100yd or 200yd?

RangerBrad

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Dec 26, 2010
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Booneville, Ar
Hey fellas, On the initial test at the range when building a load do you shoot 3 shots or 5 and do you shoot the prospective rounds at 100 or 200 yds? Thank's, Brad
 
Brad,

I always shoot 5 rounds so I can eliminate a flyer if I'm not doing my part. (It happens too often) I always start at 100 yds and if accuracy is good or exceptable, I then go to 200yds to look at the bigger picture. I then tweak the load to tighten it up.

Dan
 
I shoot 3 shot groups at 50 yds to start and get zero'd...then back off to 100 to check my load and see if its hitting where the ballistics charts say its suppose to hit.
 
Depends on the caliber, barrel dia. and heat. But I do 90% of my load work up at 200 or 300 and usually 3 shot groups. Especially with bigger high BC bullets. I would much rather look at two seperate 3 shot groups with cool down time than one 5 shot. Many times a 1/2 or 3/4 moa load at 100 will still be 1/2 moa at 300 and that is what I strive for.

Jeff
 
The rifle is zeroed. I was using 54gr of H4831sc behind a 115gr Berger and now I'm testing my 25-06 shooting 115gr Bergers with 58.5, 59.5 and 60.5 grains of Retumbo. Thank's, Brad
 
3 shots @ 100yds. Barrel won't heat up as much with 3 as with 5. Don't have to wait as long to cool down.
 
Hey Ranger
Jerry Teo has written a great article on load testing that is on this site!
He recomends you do your testing at 200! Any problems are a little more visible at 200, 300 is a little far and the wind will have a little more affect that will so up on your target!
At 100 any changes are a lot hard to see!

Worked really well for me!

just my 2 cents
SB
 
3 shots at a 100, then practice at 200 to see trajectory variation. That will get you your dope for those two ranges, and distances in between should be close as well. If you have a chart saying 100 zero is -1.5 at 200, you'll know where you're at when your target is at or under 200 yards.
 
I use the ladder method aka the Incremental Load Development Method. Invented by Creighton Audette and published in the Precision Shooting Annual of 1997 by Randolph Constantine. It is also here: Long-Range Load Development

It has worked well for me. I use it at 200 or 300 yards depending on the cartridge I'm working with. In my experience it takes a whole lot less ammo to get to a good load using this method than shooting groups at various powder charges. The wind (within reason) is a non issue because you are basically testing for vertical dispersion.
 
I do a lot like Broz does. For one thing, I never load test when the wind is blowing and I always test at 300 yards. I'm talking about a dedicated long range rig and not some short range, lightweight setup which might get by with 100 yard testing.

To my way of thinking, 100 yards leaves too much to the imagination. Small variations tend to get overlooked by people when shooting and testing at 100 yards. When shooting at 300 yards it's more indicative of what the load will do and gives me a far better idea as to whether I want to take it on out to 500, 800 and 1000 plus. I can put as many as 6 to 12 separate bulls on a single sheet of paper on my stand at 300 yards and everything is shot over a Oehler 35P and all field conditions are logged for every shot. Beside each load listing on my loading sheet is a small diagram of the bulls on the sheet and which one is for which load so there's no mixup when going to the target. Also at 300 I can easily spot my shots with the spotting scope.

I will typically load up 2 or 3 extra of the lowest powered load I'm trying and always have a separate target slightly off to the side so I get zeroed before beginning with the testing on the main target sheet. The only time I'll shoot at 100 yards would be if I'm testing a load that is so far different from what I normally shoot that I'm not sure where it's going to print. This is also where the 2 or 3 extra rounds come in handy. I always shoot 3 shot groups for testing but if I find a hummer load then I'll take it out farther and do some final testing with 5 just to satisfy my feeble little mind.

This kind of thing can take time if you're just shooting one gun so always take along 2 or 3 extra big guns and also a .22 and a pistol or two to play with while you're letting your barrel cool. Even better yet is to take a buddy or two along and get everybody in on the shooting. Taken along some milk jugs filled with water, some steel to shoot and even some clay pigeons and you can have a great day.

For the same reason that I'd never shoot a ladder test at 100 yards, I never load test at less than 300 yards. This doesn't mean that it doesn't work for others it's just that I can tell 10 times more what a load is doing at 300 than at 100.

YMMV and that's good, but realistically, why would you test a heavy for caliber, high BC round at 100 yards? You will find that between 100 yards and 300 yards these types of bullets might react differently than you would think. Very very seldom is it that a load that shoots bug holes at 300 won't continue doing the same when you stretch it on out but I've seen loads that showed promise when somebody shot them at 100 yards go in the toilet when shot at 300 on out. For me anyway, testing at 300 saves me a lot of time and barrel life.:)
 
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