Thread: First attempt at reloading. Thoughts please.

I think all of those loads probably shoot just as well as each other.
One thing I have learnt from reloading is people are very willing to chase the statistical noise endlessly and a lot of advice is essentially to do this and it's wrong.
I quite like the data and info coming from Brian Litz who seems like the only person doing enough testing and controlling for variables to actually definitively learn anything about what actually matters in internal and external ballistics.
The reality is you don't have enough data to say there's a velocity drop anywhere in your load ladder. Velocity nodes disappear when you shoot enough to give a statistically relevant amount of data.
You also don't have enough data to say any of your groups are better than each other.

In accepting the reality that our load testing doesn't have enough data points to actually find the "best load" you must flip your thinking and look for the worst loads and discard them because big groups and wide velocity spreads are reliable indicators, smaller groups and small velocity spreads are not.
The reason you must think like this is that groups can't get smaller if you shoot more, and velocity spreads for a single load likewise can't get smaller, but with more testing they can always get bigger as you add more data points and the true spread distribution of the load reveals itself.

This does beg the question how do you decide on a load. This relies on having goals for velocity, velocity spread, and accuracy. Find loads that meet those goals, if in testing they ever exceed those parameters, discard them. If all exceed them then look to make sure the goal is reasonable. Then look at rifle and components. This way you're not constantly searching for the best groups and going down rabbit holes only to be disappointed when further testing reveals the true realities of a single load.