Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Ladder test, How, why?

Did you wear white on the special day?

No. WTF is up with you?

Hilarious!

OCW was developed to find MOA loads in normal hunting guns with no chrono info needed, in fact they said that repeatedly. If that suits your needs, then it will work.

Focus people...MILF's

On going on record to explain how I've changed the excellent Audette ladder load development system.

Using the different colored markers is an excellent idea. The problem i've run into with this is that depending up the distance, caliber size and quality/power of spotting/rifle scope, the shooter may not be able to see the impacts down range "while" shooing the ladder. When shooting a ladder it is necessary to see/know which shot/impact is which. In addition, if you call a bad shot, you need to know which impact is the bad shot.

A friend of mine from Albuquerque taught me a new technique; home made DirtyBird or Shoot N See targets. Targets that leave a large black impact on a light/white colored backing. I take an 8'x4' sheet of plywood or similar sheet of stiff backing material and cut it in two so I have two 4' x 4' sheets. I then buy a roll of black plastic. Mine was about 20' x 8'. I cut that down to 4' x 4' sheets which are stapled to the plywood. I then take a $.97 cent can of white spray can and spray the entire sheet of black plastic, white. Let it dry and add bright orange aim points. Select your desired distance to shoot at and let fly. With my Zeiss 15-45x spotter I can easily see 22 cal hits at 660 yds. When the bullet hits, the white paint, directly around the impact hole, chips off, exposing the black plastic, easily seen at extended distances.



Above you can easily see my LV Steel 1/2 silhouette, used as a sighter target then looking at the right 4'x4' DirtyBird target you can see my ladder; 3 shots upward, 3 shots across (accuracy node) and 2 more shot above that.

That's my target. How I bring loads to the range is new as well. We all know that BR shooters load their ammo at the range. I modify that by bring prepped and charged cases to the range and seat bullets "as necessary". Below is an MTM ammo boxes with 100 prepped and charged cases.



The first row across is my starting row; for example all are 40 gr. The 2nd row has a .2 gr increase (6.5x47Lapua) and so on and so on until the 10th row has 41.8 gr. I take small, light, handheld press to the range with me with the seating die already pre-adjusted to my desired setting depth. At the range, I fire one round at my steel target to confirm a hit and so I can adjust closer to my intended point of impact. In this case the center orange dot on the 4'x4" DirtyBird target. I then start up the ladder, seating one bullet and shooting; marking the POI on a separate sheet of paper. Even with my NF scope set at 22x I can see the hits. Once the ladder has been shot the MTM ammo box should look something like this.



This ladder showed that 40.4, 40.6 and 40.8 gr showed promise. Now, I take the next 3 unloaded, charged, cases from the 40.4, 40.6 and 40.8 gr rows and seat bullets. I shoot each 3 cartridges at individual aiming spots for 3, 3-shot groups to see which group better. I'm especially looking for zero to nil vertical spread. Once I've done that the MTM box should look like this.



At this point I'm hoping to have narrowed it down to 1 or 2 different powder charges; say 40.6 and 40.8 gr. I then want to play a bit with seating depth; loading up 3 more of the same powder charge. Once I've shot those, my MTM box looks like this.



Now I may want to play a bit more with seating depth; going in or out a bit more�.or��in the opposite direction. My box now looks like this.



At this point, it's time to pack up and go home where I don't need to pull any bullets. I might want to play a bit more with seating depth or try different primers but the majority of my Audette Ladder testing is done and all in one trip and I've only shot a max of 31 rounds; saves on components and barrel life.

Questions?

Alan

I would not have a problem running the above ladder at 600 yards without a chronograph.
Chronograph isnt really necessary.
Only thing a chronograph tells you is how fast its going.
My ladder was a bit more work than the one above because I loaded more rounds than I actually needed.

