Standard vs Match primers testing

[danptobin]

you would need some way of measuring pressure. a pressure trace will let you compare pressure readings from shot to shot i used a pressure trace like greg had on my 25 wssm and was able to compare the pressure readings from shot to shot. you would also need to make sure the powder all came from the same container as different lots of powder can vary slightly. you must also maintain a consistant barrel and air temperature. exact neck tension on the bullets would also be a factor. once the difference or lack of is proven on one powder and charge weight you would need to change the charge weight by a small amount and see if the results stay the same. then reapeat the same increment and direction of charge weight change and do so multiple times. then do the same with multiple powders just to be sure that the results are true in general or just in certain situations. all in all cci200s are hard to beat. not always the best with every load but so far always good with ever load

[versifier]

I agree with Dan. I think first off if you were going to do it right one would need an extremely accurate .25MOA or better benchrest rifle, a chrono for velocity, a strain gage for pressure measurement and graphing pressure curves, one lot of power, very carefully weighed and sorted cases, weighed and sorted Berger or Sierra match bullets, a lot of patience to let the barrel cool after each shot, and a laser thermometer to double check it.

Then you might be able to see something meaningful with a hundred rounds of each.

And then like Dan says, you'd want to try another charge level and another powder. (Not sure what a pressure trace is, we may be talking about the same thing.)

Oh, and a woodstove would be handy too, so the Hornady manual would serve a useful purpose lighting it. I'm glad I never wasted my money buying one. I was merely non-plussed about the company before this and only truly negative about their die sets and One-Shot spray lube; now I no longer trust their loading data and I see no reason to consider buying or using any of their other products. Not that I have ever been into buying patent-expired copies like their presses and powder measures anyway. I am still looking for someone I dislike enough to sell my HDY 6.5TCU die set to, but no one I know who shoots is enough of an a$$hole that I would wish it on them. Oh well.

Guess I'll never be asked to review any of their stuff now, huh?

[danptobin]

now now vers their corlokt sorry interlock bullets are cheap decent and available in calibers and weights remmy doesnt offer.

[Hellrazor]

Now now.. no reloading manual has been all that great since the great lawyerism regime came along. It is hilarious comparing books and min/max loads. I have some older books showing max loads way over todays for the same powder.

[versifier]

I'm just being publicly disgusted, that's all.

I have been asking myself for years why I should buy the red box when it costs the same as the green box or the black box and the cup&core bullets in the green and black boxes are made to tighter tolerances and notably more accurate in most of my rifles? So I haven't been buying them. Maybe if I shot more jacketed bullets these days I'd be willing to cut them more slack, but I don't. Especially now since the prices have risen along with everyone else's to absolutely outrageous levels with no improvement in quality or accuracy.

Unless I want to load for the Carcano, you have me there. No one else makes the right diameter, but in my rifle even the correct diameter bullets don't shoot much better than standard .264's or my or cast .266 bullets, 8" vs 10" groups. It will live in the safe until I trade it off.

Me too HR, but at least in the other manuals I have (Lyman, Sierra, & Nosler - Lee uses others' data and always needs to be triple checked) the science mostly is, well... science. Not wishful thinking. The methodology and testing parameters are clear and explained.

As to those amazing variations in published data we all marvel at, I have always been one to look up a load for a new-to-me cartridge in as many sources as I can find and compare them all first before I come up with a test ladder. And then I set up the chrono to check what actually happens in my rifles at each charge increment, always a good bit different than any of the various test rifles used to work up the published data. Like you, I have also been loading long enough to remember when the data all got lawyerized back in the 80's. And sometimes there have been actual changes in the powders themselves, too, so it's not always just the lawyers. Multiple current sources are the best deal on life insurance there is, even if some of the data is watered down a bit. They do have to protect themselves from the natural tendencies of morons to blow themselves up unsupervised, and the possibility that Bubba-Sue might have been a bit hungover or otherwise distracted when she entered their test data into the charge table for publication. (Also the reason why I ask everyone to be very careful about they way we post actual charge weights here for jacketed loads.) If the rifle is at its most accurate with hotter loads I am mic'ing cases and working up loads in warmer weather anyway just to be safe. Some of my rifles seem to have read those older manuals, but I will generally try other powders before going with a near or over published red line load and am perfectly happy with a slower but still acceptably accurate load. No dead critter has ever remarked about a few hundred fps difference as long as the bullet was correctly placed. Targets don't complain no matter what, you just measure the groups, check POI vs. POA and adjust your sights accordingly.

But I think the real issue here for me is one of trust. I like to be confident that what is printed in my loading manuals (simple human data entry error notwithstanding) has been carefully thought out and thoroughly tested, with enough rounds fired so that the results generated are statistically meaningful. To find out they printed such fertilizer and continue to defend it as meaningful fact over twenty years later (as proven clearly by their reply to Kirbydoc) is a bit too much for me. It's like if I learn later that someone I thought I could trust lied to me in the past, then I have to reevaluate everything else they have told me in the light of that lie, and then everything else they tell me after I find out needs to be confirmed elsewhere before I accept it. "Bubba Science" instead of the real thing when they could so easily have done a meaningful test blows that trust.