Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Can Someone Please Explain Ladder, Accuracy Node, etc?

Just what I was thinking. Folks LOVE to complicate simple [bleep]

Actually simpler than that. Some of us just like to go to the range and shoot. We get a kick out of planning what we are going to do, do it, and then analyze the results. Perhaps others just like to hear a bang...

TFF, you ANALyze and I'll continue hitting stuff.

Long's model is pretty well proven out in practice. The theory is, pretty much, over my head. But OBT and QL get to the nut-cutting much faster than Audette. JMO, Dutch.

While I did not read the Long article thoroughly, and only skimmed through it after I saw where he was going with his theory. If I read it right, he thinks the bore of the barrel grows and shrinks in diameter, and this effect moves down the barrel like a wave. His idea of tuning is to time the bullet exit at the muzzle when the bore is on a shrunken part of the cycle. I could not see any evidence at all this actually happens, or that it is responsible for nodes. His theory does not explain why barrel tunners work. I believe Long is an electronics engineer, and vibration analysis and stresses are not their forte. Varmint Al is a retired mechanical engineer that spent a career in stress analysis and finite element analysis. Varmint Al's theory is much more plausible. He just looks at the direction the muzzle is pointed when the bullet exits. He actually provides some proof that the barrel does what the FEA model predicts.

Don't know about growing and shrinking but when you fire a rifle, the barrel will twist and turn just like a water hose when the water is turned on full force and no one is holding it.
The idea of developing a accurate load is to find one that exits just as the rifle reaches the top or bottme of it's twisting.

Ron, I've noted your opinion, and I'm going to stick with Long's empirically vetted model. Let me know when you have some data to refute Long's model? FWIW, Dutch.

I split the difference between #9 and #10 with the 140 VLD and Rel 17. Loaded up 10 and shot 8 of them at 600 yds. I had 4-11 mph wind from my 4. I didn't care what the wind was doing. I wanted to see what the vertical would do.


That's a 2.5" vertical for 8 shots with an ES of 28 and SD of 9. That equates to a 4.1" vertical @ 1000 yds. Pretty decent.

That means that this new 6.5x47 Lapua had 10 break-in rounds, 24 ladder rounds and 8 verification rounds and I got a load within 42 total rounds. If I want, I can play with seating depth and primers to fine tune @ 600 to 1000 yds.

No, no one is going to convince me ladder load development does not work.

Alan