laboriously derived, over many years, from the results from millions of loads in thousands of guns and cartridges. So it has a definite edge over a report of the results from a very limited number of loads from only one gun and one cartridge.

As a predicting device, QuickLOAD is vastly superior to manuals, IMHO. It's as useful for factory cartridges as it is for wildcats.�

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CLEARLY, you were advocating the use of QL, OVER the use of Loading Manuals.

Please read YOUR posts again, and all of MINE again.

I have used QL, enough to assure you, that you can encounter pressure signs with a load that QL says is perfectly safe. QL will not always accurately predict pressure, no matter how much experience you have. My �advice� was to caution people about that possibility.

Smitty of the North

Casual, shallow, superficial use of QuickLOAD can be dangerous. Casual, shallow, superficial use of a manual is equally certain to be dangerous. QL offers much, much more than all the manuals put together. Getting full benefit from it requires long, careful, studious use. It is illogical to compare studious use of a manual to superficial use of QuickLOAD.

QL abounds with caveats and cautions. I doubt that its critics have delved deep enough into QL to have read, for example, "These calculations refer to your specified settings in QuickLOAD 'Cartridge Dimensions' window"
or
"C A U T I O N : any load listed can result in a powder charge that falls below minimum suggested loads or exceeds maximum suggested loads as presented in current handloading manuals. Understand that all of the listed powders can be unsuitable for the given combination of cartridge, bullet and gun. Actual load order can vary, depending upon lot-to-lot powder and component variations. USE ONLY FOR COMPARISON!"
or
"This program assumes use of the mildest primer that will do the job in the specified load. Primer substitutions can raise chamber pressures to unsafe levels [�] equally, bullet substitutions often result in significant chamber pressure differences."

No one can fairly, justly, or intelligently judge QuickLOAD � or compare its use to the use of a manual � without learning and considering what it is and what it offers.

Finally, with either QL or a manual, "the proof is in the pudding" � only careful field tests in an actual firearm can really tell you whether you have a good, safe load. I've repeatedly said this, and QL freely and frequently admits its limitations. QL is far superior to the manuals in its ability to predict probable results.