New to long range

[Crazymonkey]

8 and a half hrs at work today and 5 hrs under the jeep changing the oil pump .just need the 24 hrs for the glue to dry and tighten all the pan bolts and fill with oil .then pray it works good .I've got shooting to get back to

[Crazymonkey]

Anybody a member at Rio salado range by the lake ? How does the range membership work ? Is it good from they day you sign up for a year or is it calender year.with all the testing its getting expensive to keep paying 15 bucks to shoot and might be better to just become a member

[PRDATR]

9 hours ago, Crazymonkey said:

Anybody a member at Rio salado range by the lake ? How does the range membership work ? Is it good from they day you sign up for a year or is it calender year.with all the testing its getting expensive to keep paying 15 bucks to shoot and might be better to just become a member

I'm a member. It's a year from when you sign up. I think I pay 120 a year.

https://rsscaz.com/membership-and-fees.php

[Crazymonkey]

First day off in a long time tomorrow so headed to the range early this time and we'll see how it turns out .it should be a lot cooler than the last run at 2 in the afternoon in the heat 5 weeks till I'm headed to California to hunt with dad

[Crazymonkey]

Good day at the range found two good shooting loads r17 45.6 gr and col of 3.163 barns ttsx .bottom right corner of target .next is r15 42.5 gr 3.165 col. Barns tsx .absolutely did not like the Hornady gmx.  I pulled the last shot and opened up the string .the gun seems to have liked all the changes .

 

 

 

[Crazymonkey]

Now that I've got two different loads that show good results should I run another batch of say 15 each and shoot 3 strings before I settle on a load ?second is does anybody on the east end of town have a chronograph I could run them thru .

[recurveman]

So during load development you really want your group to have all bullets at the same elevation.    The group in the last pic screams you need to keep working on your load.   That group is almost strait up and down.    That tells me your bullet is leaving the barrel at different times due to a wide range in velocities.   I would think you need to keep working on your load.  

[Crazymonkey]

5 minutes ago, recurveman said:

So during load development you really want your group to have all bullets at the same elevation.    The group in the last pic screams you need to keep working on your load.   That group is almost strait up and down.    That tells me your bullet is leaving the barrel at different times due to a wide range in velocities.   I would think you need to keep working on your load.  

The first pic is in the correct orientation the bottom is not I haven't figured out how to rotate the view but the numbers go towards the top so you would need to rotate the view clockwise so the string is horizontal and the one flyer is up and left I pulled that one and new it .

[Crazymonkey]

Lets see if this works I cropped and rotated the bottom pic

 

[recurveman]

That is a monster flyer!!!!! If you are still shooting flyers like that then you have a ton of work to do behind the gun.   Those flyers are not acceptable on any level.   I really don't believe in flyers and if you have them then the connection between the gun and the ground really needs to spend more time shooting and not worry so much about load development.  

Here is how I do load development.    I pick one powder that I think will work with my cartridge.   Typically you can research and see which powders are the best for your application.   I make sure the powder isn't temperature sensitive.   Then I find my max quickly.   Normally you have a good idea of where you max is at with some research.   I'll just go out and dump rounds into the ground to find my max.  I'll start with a middle of the road powder charge and work my way up.   Normally I'll go up in .5 grain increments until I hit the advertised MAX and then I'll drop down to .2 or .3 grain changes as I move above advertised MAX.   Once you have signs of pressure (flattened primers, extractor marks, hard bolt lift, ect) then I stop shooting rounds.   You will need a bullet puller at some point in time for loads that can't be fired.   After I find my MAX I start to look for nodes.   The way you do that is by starting with a powder charge and adding a little powder at a time.   I typically do .5 grains per load and shoot 4-5 shots per load.   I bring that powder up to max  (maybe a bit below max) and you will see that different loads will create vertical groups and others will have little to no vertical (this is very important at distance).    Then once I find a load (and velocity) that I like I will come back and shoot more groups with smaller grain weight changes in the load.    So lets say I start with 46 grains and end at 50 grains (MAX) for my first test.   I decide that 48.5 grains is a good looking load for the most part.   Then I will go back with 48.0, 48.2,48.4,48.6,48.8,49 grains.    Each will have 4-5 shots per load.   At that point you will find a load that works really good.   Then after you find the good powder charge you could start to look at seating depth but I rarely work at it that hard.   It is more of a fine tuning part of the equation and typically I've got a gun shooting good enough at that point. 

 A little side note.   Your speeds will vary dramatically until you get about 50-75 rounds down the tube.    A Chrono is a must for me when doing load development.   It really is a huge deal.  You will see things with a chrono that are super important.   I had one load for my .243 where we ended up shooting 46 grains of powder.   We ran the load up to 50 grains and the speed never changed once we got past 46 grains.    The groups opened up but the speed was within 20 feet per second even with 4 more grains of powder.   So we settled on 46 grains and the load is lights out.   You wouldn't know this without a chrono.         

[Crazymonkey]

The bottom target is a 5 shot string with 4 of the 5 touching and the 5th is the one that is just left about 1/2 or 1/4 inch away I didn't move the scope as I was just looking for groups the hits on the bottom of the target were a different string the gun didn't like it was around 2 plus inches in the right corner then I went to the next batch shot the center on the bottom target.I figured it was good as all the shots but 1 that is just high left are on the same horizontal plane.the load is at barns max for r15 at 42.5 gr and no pressure signs I was thinking the top target with the 3 shot string in the right bottom could use some work that was r17 at 45.6 gr and I think it might get a little better with more powder .I'm going to see if I can get my buddies Cronograph it requires a trip to the west side of town if the freeways are open

[Crazymonkey]

I think I've got the targets rotated and cropped correctly this time I could see how they were deceiving when they were not cropped and turned up the right direction my fault I'm still learning some of this stuff.

[Crazymonkey]

For you guys that shoot long range what should I be looking for in group size at 100 .I get smallest group possible .just looking at what you guys are running before you start shooting past that.I've currently got two groups in the 1/2 moa at a hundred mark should I keep tweeking the loads or start to go to 2 and 3 and see what they do.time permitting I'm going back out to Rio salado this weekend. Thanks

[recurveman]

tight groups are good.   1/2 MOA isn't bad but the key to long range shooting is having very consistent velocities.   You need to know if shot to shot is the same velocity.  

[Crazymonkey]

That leads to next question .lab radar or magneto speed ?I have no experience with lab radar but my buddy has a magneto speed and I've used it once .I'm in the market for a chronograph any tips or pros and cons.