Closing the ES gap, whats your secrect?

[CaNINE]

Been said that consistant hold and shoulder resistance has impact on es also.  I.e. firm vs soft .

It’s crazy stuff. I have seen ES and velocity change markedly just by altering where the contact point is on my front rest or loading my bipod differently.  Consistency consistency consistency.

[CaNINE]

One of the most important considerations is light and even neck tension.

You think light and even or just consistent neck tension between cases?

I haven’t run an experiment on it but my judgement tells me that light and consistent is better than heavy and consistent.  I want to minimize the disruption forces on the bullet as it starts it journey. I aim for 0.002” using an expander mandrel with dry carbon lube.

[actionshooter]

 I think a lot of the time our OCD takes over, myself included. Chasing the magical numbers is fine if you enjoy doing it, but I would rather get the load dialed to what's acceptable to me ( about .75" and 20ES) and then spend my time shooting.

This is a really god article..
https://precisionrifleblog.com/2015/04/15/how-much-does-group-size-matter/?fbclid=IwAR2VlxY3wk9l1tu64DAvrrVU5x7Fo-vxPmZxd59MVqCb_r6gnRBhNfhihkQ

[CaNINE]

Agreed. It’s easy to get up in the minutiae. 

[Magnum_Willys]

Agreed. It’s easy to get up in the minutiae.

There’s always a better load out there......

I draw the line at short range stuff tho.  Trying to shoot .2 vs .3 groups at 100 would drive me crazy.

[hogslayer]

Neck tension on the bullet should be consistent when using bushing dies.  Annealing every time and keeping track of them in firing order is important.  Neck tension (not seating force) can have a big influence on accuracy and es.  I test it often and it’s eye opening.  My 300 wsm shoots great with .004+ neck tension.   I have found that bigger cases seem to like less (338’s).  Usually either light (.0015-.002) or heavy (.004-.005) will work best.  Haven’t found a happy one around .003 that works well.
 Reloading is my hobby and I enjoy testing/tweaking stuff.

[Hilltop123]

Buy quality dies and buy quality brass and don't shoot cheap bullets like Hornady who have terrible lot to lot variances. Those three things will shrink ES to acceptable levels with no extra effort.  Before all the sweet new gun laws I used to do load development for people as a side hobby. Ive done workups on well over a hundred rifles. Good brass, good dies, good bullets 

OK, I can understand your dislike of the red box. I'm pretty sure you like the yellow box, so whats your opinion on the green box?

[jasnt]

Buy quality dies and buy quality brass and don't shoot cheap bullets like Hornady who have terrible lot to lot variances. Those three things will shrink ES to acceptable levels with no extra effort.  Before all the sweet new gun laws I used to do load development for people as a side hobby. Ive done workups on well over a hundred rifles. Good brass, good dies, good bullets 

OK, I can understand your dislike of the red box. I'm pretty sure you like the yellow box, so whats your opinion on the green box?

You could easily answer that for your self.  Pull out 10 bullets from the green box and measure them. Check the bearing surface length, total length, then weigh them. 

If your one that dosent like the yellow or orange box then you could look at the nosler.  Personally i hate em but I’m prejudice.

[Magnum_Willys]

I greatly prefer the SMK 300’s over the Bergers for terminal performance.  But the bullet to bullet and lot to lot variations force me to use the Bergers.

[TooTallMike]

In my(limited) experience


Having quality brass was the biggest factor in dropping ES and shrinking groups for me. I tried different primers, powders, bullets, searing depth/charges, and everything in between. But once I switched to quality brass I found multiple loads that were outstanding and beyond my capabilities

[Stein]

In my(limited) experience


Having quality brass was the biggest factor in dropping ES and shrinking groups for me. I tried different primers, powders, bullets, searing depth/charges, and everything in between. But once I switched to quality brass I found multiple loads that were outstanding and beyond my capabilities

 

I ran a test where I just sorted headstamps and tested 5 shot groups with each, keeping everything else the same.  It was by far the biggest factor in ES, more than charge weight, seating depth, crimp/no crimp, neck tension or primer brand.   RP cases had an ES of 55 and Wins had 17 and that was in a suboptimal load I later tightened down.  SD was 7.2 and 24 for those two cases.