Paid load development flop, wwyd?

[MeatMissile]

Humans can’t transcend physics.

I feel like I can when I’m drunk.

“Hold muh beer and watch this!”

 

[Rckymtnshooter]

Just texted him and his "benchmark" is es in the 20's and lower. So yep, a lot lower than 100. He did say it again, you don't know what a load will do until you put it on paper. I've noticed a considerable difference in my specific rifles in es between Virginia brass and fired brass but not enough to account for the op's difference.

 

[FCCDerek]

Is the brass all from the same lot? If so they should weigh very close to one another. I'd weigh a dozen different rounds from that ammo he gave you. They should only see a real variance in brass weight as far as the total weight goes. Bullets and powder charge should all be about identical, to within a very small margin of error if they're premium bullets. Weigh them all, see if they're within a grain or so of one another. More than that and I'm betting the powder charges are off. But if the brass is from several different lots that could be part of the issue as well. Most of us reload to make the best possible ammo we can shoot for a particular rifle. Some do it to save money (not terribly likely with todays prices). But regardless of your motives an ES of 100 is not acceptable. I won't consider a load properly done if my ES isn't 20 or less. Sometimes the stars align and I'll get under 10. Mind you I don't anneal my brass or uniform flash holes or any of that and I still have developed some stellar loads. As far as your issue goes though, bottom line, I'd give the guy a chance to make it right. If he blows you off, call it a loss.

 

[sndmn11]

*If* it is 100 fps. What if the OP was to actually shoot 600 yards and the load groups and he determines the issue is with his chronographs (the load developer had a 24 fps es on his chronograph)?

Let me ask it another way: if you developed a LR load for a client and they came to you and said that the load meets the accuracy potential at 100 and 200 yards but they were absolutely certain it wouldn't at 600 yards because of what their chrono suggested. Would you happily refund their money if they had never actually shot it at 600 yards? F no you wouldn't.

This is where I am at. If I were the ammo guy and you told me the ammo sucks without shooting it, and that the load development sucked without loading any, I'd put the phone on mute and chuckle. I'd also prepare my stern voice for the ask of a refund and whole heartedly think that the now former customer just wanted free load development.

You hired an expert for something, you should follow through on your part in shooting the ammo and loading some cartridges, it hasn't performed poorly yet, before second guessing the expert.

 

[JohnnyB]

Wondering if the es is being driven by an outlier? Where several rounds at extremes or if you threw out one or two rounds is your sd tight?

 

[EdP]

I'd like to see the chrono data before drawing any conclusions. Did the rounds that opened up the ES sit in the sun or sit in the chamber and get hot? Is it a few rounds that opens the spread or an even distribution? Were cartridges loaded one at a time or loaded in a magizine and recoil changed the CBTO? Lots of potential issues to be investigated that we just don't know.

 

[Cahunter805]

Curious to see what the ammo company has to say on this? Did he supply you with fired targets? Chronograph print outs/records.
While I fully understand the reasons you went with an ammo company I would chalk this up to a bad experience and recommend the following pending his actions.
Also I’d stop cleaning the barrel and let it settle in.
Pull all the bullets and dump powder. Use the powder and bullets to shoot your own ladder test and verify your rifles node. Use whatever components are left to load yourself as many rounds as you can.

 

[Wrench]

This is a bummer. The unspoken issue is that you will always wonder how your rig will perform and not have that confidence you hope to gain with custom gear.

I've personally not seen 100fps in anything I've ever shot that I didn't dismiss as an anomaly.....9 go into 20> fps, and one goes odd. To me, the chronograph or component failure potential is a consideration. If we're talking no uniformity to the speeds, you must have a truck axle barrel to not be chucking them all over the place.

How does the spread development? Is there a chance that speeds come up as the rifle shoots more rounds?.....as in possibly building copper and increasing pressure?

There's a chance the rifles condition changed during development. It's not uncommon to have velocity increase as the bore wears in.....but ping pong velocities are certainly abnormal.

 

[SDHNTR]

Certainly a chance the barrel is speeding up and settling in, on average, but if it’s any average increase it minimal and hard to say for sure due to the high ES. I did get a test target, but only a 3 shot group at 100. Velocity data from him was just simply 2990-3010. I am getting faster than that myself. IDK if that is chrono difference mine vs his or the barrel naturally speeding up with break in. It’s definitely not any kind of copper or carbon fouling. Maybe the barrel naturally speeding up has just pushed the load out of its preferred node?