Berger hybrids DO NOT SHOOT IN THE LANDS.
Last batch of 3000 6mm 105g Hybrids I got measure .2441 on the pressure ring.
Obymeyer barrels have bore diameters that are .002 smaller than just about anyone else.
Powder lots change like the weather....


dave

Nobody said that. You do a lot of research to pin down the powder, bullet, primer and case combo BEFORE a round is fired. You should have an pretty good idea of target MV and what will work. We are doing the same thing as you said only in a systematic manner in much less rounds down range than kiss the lands, compress the load and pull the trigger which will work at 300 yards or less on an 18" deer chest, but pinpoint accuracy, no way.

As Dave said, hybrids do not shoot in the lands. I only start VLDs there because they make like it in the lands and it is max pressure. Hybrids I start .010 off. My comp load with 300 WSM and 200 gr hybrids is .080 off. Just my system, not the only way to do it. I like the idea of the MTM box and charged cases IF I can get to the range without spilling them all over.

Yep Dave,

I'm glad it's helped the folks who've tried it

I'm loving it...

I'll repeat this for BH:


"I really like the idea of ladder tests, but I have two problems with how they are traditionally done:

1) every barrel and load is subject to some random variation in POI. Only firing 1 shot per charge weight does not adequately take into account this variation

2) wind can and does often have a vertical component in anything but perfectly flat terrain. At any distance much beyond about 200 yards this begins to impact POI

These two sources of variation can skew results and prevent them from being repeatable with a given barrel/load combination. If using a method like this, I prefer the OCW method (which I have used successfully, in addition to the traditional ladder method), as it tends to mitigate these sources of error better, but I usually find excellent results simply by kissing, mashing the pedal, and loading straight ammo.


These were all shot using the kiss/mash pedal method...


525 yards












"

Jordan,

I agree 100% on the wind affecting vertical. Its a known affect in external ballistics but it just gets brushed aside by ladderers. To be fair, I haven't seen Rost comment on how he handles horizontal (wind) in his ladders (ignores it, compensates for it, etc.). It seems like he does his best to shoot in windless conditions.

I did see a ladder posted very early in this thread that had considerable horizontal, but the target read "no wind"!

Jason

So you find pressure. Then what?

Here's what all you are missing by questioning a ladder that shows some horizontal dispersion in the node like the one Alan (GSSP) shot with his 6.5X47

Conditions change at long range over small amounts of time. Long range amplifies this at the target. Not so much at the range at which you guys do your development. I hope I don't have to post what 3 mph change in wind (breeze) does to bullet drift at 600 yards as compared to 100 yards for anyone here.


Also, even if you have nailed down a load with some horizontal dispersion that shows ZERO vertical dispersion, it is FAR better than a load that only strings vertically at long range.


If your load is dead nutz as far as drop and you know the range of the target, the ONLY thing a shooter has to worry about is wind drift. Even if your load strings horizontally at every range, it will be better than a load that does the same vertically.

No one can exactly call wind. Everyone can know the exact range.

Even if you develop a load that shoots in the same hole at 1000 yards in a zero wind, when you shoot in reality (wind between you and the target that switches, may be in opposite directions totally between you and the target, etc) you will not be able to shoot it into one hole; it will string horizontally because of wind effect.


With a load that has plenty of random vertical stringing, the shooter has to worry about shooting higher than his aimpoint, lower than his aimpoint as well as left and right of his aimpoint because calling wind is so much of an educated guess.

This is called a load that "sucks ass"

You think that wind only affects the bullet horizontally?

R.

any of you math whizzes have a formula to work out the effect wind has on VERTICAL?

If you say it has none you're FOS, start shooting at 1500+ and get back with me.

Just yesterday I had to use .5moa more when the wind kicked up 10mph, this was at 1800 yards..It aint nothing I wasnt aware of, but the fact that it is a variable sure seems vacant in these discussions.

Is this the new .223 AI thread?

Its something else, alright.

R.

Unless you're shooting over VERY undulating terrain, IME the affect is minimal.



1520 yards shot in plenty of R to L wind







Tell me how you differentiate vertical wind effect from a load that strings vertically.

Whats a 223AI?