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How do you work up a load for different distances say from 200 to 800 yards military rifle cals.

The load data shows start and max loads, COL and other stuff….but how far will the round travel for your shooting needs?

Is there a formula or anything I should be reading that would explain the theory behind this.

This is for cast as well as jacketed rounds hand loaded.

I have read the work by CE Harris and Mattern on cast boolits.

Is it just a simple check on a ballistics program?

Ta

Chris

There are plenty of ballistic tables and calculators across the net.

A quick search should reveal most if not all.

It helps if you know the ballistic coefficient of the bullet.

Just making sure it was as easy as a ballistic table

...you know how I like to over complicate things !

Like Dromia said, it helps if you know ballistic coefficent for this. I would also recommend measuring your load over a chronograph if possible, otherwise you'd have to use the published velocity from your load data. This should be an approximation at best because your rifle, brass, primer and bullet may actually be different from the published load and can have some effect on the velocity. I've used the Hornady ballistic calculator for my .223 and .308 (despite using Sierra and Lapua bullets) and they were quite reasonable out to ~900m or so.

I worked up my 1k F Class load by:

1) Talking to Ovenpaa over a cup of coffee and Quickload. With all the data for the bullet and powder input and some estimates made on COL, he gave me a range of loads to try.
2) I loaded a number of each of the loads and took them to my local range, shooting groups of each (minimum three) at 200m to see what grouped best and recording the muzzle velocity of each.
3) After looking at the groups, I picked the load that grouped the best and input the data to a ballistics app to see if it would stay supersonic out to 1000 yards. Happy that it did, I shot it that distance and it worked.
4) Retire home for tea and medals.

The only problem I have now is re-doing the whole thing with bullets other than SMK2156s and TR140. Also without a local Ovenpaa for coffee and Quickload.

User702 wrote:I worked up my 1k F Class load by:

1) Talking to Ovenpaa over a cup of coffee and Quickload. With all the data for the bullet and powder input and some estimates made on COL, he gave me a range of loads to try.
2) I loaded a number of each of the loads and took them to my local range, shooting groups of each (minimum three) at 200m to see what grouped best and recording the muzzle velocity of each.
3) After looking at the groups, I picked the load that grouped the best and input the data to a ballistics app to see if it would stay supersonic out to 1000 yards. Happy that it did, I shot it that distance and it worked.
4) Retire home for tea and medals.

The only problem I have now is re-doing the whole thing with bullets other than SMK2156s and TR140. Also without a local Ovenpaa for coffee and Quickload.

Sounds vaguely familiar, of course the trick is to chrono your loads otherwise its a bit guess work. Oh and the other thing is never to let Ovenpaa use your chrono,

20series wrote: Sounds vaguely familiar, of course the trick is to chrono your loads otherwise its a bit guess work. Oh and the other thing is never to let Ovenpaa use your chrono,

There's a story there somewhere!

WelshShooter wrote:

20series wrote: Sounds vaguely familiar, of course the trick is to chrono your loads otherwise its a bit guess work. Oh and the other thing is never to let Ovenpaa use your chrono,

There's a story there somewhere!

Lol oh you could say that

http://www.full-bore.co.uk/viewtopic.ph ... hronograph

My experience of QuickLOAD is it's very accurate when compared to any chrono work I've done. Worth every penny IMO.