Precision vs Practical Handloading
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- stokesrj
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Precision vs Practical Handloading
I began handloading in 1968 at the very wise age of 12 (this was before child safety laws). My motivation was that I could not afford $2.50 per box for 16 gauge shot shells to feed my Ithica model 37. My first kit was a lee Loader and a hammer. Once I had proved to my dad that I could load shells that did not blow up my gun he let me start loading metallic cartridges. Again strapped for cash I turned to the lee loader and a hammer, what they now call the classic loader. https://leeprecision.com/lee-loader-308-win.html
My tools were few and far between, just the kit and it's powder dipper and a glass dish to poor powder into from the tin cans then used for packaging. The glass dish made it easier to fill the dipper. And some how to my amazement, it made my Sako Finnbear L57 into a near MOA rifle. To be honest, I thought this rifle was ruined, my dad had bought it for $50 from a returning service man stationed in Europe. I think the reason he sold it for a song was that he had been using corrosive ammunition and the barrel was badly pitted. Yet somehow, in spite of this I was able to find a load this rifle would shoot 1-1.5 MOA with from my rickety home made shooting bench on my grandfathers property in Florida. I had used a backhoe to build a berm to catch bullets but my grandfather thought it a total waste of time to shoot a rifle when there was no game in front of it. He was a meat and potatoes kind of hunter and believed a box of 20 rounds should account for 20 deer.
This is how my reloading career began about 50 years ago.
I was passionate about my reloading, and would bring hand polished examples to school along with targets to show my hunting friends and teachers. I was the only person in my home town anyone new of that handloaded. Most thought it better left to Remington and Winchester even though I would show them evidence that my handloads would out perform those factory loads, it mostly just wasn't accepted.
Over the next 40 years or so I continued handloading for pistol, rifle, and shotgun for both economy, better performance and for simply the pleasure it brought to me, knowing that I had crafted a load for a specific game species and conditions for an upcoming hunt and to see it perform the way I had hoped mostly or sometimes with less desirable results. I counted it all joy, learning much about terminal ballistics and the types of wounds different bullet construction created.
Then I got into high volume match ammunition reloading and focused on efficiency and practicality as priority with a lower emphasis on maximum precision. My match ammunition had to be under 3/4 MOA but that was easy to achieve even with a progressive loader using a powder measure rather than scales. Often I could even achieve 1/2 MOA with this large batch high volume loading process. But I always wanted to see what could be done. I wanted to understand what mattered and what didn't in the loading process. I listened to a lot of people who discarded bench rest techniques and were firm in their beliefs that case preparation steps such as primer pocket uniforming, flash hole deburring, neck turning, and neck sizing were a waste of time. But I always wondered if this were true.
So now I'm on a journey to prove to myself one way or the other if precision case preparation and in-line bullet seating matters or not. It will take time to sort this all out. I know that most of you will not care, but a few will and for those I will keep you updated on my progress. First I need to make sure my rifle is sound. I'm using the Remington R5 M700 .308 as a test bed, and even though it has a HS precision stock with an aluminum chassis, I can tell it has a bit of a bedding issue. I found the magazine box was pinched and relieved it. But I will need to confirm that this solved the problem or if I need to route out the aluminum and glass bet the action. I can tell the rifle wants to shoot, and has produced some spectacular sub 0.2 MOA groups but ten shot groups produce bimodal distributions of two tight clusters separated by 1/2" or so. I need to trouble shoot and solve this before any further load development work will be sound and worthy of consideration.
More will come once I'm past the trouble shooting stage.
My tools were few and far between, just the kit and it's powder dipper and a glass dish to poor powder into from the tin cans then used for packaging. The glass dish made it easier to fill the dipper. And some how to my amazement, it made my Sako Finnbear L57 into a near MOA rifle. To be honest, I thought this rifle was ruined, my dad had bought it for $50 from a returning service man stationed in Europe. I think the reason he sold it for a song was that he had been using corrosive ammunition and the barrel was badly pitted. Yet somehow, in spite of this I was able to find a load this rifle would shoot 1-1.5 MOA with from my rickety home made shooting bench on my grandfathers property in Florida. I had used a backhoe to build a berm to catch bullets but my grandfather thought it a total waste of time to shoot a rifle when there was no game in front of it. He was a meat and potatoes kind of hunter and believed a box of 20 rounds should account for 20 deer.
