Testing the Testing

[wsftr]

Out of interest, how many people develop their load for their barrel and prove it then test other combinations to find something better?

Not me. But the next barrel I take what I have learnt and improve on that. Time, money and diminishing returns are the drivers.

[KHGS]

Agree Peter, there a few issues to sort out with the electronic targets. That's why I only trust what's on paper. Reckon a few get their pockets picked in big events because of the small error margin or sensor issues. But the use of the electronic targets has kept our club alive on two fronts. One, it keeps those of us with a few disabilities in the game longer and secondly; it attracts the young people to our sport. I think without electronic targets our club growth would have not occurred and they have proven to be a useful training tool and assist record keeping. We deliberately have manual marking days to keep people in touch. Its at the butts were a lot of discussion about gear and technique takes place while waiting for shots to come in on manual days. Seems a lot of shooters never learn to predict where shots will go so they wait and wait to shoot on the same condition. Myself, I would like to see electronic targets geared to the old 45 second rule to develop wind reading skills which still sets shooters apart.

Off topic, but I feel impelled to make some comments on ET's, I have shot a lot on ET's over the last 9+ years. My observations are that the better and well maintained ET's are on average as accurate as average manual marking, I have seen and experienced terrible manual marking over my many years of competition shooting. I would much rather shoot on well maintained and well set up high quality ET's, read Hexta and Kongsberg, there MAY be others that I haven't shot on!! On the other side of the coin, I have had bad experiences on "other" ET's and on "better" but badly maintained ET's!! Some seem to believe that you can install ET's and forget about them, not the case. ET's are the future of our sport, so we need to accept that and not let price alone determine what we accept. We do not skimp on actions, barrels and associated equipment so we should not accept shortcuts in what we shoot at!!!!!
Keith H.

[Gyro]

Out of interest, how many people develop their load for their barrel and prove it then test other combinations to find something better?

Not sure what u mean Brad ? Do you mean the commonly accepted way where the shooter by various means establishes what they believe is the best powder charge weight for a given primer/powder combination, at a nominal seating depth, then say tries some different seating depths ? That’s about all I do. Sort of.

I have a fetish for wanting a jammed boolit, and no not the one where the boolit gets left in the throat when you unchamber a loaded round ( don’t be that guy because it’s all over when that happens ). I remember one shoot I went to I was fireforming new cases so I ran a really heavy jam and the gun shot like a bloody laser for the two days, but I was very nervous about having to unchamber a loaded round, but got away with it the couple of times I needed to.

[Brad Y]

Interesting. I’ve generally gone the way of getting a barrel shooting as good as I can get it. Then save it for shoots that matter. If it goes off I will re tune. But after jumping around a fair bit shooting FO for a few years with many different cals I now shoot ftr and am enjoying it. I’ve always considered the first barrel of a new cal as an experiment. Do the playing around to try and get a method to the madness that works with that barrel type and reamer in that gun. I remember back to my first 284 shehane which was a total lemon. No matter what I did, it just wouldnt work. On good advice I tried something a little different with the next barrel and once that got figured out I got another the same. Both shot really well and I was only looking at the medals and badges this evening they won me. From memory I had 3 all the same setup at one time for that gun. Wish I never got rid of it. I do like the idea of constant innovation and trying different combinations but (and I’m no well travelled top shot) the idea of having something that worked and kept to use when required always sits well with me. My first FTR barrel has been really good and being new to it I took on alot of advice to get it going, which has worked wonders. I’m now getting close to the point where a new barrel will be handy to have done up but this wonderful economic down turn I’m not expecting a new tube anytime soon. I’m wondering whether the remainder of these pile of projectiles might be best spent playing around with a few combinations to keep up the sleeve.

[ajvanwyk]

I think I now know what you were asking Brad and happy to provide you with my experience, although only through a FOpen and RSAUM perspective.

I have over time, adopted, tried, played, discounted, relearnt, dismissed, discovered, reused, stolen and still to be perfected my reloading and tuning practices. I'm still no good at it but at least at this stage, I can repeat most of my mistakes

In general, I would run in a gun and perform an initial load test within the first 50 rounds of a barrel's life. From that moment I might try different and smaller tests along the way i.e. free flight/seating depth, neck tension (friction, force or whatever you think is going in there), tuner tests and ES/SD comparisons. The reason I say smaller tests is because I do believe in most instances that a barrel is still work hardening/getting faster/settling down or whatever you believe until about the 150 - 200 round mark. I cannot confirm nor deny this as a reality but this is what I believe, so I deal with it.....

