Curious what those of you who are experienced reloaders thought about the video in the load development course about ladder testing. Agree? Disagree?
How can i get to those videos? Are they on the Backfire tv website?
Yep. On the Backfire.tv website, just click courses, then pick the load development course. Hope you enjoy it.
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Agree 100% Jim. Ladder test always struck me as statistically not valid. I’ve similarly done averaging, with multiple shot load development and get a very smooth curve. There is a multitude of variables which makes it prohibitive to take all into account. The consensus on some blogs was consistent POI - smallest groups.
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Hi guys, For years I have used ladder testing on every gun I own.
Every barrel is uniquely different and to get the best from your barrel you must learn what it likes in powders and bullet seating depth. One can reload to save dollars or to shoot the most accurately from that barrel. Maybe this is a old school idea but if so please enlighten me on how to tune my rifle without a ladder test Bench rest shooter have been doing it forever. I find bullet seating to be the most critical between the two and start there.
What were your thoughts on the video showing that the ladder test for powder charge simply doesn’t work?
I have a worksheet in the load development course with my process for load development.
Still going through the course but yes, the ladder test struck me as iffy. I just tried it with a variation on my 6arc. It was two shots instead of one at each grain. I also used 3 different bullets(two shots each). They were 105, 107 and 108 gr. from different manufacturers. There was one load that was consistent in accuracy AND velocity, Though the 105 was a bit faster. Used that concept to try to narrow down and will do 5 shot groups of all three bullets and 1/10 grain increments, 29.4, 29.5 and 29.6. I haven’t gotten to the load development training from Jim, yet.
In this video, the guy use a rigorous statistical analysis to show how truly useless load validation via ladder testing is with 5-shot sample size (or 20 shot or 100 shot).
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To quote Ed McMahon: “You are correct, sir!”
and the video is spot on. The ladder test is, statistically, so unreliable you could just write 6 loads on paper, roll a die, and go with load # that matched die # … statistically just as reliable to pick the “best” load as with the ladder test.
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It’s just amazing to me how many very skilled top-ranked shooters are still putting so much effort into doing it when it makes so little sense.
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Humans in general find false correlations in everything. Everything. Scattering tea leaves and reading them will give as good a result.
Hey Jim, really liked the course. I know I’m late to the show but the only thing I thought it was missing was a discussion on where to go after your “default” starting load. For example, if you load up the default and it shoots ok but not quite where you want it to be, what variable do you start to change and why? Charge weight? Seating depth? At what point do you pick a new powder? New bullet? Just felt like the load development left me at the starting line instead of teaching me how to get to the load I want.
Good question. I’d test the same bullet at 30 60 and 90 thou off the lands and see how it performs. If that isn’t yielding results, I’d try different combinations of bullets and powders.
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I’d love to see it!