Hornady 162 book max vs Hodgdon max

[Weldor]

I agree on the published load data, pretty anemic. but what is scary when I check 40 year old Hodgon or Hornady books the loads are way higher than today same powders. Of course no 7 prc data, but plenty 300 win mag, 308 etc. Makes it hard to trust published data. I work up slowly for saftey .

 

[DangerRanger]

My personal thought is that hornady is grouping multiple bullets and also have actual pressure data. We measure “pressure” by everything under the moon other than actual psi.

I’m their scenario They have to take the max pressure charge for the bullet of the group that pressures out the soonest, we take when our butthole puckers too much to shoot again

 

[Bomberodevil]

Agreed, except I think a more drastic change in powder charge is needed if there's an improvement to be made. I'd drop to 68, and if it don't shoot any better there swap a component.


Shoot larger samples and that goes away, despite traditional folklore nodes don't exist.

Interesting, so you don’t think it’s possible to have poor moa, say .75 and above, at 1 grain increments, but have an acceptable moa in between? Poor at 61.0 and 62.0, but have acceptable at 61.5?

 

[Harvey_NW]

Interesting, so you don’t think it’s possible to have poor moa, say .75 and above, at 1 grain increments, but have an acceptable moa in between? Poor at 61.0 and 62.0, but have acceptable at 61.5?

Nope, it's been proven that when the sample size is taken to a significant size the "sweet spots" disappear, so if you shot 30 at each of those charges they would likely produce almost identical groups. Also the velocity : powder charge increase would be nearly linear. In most cases the only proven factor that can potentially decrease the extreme spread of the dispersion is dropping the powder charge, and the ballisticians say if there's anything to be gained it will be from a pretty significant amount of change. Otherwise, traditional load development is mostly folklore and noisy small sample sized data sets.

Read this

Painless load development (mine)

I have had multiple people ask me to lay out how I do load development being that what I do is different. Since Shaen @Shooter71 just rebarreled a Tikka 595 in 6XC I thought it would be easy to show how I do it. It’s a Master Sporter with a T3 lite profiled 20” barrel- keep in mind it is a T3...

rokslide.com

and this, and watch or listen to the podcasts linked within. Pretty enlightening information.

Your Groups Are Too Small

Thought this was a great discussion about group sizes. Especially chasing a zero. Recommend anyone take a listen.

rokslide.com

 

[Bomberodevil]

Nope, it's been proven that when the sample size is taken to a significant size the "sweet spots" disappear, so if you shot 30 at each of those charges they would likely produce almost identical groups. Also the velocity : powder charge increase would be nearly linear. In most cases the only proven factor that can potentially decrease the extreme spread of the dispersion is dropping the powder charge, and the ballisticians say if there's anything to be gained it will be from a pretty significant amount of change. Otherwise, traditional load development is mostly folklore and noisy small sample sized data sets.

I’ve read a lot of Form’s writings and I find his advice to be some of the best on the Rokslide. Let be ask you another question, do you follow or believe the barrel harmonic distortion theory of load tuning? That every individual barrel will have a velocity node that shoots the most accurate load, mainly due to the harmonic waves in the barrel?

 

[Harvey_NW]

I’ve read a lot of Form’s writings and I find his advice to be some of the best on the Rokslide. Let be ask you another question, do you follow or believe the barrel harmonic distortion theory of load tuning? That every individual barrel will have a velocity node that shoots the most accurate load, mainly due to the harmonic waves in the barrel?

Nope. I think it's a very interesting and possibly relevant physical theory, but there's a couple things that contest it's ideology.

First, the OBT theorist Chris Long states in a podcast with Erik Cortina that we currently don't have instruments with bandwidth capable of measuring the impulse or wavelength produced by the shot. So as of now, it physically can't even be measured and proven.

Secondly, there's too much variability. Meaning it might be possible if you were able to get 0 ES/SD, but that's impossible. Most of the best SD's are still in the double digits when taken to a significant sample size, so if you were really thinking you were "tuning" a load based on the vibratory movement of a barrel and the vibratory impulse is so small we don't currently have instrumentation to measure it, any deviation in velocity would lead me to believe the barrel would be out of "time".

