Myths and Mysticism in Load Development

[DingoDeerHunter]

Wow, and just like that he was gone. Fell clean off the edge of the flat earth.

Huh?

[DingoDeerHunter]

There was another rigorous investigation that tore into the issue of tuning barrel harmonics with science and found the evidence wanting.

Apparently you are not familiar with the finite element analysis work of Al Harral, aka Varmint Al, for example:...

Learn to read better - no one said there aren’t harmonics, that’s just physics - the idea you can buy a widget and adjust the weight on the barrel (etc etc) so that the bullet comes out in a particular way each time is the homeopathy of the issue.

All these sacred cows…

[DingoDeerHunter]

There was another rigorous investigation that tore into the issue of tuning barrel harmonics with science and found the evidence wanting.

Apparently you are not familiar with the finite element analysis work of Al Harral, aka Varmint Al, for example:

https://www.varmintal.com/aeste.htm

Who is Al? The retired Group leader of the Advanced Engineering Analysis Group at Laurence Livermore National Laboratory in the USA.

https://www.llnl.gov/news/retiree%E2%80 ... -notoriety

If you're not familiar with LLNL they are most famous for designing Americas nuclear bombs...

AND….. “drum roll” …. The verification testing by Al was…. Wait for it…. 4 shot groups

[DingoDeerHunter]

Oh No! Barrel heat doesn’t seem to cause group dispersion either…. These guys are busting peoples brains with proper science!!
https://youtu.be/0dKd_2XgCHE

[Cyrus]

Awesome, so with my new build I can just pick a powder load and seating depth and I’m good to go… this will save a heap of time and money now I know that anything I shoot will keep me competitive with the guys who have more experience and dozens of pages of load data.
Quick where’s the next Kings event, I can have everything loaded and be good to go in about an hour.
(Insert forehead slap here)

[Rich4]

I would suggest you need both (shooting and load development) perhaps more experience and less trolling may increase enlightenment, many of the shooters here are very accomplished and can tune with low round counts due to their earned knowledge, ie one good group shows potential one bad group is dismissed due to the shooter’s consistency.
Are you here to learn and discuss or merely to profess other’s knowledge as gospel and cast dispersions?
This is not snipers hide, I’ve found it far more gentlemenly conduct in general.

[RDavies]

There was another rigorous investigation that tore into the issue of tuning barrel harmonics with science and found the evidence wanting.

Apparently you are not familiar with the finite element analysis work of Al Harral, aka Varmint Al, for example:...

Learn to read better - no one said there aren’t harmonics, that’s just physics - the idea you can buy a widget and adjust the weight on the barrel (etc etc) so that the bullet comes out in a particular way each time is the homeopathy of the issue.

All these sacred cows…

Ive been trying to tell my opposition for a while that tuners dont work. Ive been trying to convince my opposition for even longer to stop doing load development, but some just wont listen.

[Downes Equestrian]

Great topic DingoDeerHunter. I came into the sport much the same as you doing .1 grain increments etc. after listening to Brian Litze and doing a hell of a lot of shooting my load development is now come off max one grain, buy great components seat .025 off the lands and shoot. that is it! seems to work great and I save all that time mucking about. For the other shooters going the whole nine yards, go for it tinkering is fun but remember there is a thing called perception bias.

[Rich4]

I would say you missed the point of litz’s dissertation’s, I’ve read and listened to much of his content and the overwhelming point is to test and winnow ideas for yourself! If someone reads his content for instructions on how to, it becomes pointless(other than a sweeping direction), should it be argued that his conclusions are are also confirmation bias? In fact it’s not because of the volume of data he has accumulated, the ability to tune a barrel with minimum rounds is necessary because the lifespan doesn’t allow for collection of data and competition.
I also agree shooting is more important than tuning, so don’t misconstrue my submission as merely argumentative, however when you approach the limitations of your firearm it’s time to go deeper, knowing where that point is can be tricky, so there’s always a shop full of must have go fast parts.
So concentrating on shooting first is never wrong, but be careful not to dismiss the art for science.

