Thread: .243 load development part deux

It's a 243. It should put three shots into a cloverleaf group at hundy.....someone tell me I'm wrong.

It's proving you wrong Micky. There's no reason a 243 can not suffer any of the problems that surface with any other calibre or rifle.

So change two things. Try federal blue box..maybe 80 GRN if it's made....and the nut behind the butt. If it's still spraying bullets around like a mad woman's shit....start looking elsewhere other than ammo.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

Man life was simple when you bought box of whatever loaded ammo was on shelf,checked zero with shot or two then when hunting... You learnt by trial n error what worked better...but still kept hunting with what you had.

Until you have "issues" with factory ammo availability (and cost) and decide that handloading resolves both those issues......and open a can of worms! That being said, it's all part of the process and one has to be willing to accept the pain of walking through the fire to emerge, phoenix like, with a new skill set

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

So change two things. Try federal blue box..maybe 80 GRN if it's made....and the nut behind the butt. If it's still spraying bullets around like a mad woman's shit....start looking elsewhere other than ammo.

LOL! This weekend will prove/disprove the projectile of choice 2 x 10 of the 42gr SST, 2 x 10 of the deer season and (just because it's there) 2 x 10 of the Fiocchi with a 1 x 10 of the 42gr SST by another shooter, it's also occurred to me that maybe I should clean the barrel prior....but then does this introduce another unknown variable? The can of worms grows!

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

It's a 243. It should put three shots into a cloverleaf group at hundy.....someone tell me I'm wrong.

INSUFFICIENT DATA....

Originally Posted by Zedrex

INSUFFICIENT DATA....

This why I asked for "someone" .....I personally haven't run into an in accurate .243. hell my 2nd encounter was shooting goats with neighbour thirty years ago. We ran out of ammo so he broke out whackamole,scooped in powder and made another fourty rounds. We went back out and kept shooting out to 300ish..... Hardly precision reloading... But by hoki it snorted goats. Another mate maybe twenty five years back had Remington jammomatic that shot well with any load. My old reloading mentor had tikka that boringly shot under 3/4" groups...I've seen the groups and load data.... So my "data" set is limited but was enough to make impression on me.thtee VERY different rifles.

Originally Posted by Zedrex

I've started watching that podcast, would it be fair to say that "whats out there" is largely based on historical thinking versus, for want of a better phrase, the new wave of developing theory? If you've links to other "new age" leanings I'd be keen to see them, cheers

I'm not sure if it's "new wave" as such, but I think the gist of some of the current discussion is (rediscovering) that correlation doesn't equal causation.

Many methods of the past 'work', just maybe not in the way that people thought they worked, and maybe there are more efficient ways to reach the end goal (i.e. by playing with the variables that show the most effect).

All this isn't to say everyone needs to send hundreds of rounds down range to verify any change; however it does suggest that comparing one small group to another, is unlikely to tell you very much about the effect of the variable being manipulated.

Originally Posted by Pommy

Come on mate. There's 4 pages of people trying to lead you to water here.

This is going in circles if you're now going to ask us whether what you're seeing is perhaps down to having found a harmonic node or a velocity node.



Feel free to provide that data and shut us up, or drink.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy479p8H0AE

Here's one goto 5 mins 30 in where he mentions (briefly) changing the charge to tune the arrival of the bullet at the muzzle to be in the middle of the harmonic wave (my terminology might be off) I'm not saying this is gospel but it was another "piece" that made me ask the question around harmonics

Originally Posted by earplay

I'm not sure if it's "new wave" as such, but I think the gist of some of the current discussion is (rediscovering) that correlation doesn't equal causation.

Many methods of the past 'work', just maybe not in the way that people thought they worked, and maybe there are more efficient ways to reach the end goal (i.e. by playing with the variables that show the most effect).

All this isn't to say everyone needs to send hundreds of rounds down range to verify any change; however it does suggest that comparing one small group to another, is unlikely to tell you very much about the effect of the variable being manipulated.

Absolutely, I raised harmonics not as a THIS IS THE PROBLEM but asking if IT COULD BE? And then everyone lost their shit (shrugs) I guess that's one of the issues to starting any new branch of knowledge, it's easy to be overwhelmed by the "everythings" that can be involved. I'm clear that I need to focus on the basics of loading without getting allll the way down the rabbit hole as all I want to achieve is a handload that will perform similar to the factory load I've been hunting with successfully out to 300m

These days, .243 is all I use and I don't have anything to do with all that daft crap requiring a degree in astrophysics.

Fill the case to the top with whatever
is the least dubious looking black/grey stuff, jam whatever pill is lying about on the bench in it, smack it down a bit with a hammer if the press won't get it done, and then go shoot stuff with it. Simple really.

My freezers stay full and the astrophysics don't hurt my head like this thread does.

To be honest, I find reloading rather easy to get good results. It only has to be as hard as you want it to be.