As I stated before, this is not due to heat. I purposely ruled that out. Sometimes my fastest loads were from a cold barrel and slower ones were from warm. This is a Bartlein #3 contoured bbl so it’s no pencil. I’m also single loading so seating depth is not changing.

Plain and simple, it’s just erratic. There is no pattern you can sort out or attribute to anything logical. Other than maybe some overall velocity increase with seasoning. But nothing to explain the spreads. I may go down the road of pulling bullets and reloading myself, but again I’m left with a standard Redding FL die and not my preferred S Bushing die that I can’t get. I may give it a shot, I just really lack the time for much experimentation. I’m hoping the guy will take it all back and start fresh again with clear expectations.

As for just shooting as is, yes if it were “higher” ES but still in the 40-50 range, I’d give it a whirl. But I even had one shot string with a 110 ES! That’s just not acceptable to me any way you slice it. Std Dev was not much better either in the 30ish+ range! I need better for the sake of confidence alone.

Thanks for all the ideas. Hoping for an amicable solution that doesn’t have me shelling out more money or much more time.

 

[willfrye027]

I haven’t gotten that far. 200 is as far as I’ve shot it with OK results. I stopped wasting ammo once I identified and verified the ES issue, which I wouldn’t expect to show up noticeably in groups until 400+. I can’t imagine it will group well at distance with that much spread, so spending $4-5 a shot and burning components that are near impossible to find really is not an attractive idea under these conditions. Not to mention 120 miles and 2+ hours of driving to visit the range. So I’m hesitant to keep trying until some further agreement with the guy who did this service.

I have one load with ES that’s around 60 sometimes worse, but it shoots amazing at 500-600 yards. Farthest I’ve tested it. You really need to see how it does on paper at distance before giving up on the load..but I totally understand the frustration. If you are planning to shoot this at 1000 plus, then I could see it being an issue based on the number alone.

 

[Cahunter805]

Certainly a chance the barrel is speeding up and settling in, on average, but if it’s any average increase it minimal and hard to say for sure due to the high ES. I did get a test target, but only a 3 shot group at 100. Velocity data from him was just simply 2990-3010. I am getting faster than that myself. IDK if that is chrono difference mine vs his or the barrel naturally speeding up with break in. It’s definitely not any kind of copper or carbon fouling. Maybe the barrel naturally speeding up has just pushed the load out of its preferred node?

As I stated before, this is not due to heat. I purposely ruled that out. Sometimes my fastest loads were from a cold barrel and slower ones were from warm. This is a Bartlein #3 contoured bbl so it’s no pencil. I’m also single loading so seating depth is not changing.

Plain and simple, it’s just erratic. There is no pattern you can sort out or attribute to anything logical. Other than maybe some overall velocity increase with seasoning. But nothing to explain the spreads. I may go down the road of pulling bullets and reloading myself, but again I’m left with a standard Redding FL die and not my preferred S Bushing die that I can’t get. I may give it a shot, I just really lack the time for much experimentation. I’m hoping the guy will take it all back and start fresh again with clear expectations.

As for just shooting as is, yes if it were “higher” ES but still in the 40-50 range, I’d give it a whirl. But I even had one shot string with a 110 ES! That’s just not acceptable to me any way you slice it. Std Dev was not much better either in the 30ish+ range! I need better for the sake of confidence alone.

Thanks for all the ideas. Hoping for an amicable solution that doesn’t have me shelling out more money or much more time.

You stated the barrel probably has 150 rounds now? Most custom barrels I’ve had will speed up somewhere around 100 rounds. This can definitely create issues. How much faster is your velocity now than what he stated? You might just need to drop the powder charge by like .5-1gr to get back into the velocity node. Might be worth a try to pull like 5-10 apart and load a little less powder and reseat bullets and test.

 

[SDHNTR]

You stated the barrel probably has 150 rounds now? Most custom barrels I’ve had will speed up somewhere around 100 rounds. This can definitely create issues. How much faster is your velocity now than what he stated? You might just need to drop the powder charge by like .5-1gr to get back into the velocity node. Might be worth a try to pull like 5-10 apart and load a little less powder and reseat bullets and test.

It’s hard to say on average how much faster it is now because of the spread, but if I had to take a stab at it I would say it’s 50 to 75 FPS faster now than his numbers indicated.

