Natty Bumpo
Well-Known Member
Picked up a chronograph recently and tried it out for the first time this morning. Was evaluating some loads with some new bullets in my .308 Win and checking a practice load I've been using in .223 rem.
So if I'm looking for a load to reach out to 500 or 600 yards with, what's an acceptable velocity spread or standard deviation? And how many shots do you fire to evaluate a load?
I was only firing 5 rounds per load. That not a lot, but I did have one load with a spread of only 12 feet per second (fps) and a standard deviation of 5.0. That seemed pretty good given other loads had spreads of 30-44 fps and higher standard deviations. But it's only 5 shots.
My wife had asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I told her a chronograph and mentioned about what they cost. She knows nothing about rifles and shooting and told me to go ahead and get it myself. A few days later I told her I had gone ahead and ordered the Master Beta. She looked at me like I was some sort of pervert!
I know a lot of guys here prefer the CED Millennium; but, Barsness wrote highly of the Shooting Chrony models, so I decided to save a few bucks. Since I typically shoot in the early a.m., bright sunshine affecting readings didn't seem too big a concern.
So if I'm looking for a load to reach out to 500 or 600 yards with, what's an acceptable velocity spread or standard deviation? And how many shots do you fire to evaluate a load?
I was only firing 5 rounds per load. That not a lot, but I did have one load with a spread of only 12 feet per second (fps) and a standard deviation of 5.0. That seemed pretty good given other loads had spreads of 30-44 fps and higher standard deviations. But it's only 5 shots.
My wife had asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I told her a chronograph and mentioned about what they cost. She knows nothing about rifles and shooting and told me to go ahead and get it myself. A few days later I told her I had gone ahead and ordered the Master Beta. She looked at me like I was some sort of pervert!
I know a lot of guys here prefer the CED Millennium; but, Barsness wrote highly of the Shooting Chrony models, so I decided to save a few bucks. Since I typically shoot in the early a.m., bright sunshine affecting readings didn't seem too big a concern.