This is how my reloading career began about 50 years ago.
I was passionate about my reloading, and would bring hand polished examples to school along with targets to show my hunting friends and teachers. I was the only person in my home town anyone new of that handloaded. Most thought it better left to Remington and Winchester even though I would show them evidence that my handloads would out perform those factory loads, it mostly just wasn't accepted.
Over the next 40 years or so I continued handloading for pistol, rifle, and shotgun for both economy, better performance and for simply the pleasure it brought to me, knowing that I had crafted a load for a specific game species and conditions for an upcoming hunt and to see it perform the way I had hoped mostly or sometimes with less desirable results. I counted it all joy, learning much about terminal ballistics and the types of wounds different bullet construction created.
Then I got into high volume match ammunition reloading and focused on efficiency and practicality as priority with a lower emphasis on maximum precision. My match ammunition had to be under 3/4 MOA but that was easy to achieve even with a progressive loader using a powder measure rather than scales. Often I could even achieve 1/2 MOA with this large batch high volume loading process. But I always wanted to see what could be done. I wanted to understand what mattered and what didn't in the loading process. I listened to a lot of people who discarded bench rest techniques and were firm in their beliefs that case preparation steps such as primer pocket uniforming, flash hole deburring, neck turning, and neck sizing were a waste of time. But I always wondered if this were true.
So now I'm on a journey to prove to myself one way or the other if precision case preparation and in-line bullet seating matters or not. It will take time to sort this all out. I know that most of you will not care, but a few will and for those I will keep you updated on my progress. First I need to make sure my rifle is sound. I'm using the Remington R5 M700 .308 as a test bed, and even though it has a HS precision stock with an aluminum chassis, I can tell it has a bit of a bedding issue. I found the magazine box was pinched and relieved it. But I will need to confirm that this solved the problem or if I need to route out the aluminum and glass bet the action. I can tell the rifle wants to shoot, and has produced some spectacular sub 0.2 MOA groups but ten shot groups produce bimodal distributions of two tight clusters separated by 1/2" or so. I need to trouble shoot and solve this before any further load development work will be sound and worthy of consideration.
More will come once I'm past the trouble shooting stage.
Robert J Stokes
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Re: Precision vs Practical Handloading
While it is something I doubt I will ever do myself,I do find it very interesting,so I am looking forward to following this.
- mchughcb
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Re: Precision vs Practical Handloading
Keen to hear what you discover. If your rifle is capable of consistent 0.2 MoA groups then it will be a good reference.
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Re: Precision vs Practical Handloading
I'm both curious and indifferent all at the same time, I load hunting ammunition that shoots sub MOA and that is good enough for up close and LR within reason with the 308win.
I would love to see the difference all this makes from an educational stand point, but it will make no difference to my reloading practices.
I would love to see the difference all this makes from an educational stand point, but it will make no difference to my reloading practices.
I'm soft and I don't care.
- stokesrj
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Re: Precision vs Practical Handloading
Right now it goes from this
To thisYou do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Robert J Stokes
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Re: Precision vs Practical Handloading
That's definitely not right, I don't care about absolute minimum groups, but consistency is an absolute requirement.
I'm soft and I don't care.
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- Meister der jagd
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Re: Precision vs Practical Handloading
I for one am looking forward on seeing you results and conclusions. I find that people who are more analytical usually produce better results than people like myself who, don't have the patience or mindset, stumble around with intuition and hunches.
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo
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- Meister der jagd
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Re: Precision vs Practical Handloading
I am also particularly interested in your results. I certainly don't load the volume that you do but had a similar start to reloading although I was a tad older. Lee was my go to loading gear. I knew very little about powders or projectiles but somehow the resulting loads shot well. I have moved in different directions over the years and now find myself more involved in club shooting and striving for accuracy. Will watch with great interest Bob.
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Re: Precision vs Practical Handloading
I started reloading for a 223ren we hen I was 16.
I went halves in a press with a mate I was shooting foxes abd roos with.