Once I hit that magical number, I would go back to the data that I have captured about this particular barrel and get really busy, essentially load it and take it to 1,000yds. If it shoots, bingo bango off to an OPM or Queens we go.... but more likely it takes a small amount of tinkering with the tuner to bring the group "in" to where I want it, not flat, not tall but round...

From that moment on I would never ever again try and develop a new load for that barrel, but I will continuously check to see if the load is still within the original specs i.e. Velocity, ES/SD, Length etc.

So far so good and I can tell you that one of the last barrels I took out to 1,500 shots in the SAUM was still using the exact same specs/load, as those I "developed" in the first 50 rounds.

Not sure if this helps you to move forward or sets you back further..... either way, I had fun sharing it

[Gyro]

That’s a really interesting thread there Brad re the “advice you received”. In Oz you have a really deep technical knowledge base amongst the F shooting crowd. Light years ahead of us here !!!

My 284 Walker ( Shehane ) can sometimes shoot VERY well but absolutely is not consistent and I have no idea why !! I chambered a mates gun with the same reamer and his gun started shooting really well right from the get-go and still does. Not mine, Grrrrrrr.

[Brad Y]

Albert your spot on my friend. Once I have something I like in a load I stay there. Few weeks before a shoot I will confirm it at long range and go load my ammo from there. It's getting a bit too expensive these days to go past something you prove early on in a barrels life, just to keep playing around for magical 1/4 moa performance when it holds X ring vertically at long range in the right conditions and when driven right. My wind reading let's me down way before a gun normally does. I love the idea of testing and my scientific side agrees with everything raised in this topic but in these days with my infrequent shooting habits, throwing a few hundred down for the sake of data doesn't make me a better shooter. Getting more time behind a rifle does. You open boys are a prime example of being real switched on though and are dealing the rewards for hard work.

Gyro
I'm no 284 guru but have heard some people say similar regarding consistency. My 284's might not have been super X hammers but they were quite consistent at shooting possibles when I was dialled in. Mind you 2016 was my best year with them and from what I saw then and what I see now in FO they would have needed improving a fair bit. Days have changed from dropping 5 points over 2 days being unreal to dropping one becoming unacceptable. Maybe I'm wrong in my ways and need to do more tuning work.

[PeteFox]

Now this case capacity business : I would happily bet money ( if I had any ) that VERY few F shooters actually volume check their cases ( and just MAYBE those are the guys that win the big shoots ). I reckon that brass just gets weighed. So if we are to just weigh our cases then we are perhaps ???? not being very thorough. Or are we ? This question has been done to death on other forums as I’m sure most of us know.

What to do ? I would like some tests done and since I’m lazy I need someone else to do them so I can get a free ride off their work. But seriously, a test like this will need some ‘rules’. I seriously reckon some case prep would need to be done first and if one is specifically looking at the capacity/volume then surely we need to fire form the case first ? That’s a no-brainer ? Then we could look at the correlation between the case weight and its volume. Didn't take long to write that but it's gonna take a whole lot longer to do some thorough testing !

I’m hoping just weighing them is “good enough” in the real world, considering all the noise from the countless other dynamics occurring simultaneously. But “hoping for a particular answer” is really not a good place to be in prior to some testing to be sure to be sure. Regards Shortcut Gyro.

I’m wanting to take this thread back to where it began, with the case volume/capacity conundrum
.
The author of the study in link below goes to great lengths to discover if there is any correlation between the two, it was a not a great success on that count, but it does demonstrate the difficulty and pitfalls associated with devising a methodology and then collecting/collating the data.


https://blog.ammolytics.com/2020-01-08/ ... disclaimer

Pete

[ajvanwyk]

I’m wanting to take this thread back to where it began, with the case volume/capacity conundrum

Pete

Pete,

My views on this topic are slightly simplified... Volume definitely affects the pressure, which in turn affects velocity all things being the same.... The real question is not whether it does but whether the variation experienced, as a result, is important enough to try and negate against all other considerations.