Originally Posted by Zedrex

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy479p8H0AE

Here's one goto 5 mins 30 in where he mentions (briefly) changing the charge to tune the arrival of the bullet at the muzzle to be in the middle of the harmonic wave (my terminology might be off) I'm not saying this is gospel but it was another "piece" that made me ask the question around harmonics

Watch this one from him as well and give it some robust thought:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogv_kFNqemA

Originally Posted by Pommy

Watch this one from him as well and give it some robust thought:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogv_kFNqemA

Watched and most of his commentary is around his view on barrel tuners and why he doesn't use them, he also touches on other variables (temperature) that, if I'm understanding him correctly make barrel tuners like everything else inconsistent in their effect on accuracy and I am aware that there are many enviromental variables that will impact grouping

My understanding of your comment in response to "There is plenty of evidence out there where shooters have experienced groups converging and diverging as they move up through load weights in as little as 0.2gr increments with a variance of sub MOA to 1.5MOA over 3 load increments.- Feel free to provide that data and shut us up, or drink."

Is that you were dismissing varying load to tune harmonics was a load of old bs and in both of Marks video's he alludes to charge weight, seat depth as being methods to tune a load and barrel harmonics in order to try and have the projectile exit the muzzle during the barrels "dead" moment which reinforces my thought that charge weight MUST have an influence on grouping.....BUT I also think that what you were maybe trying to say is that harmonics are not going to have a marked effect on grouping at the distance I was shooting the test loads...and that's a possibility BUT it's also possible that it may have an effect AND it MAY be that that effect is negligible. I think I asked IF harmonics could have an impact and when questioned I replied with the "plenty of evidence out there" which there is but I didn't have the context of "over what distance" Marks video mentions a 1/4" difference but again no context of over what distance...so it's back to insufficient data

Originally Posted by Jhon

Im loving this thread. For years I spent hours at the range shooting incremenal load tests chasing nodes. Probably should have just gone hunting but hey, I was entranced. I was in the 3 -shot node-finding club. I listened to that old dude Gunblue490 re flat base and boat-tail. How the gases hit the flatbase "square" so it was, twist and length being congruent, stable from the muzzle, while a boat-tail got to fishtail a little until it stabilized fully out somewhere around the 100m mark then came into its own past 200 because of its greater BC. So, flatbase for sub 200m BT for reaching out. I read and listened to a bunch of stuff, made notes, changed up the powders and projectiles etc.etc. Had a lot of fun with average rifles mostly and most with barrels and triggers that wouldn't know a.good node if they fell on one. But anyway...fun is fun...

Then along came the shortages and jacked up component prices. I went to short ladders. Then the Hornady article on statistical meaningfulness.and the thread on this forum that brought it all to my attention. Kind of felt Id wasted a lot of time and materials, should have just gone hunting....

Anyway, lately, outside my own endeavors I've been getting some others into reloading because they're finding $5+ a shot for premium ammo debilitating. Fortunately, for me, they're primarily hunters. Out to 300m but most frequently sub 200. Shooting 223, 243, 7mm08 and 308.

In each case I've looked at what factory ammo they're preferring, bullet weight and style, FPS etc. We used the same projectile, chronographed the factory load in their rifle and picked a load rated to give a similar velocity. Made 10, went to the range and put 7 on paper at 100m, then chronographed 3. The chrono data is to enable a ballistics drop chart if they want it.

With the rifle zeroed at 100m with factory, the same projectile they'd been using successfully and a close velocity the reloads produced groups in each case that required only minor zero adjustment. I then made x20 more, in a couple of cases going up a little with the powder chasing a tad more velocity, in one case coming down to solve an extraction issue. The second batch of 20 allowed a quick confirmation of zero and group at 100m then a.move to 200 and 300 to check drop. For the 308 we re-zeroed at 200m and checked elevation back at 100m.

For each shooter, all with good kills under their belts, this was.the first time they had done any really disciplined range work on paper and in all cases, the first time they had checked their rifles at 200m and 300m once zeroed. Interestingly none had issues at the extended distance with windage, all off, some way off, on elevation. They really had little idea previously how much drop happens with their rifle when you add another hundred meters or two.

Each of them has settled in to killing deer regularly with their reloads - and yes, they each did the reloading themselves, my gear, my bench and under my watchful eye. The most recent has been a little different.with a calibre I have no prior experience of, 6.5CM. I bought dies and powder, he provided his once fired brass. A working lad paying $110 for a box of 20 premium cartridges and down to his last 3 with a weekend hunt coming up in 4 days. So no time for the range, paper or chrono. I had him bring his rifle and 3 factory rounds. Picked a powder charge 0.6gn below max and loaded 10 of the same projectiles. Got a txt from him to say he made a kill, fallow, 100m on the run, shoulder hit. His first reload kill. One swallow doesn't make a summer but still, no incremental load test involved. Deer down. An offhand shot at a moving target proves nothing so down to the range and onto paper is still the next step. But I think for me, picking a load congruent on paper with a shooters performance expectations in the field is a useful starting point. If we can get good results at the range at the required distances there's no need to go hunting better nodes, groups or whatever. Competition target shooting probably a vastly different story. Put long range hunting in that basket also perhaps. Anyway, Im heading out to the hills myself next week, with reloads of course....might even take the 243.

Agreed, I started on this path to "replace" my preferred factory ammo due to cost/availability and I suppose I could have just found another factory offering BUT that cost element. Starting down the rabbit hole was easy enough, I identified what I thought (from my limited research) would be a suitable replacement projectile (as I can't source Win Deer Season projectiles, even though they are available to buy stateside) and "we" worked up some loads with one load showing good grouping and it was pointed out that I needed to shoot bigger groups to prove the load, which seems reasonable and that's what I'll be doing next.....we'll see where that takes me in the pursuit of the "perfect" load. In the meantime I'm getting some good schooling and lively debate!