Thread: Handloads

What sort of spread do you guys find acceptable when shooting handloads? Just finished running some that were made up for me at a cost and they are a range of about 80fps fastest slowest with most being +-30fps, , rifle is a 300 win mag pushing a 168grain at 3060 fps

How accurate are they? What are you measuring speed with?

If they group well at your max intended hunting range don't worry about it.

Originally Posted by GWH

If they group well at your max intended hunting range don't worry about it.

Hey you stole my next post

Originally Posted by Gibo

Hey you stole my next post

ditto

I know long range shooters get hung up on this. I have found there are a lot of other factors that make a hand load accurate or not.

Originally Posted by 300CALMAN

ditto

I know long range shooters get hung up on this. I have found there are a lot of other factors that make a hand load accurate or not.

Yep I've found consistent neck tension to play a big part

Originally Posted by DanS

What sort of spread do you guys find acceptable when shooting handloads? Just finished running some that were made up for me at a cost and they are a range of about 80fps fastest slowest with most being +-30fps, , rifle is a 300 win mag pushing a 168grain at 3060 fps

You get what your given, that's what you paid for. If they shoot good don't worry, or look any further.
If your going to look deep into it and expect a job well done, handload them yourself.
I've seen a guy develop a load at the range for a customer, it was a pretty hard and fast approach. But in his defence they probably grouped ok and he needs to keep his time and price down to make this service affordable and get customers.
I've thought about offering this service myself, but I'm pretty fussy and figure it would cost too much to make it worth while for me.

What are you measuring it with is a good question, as @Gibo says above. Chronograph come in a variety of flavours, and so are certainly more accurate than others. Make sure you’ve got a good measure before getting too worried.

Isn't it funny how we worry about all these silly little things yet at the end of the day there's a big floppy piece of meat with a heart beat and the need to breathe hanging onto the rifle, I'm gonna go with that being the number one factor that will affect accuracy

Ha well said!

hi, In Hatchers Note book there is a piece about ammo produced for the NRA national matches which produced excellent scores then some wise guys ran some over their chronographs and found what they thought was a bigger than acceptable spread and disregarding the excellent scores insisted on a change just goes to show stupid some times wins ... Yeah right ..Rob

ES (Extreme Spread) is probably more important for long range shooters. With big variations in speed the bullet will impact differently so if you can get loads with ES of under 20 fps you would be onto a winner. For normal hunting ranges even out to 500 yards I think your load with an ES of 80 fps should be fine. As said earlier human factor is probably the biggest factor affecting accuracy.

I stuffed up some 308 loads, down 200 fps, dropped off the bottom of the target at 500 yds and would have been a clean miss on a deer

Originally Posted by GWH

Yep I've found consistent neck tension to play a big part

Do we know how neck tension affects accuracy? Wouldn't it mostly be by velocity variation?

A quick Calc On shooter app for my 7mm 08 , the effect of 10 m/s change in mv (5 m/s wind):
300 m vert +1.4 Cm horiz - .0.4 cm
500m Vert + 5.1cm horiz -1.5 Cm
1000m vert + 39 cm horiz -7 cm

No one needs an extra 39 cm of vertical dispersion at 1000 M or even 7Cm of windage so an F class competitor has to go OCD about it, At 500m a 5cm Smaller group is probably worthwhile if you could achieve 50 fps ES instead of 80.

consistent neck tension goes a long way to an accurate load- but and i say but you ain,t RELOADING for yourself so the headaches start is it you waving the gun around or is it the reloader
is your rifle up to it?
do the reloads group well if so relax do not stress go with the flow if they shoot well just go hunting
the mind boggles as said are you a bush hunter or a long range hunter??
if you go hunting and miss then maybe its time to create a list of what the fcuk is going on and try and figure out what can be done to sort it out
www.ballisticstudies.com is a good place to start