Not mentioning any names or places but i have been chatting with a number of old (no, not older, OLD) shooters. Now, these guys have a life time of experience and can shoot like stink but when the subject turns to reloading they have some pretty fixed and seemingly limited ideas. I just want to run some of it past you people for opinions.
To start, there seems to be no acknowledgement that an individual rifle has it's own harmonic characteristics and they insist on certain formulas of x# of grains of a certain powder for a certain bullet in a certain length barrel. On the weekend, one guy was telling me "always put 46gn of ###" and "these lapua cases aren't as good as the winchesters because they don't shoot as well with the same load" (paraphrasing). I have tried opening a conversation about individual load development for a particular rifle but am met with shaking heads and blank looks. The same bloke asked me what i had loaded in my rifle. I told him and he replied, "not enough!". I responded that i had a different caliber and bullet weight but he didn't get it. I mean, this load shoots 0.3MOA every time i test it for a group (not over an extended string adjusting for bull but in a quick string in the same patch of wind shooting purely for group size). The same guy insists that one of his rifles just has a bad barrel because it doesn't shoot as straight as his other rifle and that it could take 2000 rounds to "come good". Again, blank stares when i mention load development for the rifle.
Another guy, who takes the self appointed role of club guru, advises younger shooters to arbitrarily add another grain to the charge is the load isn't performing as desired. He also thinks he needs a new barrel (ok, maybe he does) for one of his rifles but doesn't even consider tweeking his load or re-seating his bullets out further.
Again, these guys have a heap of target shooting experience and can shoot and read wind very well but it concerns me that younger shooters are being given advice that seems rudimentary and unproductive for their improvement in the sport. It must just lead to frustration and wasting good components. Not blowing my horn but i can generally spend around 50 rounds to develop a load that shoots under 0.5MOA in my rifles.
I guess i'm looking for advice as to how to introduce the concept of individual load development without coming across as the "young" upstart. It's hard to discuss this stuff with people who have been shooting longer than me but who are wasting time, money and energy while advising younger shooters to do the same. One bloke about my age with a very nice rifle has never done any load development and i have watched his frustration in following this kind of advice over the last couple of years. I've offered him to come over to do some load testing but it is yet to happen.
Any thoughts?
Cheers