We made some good money back then doing that.
I eventually made my own dipper by cutting down a case abd soldering in a handle.
That ammunition used to shoot the tightest one hole cloverleafs I've ever been able to do.
I went halves in a press with a mate I was shooting foxes abd roos with.
We made some good money back then doing that.
I eventually made my own dipper by cutting down a case abd soldering in a handle.
That ammunition used to shoot the tightest one hole cloverleafs I've ever been able to do.
I'm soft and I don't care.
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- Meister der jagd
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Re: Precision vs Practical Handloading
I feel your pain. I have one doing that (although with all groups bigger than yours) I think I have it licked - and then - poop !stokesrj wrote:Right now it goes from thisIMG_0487.JPG
To thisimage1.jpeg
Almost out of ideas. Almost
Back to your topic - I don't think there is a line between Precision and Practical.
I am a hunter only, but I love to get the most that I can out of any given rifle. After a discussion here some time ago, I decided to stop short of neck turning, but I do just about everything else. Knowing that the rifle that I have in my hands will put three into .5"/.8" definitely adds to my confidence and helps me shoot better. Logically that doesn't make sense, but it works for me.
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Re: Precision vs Practical Handloading
Keen to hear how you make out Bob
I also stopped short of neck turning and primer pocket uniforming, but I use Lapua and Norma Brass as they seem to be pretty uniform. I use a Lee neck collet die, for calibres its made in, which gives me near zero run out, Forster BR bullet seater , anneal necks with an AMP and go to the effort of wet tumbling when they get a bit cruddy. on a good day I can get 0.3 MOA with my 260rem with Berger VLDs. pretty much all my other calibres are for hunting so MOA is all I chase with them.
watching with interest.
I also stopped short of neck turning and primer pocket uniforming, but I use Lapua and Norma Brass as they seem to be pretty uniform. I use a Lee neck collet die, for calibres its made in, which gives me near zero run out, Forster BR bullet seater , anneal necks with an AMP and go to the effort of wet tumbling when they get a bit cruddy. on a good day I can get 0.3 MOA with my 260rem with Berger VLDs. pretty much all my other calibres are for hunting so MOA is all I chase with them.
watching with interest.
- Vaughan
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Re: Precision vs Practical Handloading
That's funny - insert 22 Hornet and 222Rem instead of 223Rem and our start would be about the same, incl the home made dippers to measure out the powder. I used the old Lee hammer dies and didn't shoot a lot of clover leaves but sub inch groups were normal. I still remember those shitty '70s Tasco scopes that I thought were so brilliant..... Young and stupid but it was a lot of fun.SPEEDY wrote:I started reloading for a 223ren we hen I was 16.
I went halves in a press with a mate I was shooting foxes abd roos with.
We made some good money back then doing that.
I eventually made my own dipper by cutting down a case abd soldering in a handle.
That ammunition used to shoot the tightest one hole cloverleafs I've ever been able to do.
/Vaughan
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Re: Precision vs Practical Handloading
I had ine I loved, cant remember if it was a tasco or nit that had a rectangular tv screen picture.
Oh how little I knew then.
But the old Lee dippers made for some accurate loads, even withvthe Lee classic, hit em with a hammer system.
Oh how little I knew then.
But the old Lee dippers made for some accurate loads, even withvthe Lee classic, hit em with a hammer system.
I'm soft and I don't care.
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Re: Precision vs Practical Handloading
A fascinating subject after my own heart !!!
Like many here, I too have tried many combinations to achieve consistent one hole groups, including neck turning , various degrees of neck tension, seating depths etc etc
Looking forward to your reports
Like many here, I too have tried many combinations to achieve consistent one hole groups, including neck turning , various degrees of neck tension, seating depths etc etc
Looking forward to your reports
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- Meister der jagd
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Re: Precision vs Practical Handloading
Very interested Bob and will be watching progress closely.
I enjoy reloading almost as much as my hunting, it fascinating.
I enjoy reloading almost as much as my hunting, it fascinating.
Life is too short to hunt with an ugly dog.
Hunt with a German Shorthaired Pointer.
Hunt with a German Shorthaired Pointer.