Overboard?

[Mitch@Ripley]

Hey fellas, got a bit of reloading ahead this week and wondering if it would be a little overkill?

So I'm loading up 180 .223 rounds with 1 projectile

There'll be 1 type of powder
1 Primer
6 Powder weights
3 Lengths (book, cannelure, 10thou off lands, all fit in magazine)
10 Rounds of each (5 shots "cold" with a few minutes between shots, and 5 shots "rapid")

I'll be using 55gr Hornady soft points, ADI 8208 powder, WSR primers and ADI/OSA once-fired .223 brass

[Cooper]

Yes a little overboard in my opinion. What happens in the accurate loads are right down near the minimum. You going to pull the rest?

I wouldn't do 10 of each. I'd probably only do 5. But if you want to go to the range and shot 180 rounds? Why not!

[juststarting]

I usually load 15 per experiment, which gives me 3 groups of 5.

Not overboard methinks.

But 180 is a lot of shooting. May start serving inconsistencies due to fouling, fatigue, heat...

[bladeracer]

Hey fellas, got a bit of reloading ahead this week and wondering if it would be a little overkill?

So I'm loading up 180 .223 rounds with 1 projectile

There'll be 1 type of powder
1 Primer
6 Powder weights
3 Lengths (book, cannelure, 10thou off lands, all fit in magazine)
10 Rounds of each (5 shots "cold" with a few minutes between shots, and 5 shots "rapid")

I'll be using 55gr Hornady soft points, ADI 8208 powder, WSR primers and ADI/OSA once-fired .223 brass

I wouldn't worry about lengths at first, start 10-thou off.
Monitor group sizes and elevation - your groups will probably move up the page as charges increase. Hopefully you'll find a "node" where vertical dispersion is minimal across two or three charge weights.
You want the best group size with the least amount of vertical dispersion across powder charges.
Make a bigger batch of that charge, and 0.2gn each side of it and test those for group size.
Once you've decided on the charge weight then you can play with seating depth.

[bigfellascott]

Yep wasted ya time rollin that many at once, certainly won't take that many to work out a load that shoots and if it does ya doin it wrong!

[bladeracer]

I forgot a tip, the Lee Hand Press is very useful in one particular way.
When you've loaded a bigger batch for seating depth testing, load them all at the longest length, then use the hand press to seat them deeper as you test them. Pushing them in is a lot easier than pulling them out 10-thou.
The Lee Loader is also useful for this but not as versatile as the press for me.

[Mitch@Ripley]

Haven't loaded them up yet haha.

Maybe do .2gr increments at 10 though, 2 5-shot groups

23.6, 23.8, 24.0, 24.2, 24.4, 24.6, 24.8, 25.0, 25.2, 25.4, 25.6, 25.8, 26.0 (25.6 is just over adi max)

13 loads x 10 rounds = 130

[Apollo]

Save yourself a lot of heartache. Don't do over max loads.

Set your seating depth at maximum magazine length or just on the lands if you can measure that as long as they fit in the magazine.

Do 5 rounds at minimum powder load to sight in / foul your barrel.

Do 4 rounds of each load, take your time and by no means let the barrel get really hot. Take a break, look at the best 3 shots in each group...forget what might be a flyer. You may see two groups that look good, one low in powder weight and one high. The low is most likely to give you the best overall long term reliable results. The high more inclined to go off tune in variable conditions. Pick one or both and fine tune next outing, like vary the seating depth shorter and again watch the best 3 shots.

No need to go overboard and waste.

If you start long seated then there is only one way to go, shorter to tune. If not, then how do you know which way will make an improvement.

If you are only using Hornady SP's then you are not using a premium grade bullet that's going to be super accurate so in my view your are wasting heaps of materials and going overboard in a big wasteful way.

In my .223R when I developed a load I used quality Berger 55gr FB Varmint, that's my Roo etc load for out to say 300 metres. Sub 1/2 MOA. I used 30 rounds to develop my load including fouling rounds... BTW...using ADI Benchmark 2.

I do have a more accurate longer range load using Berger 70gr VLD's and AR2208 developed for 300m plus.

Best of luck with it, try not to waste your barrel and/or components.

[in2anity]

Yep, treat your barrel as a consumable.