Time is the biggest in my mind. Do you have the time to spend on sorting by volume and if you do, is it the best use of your time. Most shooters would not see the benefit of this activity over others i.e. better reloading practices, setup procedures or wind reading.

BTW, for big matches, I also leave nothing to chance.

Albert

[PeteFox]

Albert
Volume measurement is a PITA.
Batching by weight is comparatively easy.

I’m neither for or against it, and I don’t do either, but I would probably weigh batch if a link to volume was fact.

What I see at the moment is a lot of wild guesses. You wouldn’t buy a barrel that might be a good one, so why waste energy and time on something that might be a good idea. At least weighing can’t hurt.
The link I posted earlier should dispel any thoughts that any attempt to casually link the two is a waste of time, but demonstrating the link is another thing.
Pete

[Gyro]

That’s a very interesting read Pete. Be easier to understand if he just fully fire formed the cases ( which btw is another story in itself and many questions could be asked here re how he did that and with what action type and were the pressures contolled/measured for each case ? ) then gave us the results. Seems there was a fair bit of included data that was not really relevant to the final conclusions ?

I also wonder if the new unfired case volume really matters because when it’s in the chamber and under the normally high pressures during ‘explosion’ then the case brass is surely going to fill the chamber to it’s full capacity anyway ? I’m just surmising here and this is not a factor in his tests anyway as he just aimed to get a fully fire formed case to then measure. I think it’s an important question though for anyone who might think you need a fully fire formed case before it will shoot well.

[PeteFox]

I found the statement below interesting`

" The main variables that cause differences in weight from case to case are as follows:

Material removed when cutting in the extraction groove.
External head thickness
Head diameter
Sectional density of the webbing (the base of the casing)”

None of these relates to volume!

If you take that as being a truth, then prior to any weighing, a set of measurements of those four factors needs to be made before weight has any meaning in terms of volume and that needs to be factored into the weight of each case according to those measurements. The question then, is how deep is this rabbit hole?
This starts to make volume measurement more attractive than weighing.

But then a further issue arises. If you want to shoot a lead up and a Queens without reloading you’ll need around 200 cases. Zediker states that 3 firings are needed to fully fire form brass (I don’t know if that’s true), but if so and depending on the acceptable variation of volume, a whole lot more than 200 cases are going to be needed to batch out the 200 needed. That then becomes one serious investment in time, expense and barrel life. If say 400 cases are needed to find the perfect 200, that’s 1200 rounds gone. For some cartridges, there goes the barrel before a meaningful shot is fired.

I once saw Bill Angel shooting 300m ISU in a match at Canberra, flicking cases that scored a 9 or worse (there weren’t that many) off the front of the mound. Perhaps the ultimate in case sorting?

Pete

[Gyro]

..... Sectional density of the webbing (the base of the casing)”..... what does that mean Pete ?

Zediker needs to tell us more. My reading in this game has taught me that plenty of very precise groups have been fired with new brass. The best shooting I have ever done happened at a two day shoot/comp with new brass.

I believe batching cases according to volume will provide a lot more surety of thier consistency.

[pjifl]

I have no doubt that measuring Volume directly is better. BUT that is easy to say and not so east to do reliably.

Now come down to earth.

Get 200 cases and measure the interval volumes by your favorite method - placing all in order.
Of course you need to guarantee that your method of volume measurement has the precision (repeatability) to do the job and with the methods available that is quite problematic.

IF all cases are from the same blue box and batch number, then weight sorting does correlate somewhat with internal volume. It is an extremely fast and highly repeatable process compared to the 'superior' cases volume measurement. Not fast but practical and at least doable. Ideal fodder for that Gempro.

And - if you find in the process there is almost no variation, and you have abandoned the sorting, you have also achieved something worthwhile.

You do not need to discard half the cases because they are different. Simply reserve them for short distances where they will have far less influence.

Peter Smith.

[Brad Y]

I will say after seeing Albert shoot last years WARA queens where he dominated, not just did well, but totally dominated the competition. He aint no slouch in getting a rifle to shoot good, but ain’t no slouch watching flags and mirage either. Perhaps it’s time I upped my case prep game!