Third, none of these theorists will provide statistically significant proof. All the benchrest and F-class shooters will scoff at someone asking for a significant sample size, they either excuse it with not wasting barrel life, or 20 shots in competition being significant, etc. I have yet to find evidence of any shooter showing two 30-50 shot groups where one was measurably better than the other and outside the statistical variability, due to manipulating a single variable like seating depth or powder charge.

Lastly, Cortina had a guy named Eric Higgins from Ammolytics on his podcast, it's a very interesting podcast and he's attempting to come up with the technology to measure and prove or debunk "harmonics".

Sorry for the long winded post but over the last couple years I took a DEEP dive into all of this and thought it was fascinating, both how much of it is absolute BS, and how many reloaders out there still believe in it. It started with my own observances, and now there's ballisticians and companies putting this stuff out there so it's understandable by everyone. Understanding the variability and shooting sufficient sample size is the key to all of it, and most WILL NOT do it.

 

[Bomberodevil]

Nope. I think it's a very interesting and possibly relevant physical theory, but there's a couple things that contest it's ideology.

First, the OBT theorist Chris Long states in a podcast with Erik Cortina that we currently don't have instruments with bandwidth capable of measuring the impulse or wavelength produced by the shot. So as of now, it physically can't even be measured and proven.

Secondly, there's too much variability. Meaning it might be possible if you were able to get 0 ES/SD, but that's impossible. Most of the best SD's are still in the double digits when taken to a significant sample size, so if you were really thinking you were "tuning" a load based on the vibratory movement of a barrel and the vibratory impulse is so small we don't currently have instrumentation to measure it, any deviation in velocity would lead me to believe the barrel would be out of "time".

Third, none of these theorists will provide statistically significant proof. All the benchrest and F-class shooters will scoff at someone asking for a significant sample size, they either excuse it with not wasting barrel life, or 20 shots in competition being significant, etc. I have yet to find evidence of any shooter showing two 30-50 shot groups where one was measurably better than the other and outside the statistical variability, due to manipulating a single variable like seating depth or powder charge.

Lastly, Cortina had a guy named Eric Higgins from Ammolytics on his podcast, it's a very interesting podcast and he's attempting to come up with the technology to measure and prove or debunk "harmonics".

Sorry for the long winded post but over the last couple years I took a DEEP dive into all of this and thought it was fascinating, both how much of it is absolute BS, and how many reloaders out there still believe in it. It started with my own observances, and now there's ballisticians and companies putting this stuff out there so it's understandable by everyone. Understanding the variability and shooting sufficient sample size is the key to all of it, and most WILL NOT do it.

That’s pretty interesting, a lot to consider. I’ve got a 2-hour drive this afternoon. I listen to the Hornady podcast frequently, but I missed episode 50. I’ll listen to it this afternoon. I’ve got to do a load development on a Nosler 160 grain Accubond for my 280 AI for a mule deer hunt this November, maybe I’ll try Form’s method. A lot of stuff I’ve believed for many years may be going out the window! Thanks!

 

[Harvey_NW]

That’s pretty interesting, a lot to consider. I’ve got a 2-hour drive this afternoon. I listen to the Hornady podcast frequently, but I missed episode 50. I’ll listen to it this afternoon.

50 & 52 are packed full, I've listened to them multiple times. Spoiler alert, their method is Form's method. Miles references it pretty much to a T in the episode.

I’ve got to do a load development on a Nosler 160 grain Accubond for my 280 AI for a mule deer hunt this November, maybe I’ll try Form’s method. A lot of stuff I’ve believed for many years may be going out the window! Thanks!

It definitely changed my perception and expectations, in a good way. Not sure what you're planning to use, but my 280 AI shot 160's with H4831 really well.

To contribute to the initial topic, I was shooting 162 ELD-M at 2gr over current Hodgdon book max with zero pressure signs on Hornady brass, avg velocity 2840. I typically don't exceed book max by much and IIRC I loaded up to the published max at the time, so maybe it changed.

