I prefer to mount a scope for any load development. I'm using the Arctic Fox mount on my SMLE but I really can't recommend it. It can be useful if you don't mind having to mess with it a bit to make it work. It removes my eyesight and sight picture from the equation at least, and tightens the groups so you can better see if one load tends to group better than another. For load development with iron sights I would just load ten to twenty rounds and shoot them. It should be enough to show if the load is able to toss all the bullets into roughly the same area, and enough to be able to make sight adjustments for.
To minimise recoil use a light bullet on a charge of whatever powder makes the most velocity-per-grain. The projectile mass is the bullet and the powder, so five or ten grains less powder with the same velocity can be felt. BM8208 or AR2206H are good choices for lighter recoil with 150gn bullets.
You can shoot iron sight load development at 100m, but it requires a significantly larger aiming point. I use insulation tape to make diamonds for aiming at, a 100mm diamond should be big enough to see clearly at 100m, but a couple more strips will enlarge it if required. When you have a load sorted make different size aiming points and shoot at them all. You will likely find that your accuracy drops off below a specific size aiming point depending on your own eyesight.
I do a lot of practice, offhand open sights on half-scale silhouettes. I also cut out the silhouettes on paper and stick them to MDF sheets to minimise the contrast, as you would expect to find under field conditions - a white target on a black background, or vice versa, gives too much contrast for useful practice. But sometimes trying to clearly see the target can be very difficult, particularly the turkeys at 75m. Yesterday while I was practicing with the Henry .22LR lever I also tried the JW25A with a scope. So much easier to see the targets, but so much harder to hold "steady" when you can see every millimetre of movement
I wouldn't get caught up too much on trying to get any degree of "precision" out of these things though, they were never intended or designed to put bullets into two-minutes, even with scopes, so any military competition you might want to shoot is likely to have reasonably large targets to aim at. The military targets have bulls of at least 2MoA I think.
http://www.aihpa.com/targets/HPR_targets.htm Vince24 wrote:Hi Straightshooter
I am not a native speaker so maybe I did not express that correctly.
By ladder testing, I mean the fact to try different powder loads, from mild to less mild, to see which one achieves the best compromise between accuracy, pressure and perceived recoil. I am quite new to reloading, but in all I have read, it's a classic!
And I am quite convinced of the usefulness of the process, having noticed very significant differences in group sizes from one load to another.
I shoot for the pleasure anyway, so I don't see it as a waste of time or money.
For each load, I do a group of 4 shots. I found it a good compromise. You can mess a shot and still have an idea of accuracy with the remaining 3.
Distance for the ladder test is 100 metres if the rifle is scoped, and
50 metres with the iron sights.
The reason for the 50m with iron sights is that it's the distance at which my eyes cope very well with the official 50 metre slow fire target I am using. If the group is bad, I know it's not my fault. At 100 metres however, the same target is too small and blurry for my eyes. I can stil do good groups at that distance, but less reliably.
Once I have established the best powder loads, I test the best 2 loads at 100 metres, then ideally 200 metres when I have time.
Anything wrong or to be improved with the whole process?
Given the differences I have noted between one load and another, I would not come to my mind to give up on ladder tests.
I am not a bench rest shooter, but I take pleasure in getting my very old toys to shoot well.
Cheers,
Vince