My load dev has been gravitating towards this even before i heard of this painless method.
Because I build rifles, I shoot almost all of them to at least get a sense of accuracy potential.
I can't tell you how many times I've simply looked in my Nosler manual, picked a powder I have in the velocity range I want, picked the middle charge if the cartridge is new to me or max charge if I've worked with it before.
After that, seat bullet to .020" off lands or mag length, whichever will be the limiter and shoot 5.
Doing that, I can't think of a single time accuracy wasn't at least acceptable, sometimes even after more load dev, it was where it ended up anyway.
If I'm doing actual load dev, I'd start with a pressure string like stated here.
So for science, I put together a RSS 223 to try all the things. I've never played with Tikkas or a 223 shooting heavies so I wanted to try it.
As far as loading, I tried the painless method and the "internet" method for comparison in one rifle.
In the end, both methods arrived at the same thing, one just uses up A LOT more time and components.
I tried several powders and bullets with 5 rnd groups. it was very apparent if it might work or not. If it looked promising I'd shoot two 10 rnd groups with the labradar just to add data.
At the end, the Sierra 77HPBT, 77TMK and 73 ELDM shot the best in that order across multiple powders, the margin wasn't much though.
I chose the 73 because I can get it significantly cheaper than the other two and plan on shooting several thousand this year.
I tried all the usual powders and chose the one that gave both accuracy and velocity.
I knew I would be limited to 2.6-ish for mag length but I tried seating depth changes just to see. Pretty much the same accuracy or a touch worse. I didnt see a significant gain for sure. I didn't spend too much time on it after the first 2 bullets due to time constraints.
At the end, using group size as a go/no go is a better indicator of whether a given combo will work or not. Just don't get lost in the weeds chasing the "one hole".
Obviously other factors have to be considered like velocity. One combo was by far shooting smaller but was way to slow for what I wanted.
One thing that worked in my favor(usually the opposite) is this rifle shoots tighter WITH a suppressor.
Bare or with brake it's 1"-1.25" avg. of 10. With suppressor(2 so far) it's 1" or less for 10.
It appears the industry and us shooters need to adjust our expectation to what is actually realistic and useful.
It does appear that shift is starting to happen but it won't be a fast transition judging by how long previous notions hang on.
1"-.224" =.776"
Sub ¼ MIL all day if I do my part