 

[Gila]

I bought the Hornady 12th edition and it was a mistake…worthless to me actually. I have been recently loading for a .284 Winchester, my new rifle. There isn’t much load data in the manuals for this cartridge. I did get a LoadData subscription and that has been really useful. My Elk bullet is the 162 gr ELD-X. I went with the Hodgdon load data. My ladder test was 5 rounds. I started out a grain and a half below max and moved up half a grain. Got to the 5th round with no pressure signs and the chrono was looking real good. Put up a target at 100 yards. Fired 5 rounds, the first three grouped at .4” the 5th round put it out to one inch. That is all I did for the load development. I like simple.

A week later I added about 2 tenths of powder and loaded up 20 rounds with a seating depth .015 behind the lands. Sighted in at 100 yards, looking good. Shot the rest at 200 yards and the holes were touching when I did my part. I am ready to go hunting. The chrono data is good enough for me. This is what i ended up with:

Name: 162 sight 100
Notes: Imported from Chronograph, String 1 on 7/18/23, 9:33 AM
Shots: 10
Average: 2888 ft/s
SD: 6 ft/s
Min: 2879 ft/s
Max: 2898 ft/s
Spread: 19 ft/s
Power Factor Average: 468
Power Factor Low: 466
Power Factor High: 469
Temperature: 84
Weight: 162 gr.

 

[Harvey_NW]

I bought the Hornady 12th edition and it was a mistake…worthless to me actually. I have been recently loading for a .284 Winchester, my new rifle. There isn’t much load data in the manuals for this cartridge. I did get a LoadData subscription and that has been really useful. My Elk bullet is the 162 gr ELD-X. I went with the Hodgdon load data. My ladder test was 5 rounds. I started out a grain and a half below max and moved up half a grain. Got to the 5th round with no pressure signs and the chrono was looking real good. Put up a target at 100 yards. Fired 5 rounds, the first three grouped at .4” the 5th round put it out to one inch. That is all I did for the load development. I like simple.

A week later I added about 2 tenths of powder and loaded up 20 rounds with a seating depth .015 behind the lands. Sighted in at 100 yards, looking good. Shot the rest at 200 yards and the holes were touching when I did my part. I am ready to go hunting. The chrono data is good enough for me. This is what i ended up with:

Name: 162 sight 100
Notes: Imported from Chronograph, String 1 on 7/18/23, 9:33 AM
Shots: 10
Average: 2888 ft/s
SD: 6 ft/s
Min: 2879 ft/s
Max: 2898 ft/s
Spread: 19 ft/s
Power Factor Average: 468
Power Factor Low: 466
Power Factor High: 469
Temperature: 84
Weight: 162 gr.

That's some good looking data, I'm having a rifle chambered in 284 Win right now and am planning to shoot 165 TGK's. What powder are you using?

 

[Gila]

That's some good looking data, I'm having a rifle chambered in 284 Win right now and am planning to shoot 165 TGK's. What powder are you using?

H4350

 

[Bomberodevil]

50 & 52 are packed full, I've listened to them multiple times. Spoiler alert, their method is Form's method. Miles references it pretty much to a T in the episode.


It definitely changed my perception and expectations, in a good way. Not sure what you're planning to use, but my 280 AI shot 160's with H4831 really well.

To contribute to the initial topic, I was shooting 162 ELD-M at 2gr over current Hodgdon book max with zero pressure signs on Hornady brass, avg velocity 2840. I typically don't exceed book max by much and IIRC I loaded up to the published max at the time, so maybe it changed.

I’ve got three loads with Hornady 162 bullets in ELDX, ELDM, and SST, all with H4831. They range between 2842-2902, with between 58.7-59.1. I have maybe 18 powders that I’ve tested with loading 5 cartridges, but I’m really trying to simplify my reloading life, and using H4350 and H4831.

 

[sdupontjr]

Loaded up some. 71g H-1000, CCI-250, 162 eldm, 2.710" CBTO which is right at 3.415" COAL. Because I have the BOSS system on this 30+ year old Browning Abolt, I played with it just a little bit. Too damn hot to sit out there all day. All shots were 3 shot groups as directed by that old tuning chart. Setting 2.0 shot .311 MOA and setting 1 shot .698 MOA. I still need to shoot over a chrono to get some velocities, but I'm I sure it cooking pretty good being I'm just over both book and powder max. No pressure signs of any kind so no reason to push the limit.