Thread: Testing a conventional approach to load development

Originally Posted by Hunterdave

Quite surprised theres not much focus on seating depth here. Remember watching a podcast with eric cortina and jack nerry (i think his name was) one f class the other benchrest for team lapua. Talking about seating depth has a direct relation on group size, testing in 3thou increments. A example of this is when people buy factory ammo to test what there rifle likes that is the seating depth of the different ammo that determines the better groups.
I think his way of load development makes sense, first stage over chony, no target to distract you, find lowest es
Once powder charge found on to seating depth testing

@Hunterdave

The focus is on testing a conventional approach to load development - varying charge weights of the same powder. Do they actually produce different precision characteristics or velocity consistency (when measured properly), and does the conventional process actually work to identify this? The answer appears to be no to both.

The evidence available for the same questions for varying seating depth within the functional window also appears to be no - however if someone wants to test it meaningfully and determine whether or not this is true, I'm interested to see - and will update my position as information is available.

e.g. https://youtu.be/_h4iAiGYbwg?si=uEfJaoLj_D7HAjvv

However, it also has become apparent that "optimisation" approaches to load development are extremely inefficient, and a "requirements" approach gets you something functional a whole lot faster and with more confidence.