[DingoDeerHunter]

The point has never been that things like powder charge and seating don’t make a difference. The point is that small sample sizes are as likely (or more likely) to be misleading as helpful. Here’s another two excellent articles applying some logical statistical methodology. 5 shot groups are, in the conclusions drawn here, pretty much meaningless random sampling:
https://www.ssusa.org/articles/2019/9/2 ... shot-group

https://www.ssusa.org/content/accuracy- ... the-group/

[DingoDeerHunter]

Since we love anecdotes so much here in Brian Litz describing prep for his 2017 3rd place in F Class world Championship “new brass no prep, seated primers carefully measured powder and seated the bullet”. With powder he said find pressure signs and back of 1.5grains. He does say that bullet seating depth is important. Interesting

https://youtu.be/0lpeTTrbcGw?t=890

[Matt P]

Since we love anecdotes so much here in Brian Litz describing prep for his 2017 3rd place in F Class world Championship “new brass no prep, seated primers carefully measured powder and seated the bullet”. With powder he said find pressure signs and back of 1.5grains. He does say that bullet seating depth is important. Interesting

https://youtu.be/0lpeTTrbcGw?t=890

Wish all my competitors would drink the cool aid !!
Life would be easier

[DingoDeerHunter]

Since we love anecdotes so much here in Brian Litz describing prep for his 2017 3rd place in F Class world Championship “new brass no prep, seated primers carefully measured powder and seated the bullet”. With powder he said find pressure signs and back of 1.5grains. He does say that bullet seating depth is important. Interesting

https://youtu.be/0lpeTTrbcGw?t=890

Wish all my competitors would drink the cool aid !!
Life would be easier

Well, most of them did I imagine (drink the kool aid). They shot 5 shots at 0.2grain intervals, their chrono gave them an SD, they graphed it and "found the magic node" high or low. Then shots 5 shot groups at 0.003 bullet seating depths and found the magic node again. Bingo - instant success in 50 shots.

Interestingly the Hornady Testing guys did this and then did 50 shot groups and found what? That the nodes all dissappeared as noise. They found a linear velocity increase with powder increase and the SD's and ES's indistinguishable.

I am no master, no expert at any of this. However, as a person approaching this task for the first time I have to make a decision on how to proceed. For that I need information on methodology. The most common methodology is the 5 shot group OCW, Ladder etc testing. The supporting evidence for its efficacy is pretty low grade people saying they did 5 shot groups etc and it works, youtubers saying the same thing. No real data, no confirmation of data with larger sample sizes, no retesting multiple times to verify the data. Just "trust me bro, it works". I don't doubt top guys do it, and maybe some really don't but don't say (Brian Litz abaondoned most of it in his later competition era it seems). It's a sport where meticulous preparation, repetition of action etc pays dividends, so you gotta be that type of person to succeed and so its not a surprise that such meticulous precise people will bring that attitude to all aspects of their sport. Even if the method is not real statistically, it probably has a positive psychological effect for people in this mould, to have confidence that "everything is in order and as it should be" and all doubts are removed.

However, for me their is an intellectual interest in it and what I have found thus far on this journey is that the People doing extensive testing, Brian Litz, Hornady crew (in a wind tunnel no less with a bolt gun) and Stats people who run extensive experiments, rigourous data collection and analysis up to wearing out multiple barrels to find that 5 shot, 10 shot, 15 shot samples are a woefully useless noise ridden sample size. The smaller the effect being sought to be distinguished the larger the sample size needed. I mean, if there were guys showing data that their 5 or 10 shot ladder test was repeated weekly for 10 weeks and showed the same results I'd listen, but there's no one making that claim.

So, into this wilderness I go - who knows, maybe magic rabbits exist down this hole, but I'm not going to bother using my limited time and components. I will just enjoy the sport, the events, the people and hopefully seeing my technique improve to show slow improvement in scores under all sorts of conditions, that would be satisfying.

The main thing, for all of us however, is to keep this sport alive as there is a non-zero risk that in 20 years it will hardly exist at all (Govt attitudes, community attitudes and lack of young entrants). Whatever I can do to keep it alive I will, but I'll say no more on this topic.

[MarkS]

Looks like ChatGPT has joined the forum and taken up the shooting sports......

[PeteFox]

Looks like ChatGPT has joined the forum and taken up the shooting sports......

I put the above statement in context to ChatGPT and its response was:

" the statement demonstrates a lack of capacity to mount a merit based and logical opinion due an inability to understand the subject matter and should be ignored"

Pete