 

[Cahunter805]

It’s hard to say on average how much faster it is now because of the spread, but if I had to take a stab at it I would say it’s 50 to 75 FPS faster now than his numbers indicated.

That’s easily enough to take it out of a node. I’d try pulling a few apart and dropping .5 gr and 1gr and see what the ES and groups look like.

 

[MattB]

The OP tested his chronograph with a known consistent load and verified the results with a second chronograph. He did more due diligence than should be expected. It is irrelevant that it groups well at 100 yards. A 100 fps spread guarantees it will not group well at long range. It’s just simple physics. I’d say to the seller “stand behind your product or expect me to share my experience”. That’s what the OP wanted to know, remember the thread title? WWYD. You’d clearly accept what you were sold. I wouldn’t. We aren’t having a contest are we? I’m not personally invested in his decision; are you?

What is relevant is how the load groups at "long range" (whatever the OP's definition is of that). But we don't know how it groups because he hasn't actually shot it at that range. If I were the guy who loaded the ammo, that is the only diligence that I would be interested in when considering compensation back to the customer for a job poorly done.

Having worked in a customer service-centric role for 25+ years, I have learned there are bad companies out there - but also that there are bad customers too.

 

[Wyobohunter]

What is relevant is how the load groups at "long range" (whatever the OP's definition is of that). But we don't know how it groups because he hasn't actually shot it at that range. If I were the guy who loaded the ammo, that is the only diligence that I would be interested in when considering compensation back to the customer for a job poorly done.

Having worked in a customer service-centric role for 25+ years, I have learned there are bad companies out there - but also that there are bad customers too.

It can not consistently group well at long range if velocity is not consistent. It is physically impossible. Sure, he may shoot a good group, that would be luck as the inconsistencies worked in his favor. Shoot 100 groups and the results will not be good. A change of 100 fps is a big change shot to shot when it gets out beyond 500 yards. It s also a sign that something is wrong. The OP asked WWYD. I’d ask for a refund for everything but components , if he wouldn’t provide that I’d let everyone know who he is. What you’d do might be different, that’s ok too.

 

[Harvey_NW]

I'd be livid, and try to either make the guy stand behind his work or compensate you for your losses. For anyone that advises "seeing how it shoots", if you had a custom 383 stroker built for a race car and found out the compression spread was 40psi across 8 cylinders, you wouldn't give a shit if it will run because something is obviously wrong. In this level of custom services, certain parameters are implied..

 

[Tod osier]

Weigh them all, see if they're within a grain or so of one another. More than that and I'm betting the powder charges are off.

An easy further step is if there is a lot of variability in the finished weight - suggesting issues with the charges - is to weigh and pull extremes out and shoot those through a chronograph and see if there is a correlation. Would only take a few if you shot the heaviest couple and the lightest.

 

[SDHNTR]

I’m not livid. I’m not even mad. In the scheme of things that I have to worry about in my life, this is way down low on the list of priorities. Not a big deal.

This is a weird thing, I’m not pointing fingers, I don’t blame the guy, any number of things could have happened causing this. I’m going to wait a few days to see if he offers to make it right without any further investment of my time or money. Something tells me he will. If not, you guys will surely hear about it. But it’s still not something I’m going to let myself get too upset about either way. I have plenty of other rifles at my disposal that shoot well.

 

[Srp]

It would seem to that ES is the first step. If they didn’t nail the velocity, what confidence can you have in the seating depth consistency, shoulder bump, etc.

If this guy is an honest businessman, he should want make it right. I would send him the ammo, and ask him how he wants to make this right.


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[SDHNTR]

Well, we have a resolution. The guy was concerned and as perplexed as I. He thinks the barrel just sped up with seasoning and that pushed it out of the preferred node. He said that in his testing things got erratic (although he was still surprised at the numbers I was seeing) once it got into the upper range of velocities. He had a file on my job and his numbers were WAYYYY better and more consistent than mine. He wasnt happy with what I experienced and wants to start over, at his expense. Wants me to send the gun and ammo all back to him. He even offered to send me a shipping label. Freak thing that he's willing to own and get to the bottom of. I expressed my expectations of ES and accuracy and he said absolutely, and that's what I should have had out of the first try. So ultimately, minor hiccup, who knows why, but ultimately we're back on the right track.