Ladder test

[coyotelite]

Starting load development for my 300 wby. I have been told to write down absolutely everything along the way so here are my overall specs of the rifle and components along with the ladder test information. Am I missing anything I should be taking note of? New stock comes in Wednesday. Once I bed it I'll be ready to start the ladder test.

 

[jjmp]

Looks good is your bbl factory Winchester ? I load for my 1st cousins 24 inch fac bbl Winchester push action .

 

[trumperman]

1. Don't full length resize your brass (unless that's the only die you have). Neck size only once the brass has been fired in the chamber of your rifle. You will get a more consistent shot to shot performance than you will with factory spec brass.

2. Seating depth - you need to adjust it for the different types of projectiles. Each projectile style is going to have a different ogive, which means that the jump from the brass to the lands will be different. Once you figure out your load for that round, then start playing with seating depth. Start about .010" INTO the lands, working your way back every .005" until you find the sweet spot.

3. Don't trim your brass to the factory specs - measure your chamber and trim your brass .003" short of the actual chamber measurement.

4. You may want to try different powders. One powder may work great with a particular projectile weight, and not perform with a heavier or lighter projo. You can use a slightly faster burning powder when you go from a 200 grain to a 160 grain projectile because of the lower pressures. Could be worth looking into. Try a new powder and do a ladder test.

 

[8andbait]

Sharpies work great, you can also color 1/2 the bullet with two different colors or just half with one color. That will give you more shots without going out there to check.
I use green, blue and red and get ten shots that are all different colors or color combinations.
No color
Red
Blue
Green
Red and blue
Red and green
Blue and green
Half red
Half blue
Half green
If you do it at least 400 yards they normally won't overlap but further is better.
I like to run two ladders to confirm what is happening.

 

[coyotelite]

1. Don't full length resize your brass (unless that's the only die you have). Neck size only once the brass has been fired in the chamber of your rifle. You will get a more consistent shot to shot performance than you will with factory spec brass.

2. Seating depth - you need to adjust it for the different types of projectiles. Each projectile style is going to have a different ogive, which means that the jump from the brass to the lands will be different. Once you figure out your load for that round, then start playing with seating depth. Start about .010" INTO the lands, working your way back every .005" until you find the sweet spot.

3. Don't trim your brass to the factory specs - measure your chamber and trim your brass .003" short of the actual chamber measurement.

4. You may want to try different powders. One powder may work great with a particular projectile weight, and not perform with a heavier or lighter projo. You can use a slightly faster burning powder when you go from a 200 grain to a 160 grain projectile because of the lower pressures. Could be worth looking into. Try a new powder and do a ladder test.

i have both neck and full lenght dies. these are virgin brass but I plan on just neck sizing until it gets tight then i'll bump the shoulder back a bit if needed. in terms of seating depth, once I find the velocity node ill start messing with it but its a weatherby so getting to the lands may be a problem. Im already maxed out for my factory bottom metal but theres lots of room to stretch em out. Im ok with it being a single shot if the best load is too long for my mag well.

 

[ShtrRdy]

Other information I like to make note of are:
1. the lot number for each component, (bullet, primer, powder).
2. make note of COAL and CBTO.
3. If the brass is new or 1x fired

 

[jrock]

Information that I record that I don't see on your list are:

Date and weather conditions
Start and end time for testing
Start and end temperatures for testing
Wind speed and direction
Distance of shot for test
and for ladder testing, I add a column next to the velocity that indicates how high or low above the aiming point my POI are.

For example,

77.2 2930 fps -6"
77.4 2940 fps -5"
77.6 2945 fps -5"
...
78.6 3050 fps +5"
78.8 3055 fps +7 "

This way I have the input and outputs from the testing on one page for future reference.

 

[coyotelite]

Information that I record that I don't see on your list are:

Date and weather conditions
Start and end time for testing
Start and end temperatures for testing
Wind speed and direction
Distance of shot for test
and for ladder testing, I add a column next to the velocity that indicates how high or low above the aiming point my POI are.

For example,

77.2 2930 fps -6"
77.4 2940 fps -5"
77.6 2945 fps -5"
...
78.6 3050 fps +5"
78.8 3055 fps +7 "

This way I have the input and outputs from the testing on one page for future reference.

thanks for the info. Ill note the weather conditions when I get out and shoot in a week or so. As for the hit in relation to aiming point, Ill be basing my ladder test on the chronograph. Its a new build so it wont be sighted in yet and I dont want to burn ammo sighting in until I find the initial velocity node. once I find the velocity node Ill start messing with seating depth to tighten up the group. once that is done Ill do another ladder test at 300 yards with the chronograph and note impacts at that point. T

 

[jrock]

I set the seating depth in the range of 0.010" to 0.020" jump and save the seating depth test until last. I do a high pressure work up over a chrono while sighting in to find a node via the numbers. Then do a 400 yard (minimum) ladder around that node. Dial in my charge and then doing a seating test if necessary. Works well for me but I'm sure you could find a better way of saving ammo. If you know your target charge (from forums and reloading books) you should be able to limit the amount of rounds needed for a test. I noticed that you were using 0.2 grain increments. I start with half grains for the first test on large cartridges. Then the final ladder is 0.2 grain increments. I find that most of my guns have a sweet spot over 0.5 grains of variation.

 

[kindabigdeal]

This is a great thread, if any of you guys have a downloadable/printable data sheet that works well it would be great to see that here. I will be working some loads up for my 300 RUM shortly and will be ladder testing that. I am going to poke around the old web and see if I can find one, if I do ill try share it

 

[jrock]

I made my own sheets for the different tests. I also use spreadsheets to record most of my data and even did a graphical recreation of the ladder test. Check out this page https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/spreadsheet-for-reloading.51002/

 

[Canhunter35]

I've done a fair bit of Weatherby reloading. There will be certain depths it likes, but not like some calibers. I have jumped .02" until honing in on a depth.
I seated my 300wby at 3.63" with 212 eldx, and with h1000 ran out of capacity before reaching max pressure.
I'm thinking you will face the same problem with the 215 hybrid at 2.59". I've moved to the 200eldx which I push at 2990, a tighter es and just as accurate vs the 212s at 2825fps. I tried imr 7977, h1000, and 7828. 7828 yielded the tightest es, with h1000 not far behind at 15 for the 212 and 12 es for 200. 7977 did not work real well for me.

 

[coyotelite]

First ladder test yielded less than desirable speeds in th very low 2700's so I maxed out my oal to 3.84 from my original 3.57. This allowed for a hotter charge so I loaded up in .5 jumps to look for pressure and get my speed up. Found zero pressure signs from 79 -83.5 grains of h-1000. I did however find a nice flat spot at the top end so I loaded a .2 jump ladder test around that charge and found a great 3 shot node with an ES of 1 FPS. Needless to say I'm excited to see how that 83.2 load shoots. I'm also in the 2900's with the 215's which is what I was looking for. Things are coming together!

 

[Mikecr]

So where is the 'ladder test'?