Beginner question: good results with other's recipes?

ggiddy said:

I'm new to reloading and I've been binge watching johnny's reloading bench and the mk262 clone series. what worked well for him and his white oak barrel is 25.2grains of accurate 2520, cci41, 77gr smk, and lake city brass. assuming the rifle and the shooter can do 1moa, if i duplicate his recipe can i expect the same results with a different barrel like criterion or larue or are his results what his specific barrel likes?

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Start at 24.8 and work up. You end up somewhere between there and 25.3. Im at 25 flat with LC brass, 77smk and Rem 7-1/2 srp. Do it right and it will group and fly identical to mk262 mod 1 in your rifle. Barrel is irrlevant as long as its a good barrel.

Obviously you'll have to work up to it just to make sure it's not over-pressure in your system. However, if all your rifle components are quality and your reloading process is good, it should shoot fairly well.

ggiddy said:

I'm new to reloading and I've been binge watching johnny's reloading bench and the mk262 clone series. what worked well for him and his white oak barrel is 25.2grains of accurate 2520, cci41, 77gr smk, and lake city brass. assuming the rifle and the shooter can do 1moa, if i duplicate his recipe can i expect the same results with a different barrel like criterion or larue or are his results what his specific barrel likes?

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You should not expect the same results as there are so many various things involved working in concert to get a result. . . like a major one being that chambers and barrels can be very very different. You could use his recipe as a place to start. . . loading up cartridges with a series of powder weights going from one side to his weight to the other side and see what you get. Always be sure the powder charge you use falls within the recommended range published by the bullet manufacturers.

There is some version of load development process in probably 1000 threads on this web site.

What I do with a new cartridge:

- Find a good reloading manual and note the charge weight range for the bullet you want to fire
- Create a ladder starting somewhere in the bottom half of the charge weight range and incrementing up by .2 or .3 grains per step. I create five rounds of each.
- Go to a range and fire them, starting at the lowest weight and going up. Let the barrel cool somewhat between groups. Use a chronograph to measure velocity. Borrow one if you don't have one.
- Find the couple or few groups that give the lowest SDs on velocity

Note that this does not tell you which one will work, but it tells you which ones for sure won't. That's why you pick a couple/few that might work and go to the next step.

Go home and prepare for validating (or invalidating) what you chose

- Go to the range again, this time with 15-20 rounds loaded for each of the couple/few groups you selected above.
- Validate that they either are still good with their SDs or not. Choose the one that's best.

Go home and prepare for seating depth development

- Load up a bunch of rounds at the charge weight selected above but seat the bullets at different depths. Start at like .010" off the lands and move up at .003" increments. Load 3-round groups.
- Go back to the range and see what seating depth gives the best group.

Go home and prepare for validating (or invalidating) seating depth.

- Load up 15-20 at the best seating depth then validate that it still groups.

Yes, this is a lot to go through, but when you want to go for 1-hole groups, it works.