Re: Working up a load with one powder/bullet
There's a lot of ways to do this, and my approach is to be somewhat more generous wth the number of test loads I try. I find that about five rounds at each increment do a better job of showing a load's consistency and give a truer indication that is less affected by random outside effects than a lesser quantity.
I don't shoot groups, but one shot per aiming point. I test no more than five different increments at a time, and arrange the aimpoints for each common increment in rows. This way, I can look across the row and see how each increment disperses, and look down the columns to see how the separate increments perform against each other. Shooting more than one shot at an aimpoint can produce confusing results.
I like to start out with the bullet at the max length the loading manual suggests for the specific bullet. I don't experiment with this value until I have a working load, and only then if there is some compelling reason to go outside SAAMI specs. I like to preserve the more generic aspects of handloading, so the ammo can be used across applications if need be.
Over time, I have learned about how load configuration variations affect performance, but that one is truly a long lesson. What I take away from that lesson is that deviating away from SAAMI specs can have good consequences, but it can have bad ones too. Unless there's a need; I find that I do well enough, often very well indeed, when I don't.
Greg
