Load Development - 'or not...'

[AJMD429]

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Load development and reloading degrees of meticulousness seem to vary so much - here's another one that seems to say that much of the stuff we do is 'overkill'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfBAIM95fCM

Personally, I load with a level of meticulousness that is proportionate to the potential of the firearm/cartridge in question, capped by my own potential shooting ability. (That last factor is nearly always the limiting factor)

For a light-recoiling, heavy rifle, chambered in a cartridge that is 'inherently accurate' - I may get really picky.
For a heavy 44 Magnum load from a handgun, my (lack of) skill level is such that any load capable of shooting 60 minutes of angle (...is that an 'hour of angle'...???) is probably ok...

I've only had a couple of guns that really were so inaccurate that the GUN was the limiting factor.

[Griff]

For myself... I completely agree. when I load for target shooting I tend to pay closer attention to how consistent my components are: brass, bullets, primers, charge weights, and that they're assembled with meticulous attention to both process and measurements. For plinking, (and I include my cowboy action competition in this category), I am going for quantity vs. quality... so I don't do things like individually weigh bullets or powder charges... I might check powder charges every hundred rounds, and rarely check bullet weights... This also coincides with the fact it is loaded on a progressive machine vs. a single stage press. Hunting rounds are typically somewhere between the two. Before the electronic scale broke, I'd weigh individual bullets as it was quick and easy... now, I probably only weigh every 5th one. But, again, every powder charge is weighed, although I'm not as concerned if the scale tips to one side of the line or the other... unlike my target ammo. That gets dumped close to the target weight, then trickled up to the line. (Except for my BP target ammo... I've read and my experience is that a couple of tenths of a grain isn't that crucial in large volume BP rounds. I'm a little more careful with my .32-40 ammo tho', it gets precision weighed).

[Wolfshead]

I load the same for all my cartridges.
Probably not as meticulous as others, but I try and keep what I do as consistent as possible.
I don’t however weigh brass, bullets, and such. Maybe I should?
I clean all my brass by hand, and use a beam scale and weigh out each powder load by hand, on a Lee single stage press.

[Scott Tschirhart]

This was very interesting and informative. This guy is also a very accomplished shooter.

I don’t shoot long distances and I am mainly a hunter.

I used to handload to get better accuracy but factory ammo is much better today than it was back in the 1970s and 1980s. So I buy a box of .308 Remington 150 gr Cor Loct for my .308 and call it good.

Now I load for economy and I mostly load for cartridges that I really can’t purchase over the counter.

My current project is to get a really good thumper load for a .480 Ruger double rifle so it’s been fun and a little frustrating to try to get the barrels to group together. That’s what I do for fun these days.

[LeverGunner]

For rifles, I generally find a decent load and stop. I don't worry about fine tuning it because I almost never shoot from the bench. I most always shoot from various field positions. I do a lot of standing off hand shooting. So the level of accuracy of my loads out performs the level of accuracy I am able to obtain while shooting. From the bench, if I get less than 2" from a rifle at 100 yards I am satisfied. Sometimes I'll go farther, sometimes not, but I don't generally push for accuracy.

For handgun cartridges though, I take more care than most. I normally trim cases for consistent crimp. I try to keep cases of all the same lot as well. I can shoot a handgun pretty decent both standing and from a rest. I can hit 4" at 50 yards, and 8" at 100 with a handgun, and if your loads aren't up to snuff, they won't hold that.

[Wolfshead]

I should add that in NewYorkistan where I reside, one is required to do a background check to purchase ammunition.
I don’t load for handgun (yet) and I don’t shoot it as much (probably should) as my rifles, so I just purchase for that.
Components are not (yet) required to have background checks as of yet.
I am able to load for all my rifles, so I do. No background checks at this moment….

[AJMD429]

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In my other life (the one in the Ideal World), I have plenty of time and money, and a huge reloading/gun room, with a dedicated computer to spreadsheet out my loads, and track things down to the brass case lots (in fact, I laser-engrave serial numbers on each case and track it through the reloads I subject it to).

Of course I use a different set of cases for each firearm, so for guns I have several of, like 357 Magnums, I have a separate lot of cases for each gun, only using them in THAT particular gun, reload after reload.

I have numerous 'optimized' loads for each firearm, using cheap 'practice' bullets, but also data (even if the bullet weight is the same and the overall construction is the same - i.e. JHP and FMJ with similar gilding metal jackets - because the thickness and resistance of the jacket could still differ) for 'hunting' or 'protection' bullets.

This takes me 10 hours or so per week to manage and pour over, looking for ways to improve things, and that's on top of the 10 hours a week spent actually reloading. Add another 10 hours per week actually at the shooting bench, collecting accuracy and chronograph data, and it is a lot of time......especially since doing this is so expensive that I have to work 70 hours a week to support my hobby.

Alas, that's a hundred hours per week, and one does have to sleep, so that's another 60 hours per week. There are 168 hours in a week though, so if I bathe and eat quickly, I can usually squeeze in a half-hour or so to actually hunt or shoot with my buddies...

The SCARY part is that I actually DO have enough OCD (aggrivated by adult-ADD no doubt) that that really WOULD be my 'Ideal World'...

Thankfully, the Real World wins, so I usually manage to scrounge up enough brass cases that are of the proper cartridge, get some kind of primers that fit the hole, throw in a bunch of powder that's within spec, cap it off with a projectile of some sort, and manage so far to not blow up any guns...