Painless load development (mine)

[huntnful]

@huntnful I notice that you use quite a bit of VV powder. Have you noticed any big temp stability problems with it. I have not loaded VV in over 15 years because I thought it had pretty large temp swings. I pretty much stick to Hodgdon Extreme powders now. The speeds some of you are getting with VV is impressive, not to mention some of your groups. Great shooting.

The only VV powder that was pretty wild for me was N560, so I don’t shoot it anymore.

N555, N565 and N570 all seem to be pretty solid with temp stability. They aren’t quite H1000 stable, but they aren’t erratic by any means.

I still have a lot of H4350, H4831SC and H1000 and it’s great stuff for sure.

N565 gives like a grain of extra case fill and maybe 20-30fps over H1000. So it’s an awesome powder when you want to be in that range, and test them both and see what the bullet likes.

N570 pretty much just smokes everything and is a top performance powder to me.

N555 is close to 4831SC. So you can test those powders with a desired bullet to see if it has a preference.

 

[Harvey_NW]

@huntnful I notice that you use quite a bit of VV powder. Have you noticed any big temp stability problems with it. I have not loaded VV in over 15 years because I thought it had pretty large temp swings. I pretty much stick to Hodgdon Extreme powders now. The speeds some of you are getting with VV is impressive, not to mention some of your groups. Great shooting.

I've done some temp testing with 10 shot groups in 29°-88°F with N565 in my 6.5 PRC, and have it calculated out to .77fps/1°F for my temp factor. It's been very reliable since I got my AB profile trued up in my rangefinder.

 

[HuntHarder]

I suppose I must now track down some VV. Thanks guys

 

[huntnful]

I suppose I must now track down some VV. Thanks guys

It’s currently cheaper than Hogdon also. Which has only recently been the case. VV used to be more expensive. But Hogdon increased their prices quite a bit, and VV stayed the same.

 

[wind gypsy]

It’s currently cheaper than Hogdon also. Which has only recently been the case. VV used to be more expensive. But Hogdon increased their prices quite a bit, and VV stayed the same.

VV was supposed to have a price hike in August, haven't priced any since but I expected it to be back in line or more expensive than hodgdon.

 

[justin davis]

I’ve been using N555 in place of H4350. I find it gives me a better case fill. Accuracy seems to be great! Also is lower ES and SD with it co pared to H4350

 

[huntnful]

VV was supposed to have a price hike in August, haven't priced any since but I expected it to be back in line or more expensive than hodgdon.

I actually haven’t checked recently. I bought 60lbs of it two months ago and it was a pretty substantial savings over Hogdon at the time

 

[huntnful]

I’ve been using N555 in place of H4350. I find it gives me a better case fill. Accuracy seems to be great! Also seems like loser ES and SD with it co pared to H4350

I noticed the same exact thing in my 22CM. Ended up at the same speeds, with tighter velocity numbers.

 

[RockAndSage]

I actually haven’t checked recently. I bought 60lbs of it two months ago and it was a pretty substantial savings over Hogdon at the time

Out of curiosity, are you buying most of this in the 8lb jugs, or would there be some utility reason to get 1 pound jugs?

 

[huntnful]

Out of curiosity, are you buying most of this in the 8lb jugs, or would there be some utility reason to get 1 pound jugs?

I bought all 8lbers. So it was 64lbs. I only get 1lb jugs for a new powder I want to test, or
If I need powder and 8lbers aren’t available at that time.

 

[wind gypsy]

Out of curiosity, are you buying most of this in the 8lb jugs, or would there be some utility reason to get 1 pound jugs?

If i could get same lot and per # pricing (usually cant) I'd prefer the 1#ers. I like the idea of the powder can being sealed until i open that specific #. Some 8ers can sit around a long time after opening if it ends up being a powder you dont end up using as much as you thought you would. I have in the past had issues with powder that got left out in the chargemaster hopper too long and exposed to humidity - dont have to worry about that getting mixed with 7 # of good powder if its from a 1# can. I also effed up and dumped XBR in a half full 1# H4350 can once. Would suck if you did that into a nearly full 8# jug!

 

[Bueller]

New to forum. Stumbled upon this thread on a Google search.

Awesome stuff.

About 15 years back got serious into LR shooting. First with .308, then onto .300WM. The amount of money and time I tossed downrange was ridiculous. I enjoyed it…at first…but it then became a PITA. After all the messing I did with that .308 initially, I ended up basically back to the M118LR loading. (175smk/Varget or RL15). Took a pre-retirement break from shooting but now I’m back. I’ve become an impatient old fart, so I appreciate this thread.

Hope to hang around a bit, enjoy a cocktail or two while reading, and pick up where I left off…without the endless 5 shot groups.

 

[rdp123]

I came across this article that folks on this thread might find interesting, about a top-level PRS shooter who reloads on a Lee turret and has a long list of things he says doesn't matter a short list of things that do. His process is more involved than the Painless Load Dev Method, but it hits a lot of the same themes.

"My thought is that load development might matter in some scenarios, but we’re using very heavy barrels and very high-quality components. Those are the two things that I think matter a lot. Because we are using such heavy and high-quality barrels, and I’m using such good bullets, brass, and powder, I think even the worst load I could possibly come up with for a 6 Dasher would still be good enough to win PRS matches."

The PRS Champ’s Load Data & Reloading Process – Austin Buschman Shooter Spotlight Part 3

This article is part of a series that is taking a deep dive with 6 of the very best precision rifle...

precisionrifleblog.com

 

[AKmatt]

After listening to the Hornady podcast on load develop and then finding this thread and reading through it I decided to give @Formidilosus load development method a try.

I got tired of the classic load 3-5 at 0.3 grain increments and then mess with seat depth.

Loaded one at book max then dropped 0.5 and loaded 20 for a group. Picked a random seating depth (just short of mag length).

Tikka 6.5 creed with a benchmark 20 inch barrel. 143 eldx, 147 eldm, and 130 TMK. Not sure what happened with the shot of 4 of eldx but I’m happy with all results. The flyers are book maxes of each projectile. Except for one of the eldm