Thread: Trying something, Eric Cortina method of load development

Reviving an old thread of mine as I'm back at it again. This time working up a load for a 30-06 ackley improved
After fire forming with some sako brass and cheap 155gn fmj, I loaded a charge ladder starting at 59gn working up to 60.5gn with 178gn eldm's seated over adi 2209.
I actually did a lower charge weight ladder starting at 57gn but I cocked up my jam measurement and it was a disaster, still the velocity of the lower charge ladder gave me confidence to start higher (without the projectile jammed hard into the lands )
Found a good consistent velocity the higher I went with charge weight, for now I will settle at 60gn which gave an ES of 9fps and a SD of 4 fps which I thought was pretty darn good.
I have since loaded a seating depth ladder to find where the velocity node intersects with accuracy as at the seating depth I used the charge for weight ladder the accuracy was less than stellar at 1.5"-2"
My seating depth ladder starts 3 thou shorter than my charge depth ladder and continues dropping 3 thou each increment for 10 loads all at the same charge weight. I'm sure I will find accuracy somewhere I my seating depth ladder if not I'll look at doing a bedding job on it, as the rifle currently sits in a b & c stock with alloy inlet chasdis but the barrel although free floated is not bedded around the taper.
So far so good, if I can get the 60gn load down to sub moa at 2940-2950ish fps with 178 eldm's it'll be an absolute slayer and I'll be stoked


Charge ladder veloicties



Seating depth ladder ready to shoot tomorrow all going well