Adding weight to rifle for load development?

[Sogan]

About to do some load development on a lighter-weight rifle and I’m thinking about adding a decent amount of weight to the chassis, so it’ll shoot a little easier during the process. Will the load act the same once the weight is removed (if I can still drive the rifle in the same way) or should I shoot it how it is, if I want it to act the same for when I hunt etc?

 

[CK1.0]

I don't think that's a bad idea at all. IMO you should lock the gun in a vise if you can.

For most, "load development" is a Rorschach test, influenced by anchoring bias, availability heuristic bias, confirmation bias, belief bias, and self-serving bias... especially when without enough shots per group for a statistically relevant sample size (~30-100 shots per group), we all should know it's the monkey pulling the trigger that's the biggest variable involved.

Since nobody will ever burn up their barrel to get statistically relevant load development info when chasing the perfect recipe, doing whatever you can to remove the monkey pulling the trigger from the equation is never a bad idea.

 

[hlee]

There’s a happy middle ground between the Saterlee approach to load dev and generating enough data to support publication in a peer reviewed journal.

And, the argument that “load dev doesn’t matter” rests upon a shaky foundation of “well, we only tested the truck-axle-barreled heavy rifles shooting mouse fart cartridges that are used in PRS.”

This leaves a lot of room for a different set of observations from a light weight, pencil barreled, long action hunting rifle.

Nobody on the internet cares how your rifle shoots. Do enough load dev that YOU are satisfied with the results.

That said, I’m a proponent of “practice how you play” and would argue in favor of doing load dev on the rifle in the config it is employed “for real.”

 

[Aftermath]

There’s a happy middle ground between the Saterlee approach to load dev and generating enough data to support publication in a peer reviewed journal.

And, the argument that “load dev doesn’t matter” rests upon a shaky foundation of “well, we only tested the truck-axle-barreled heavy rifles shooting mouse fart cartridges that are used in PRS.”

This leaves a lot of room for a different set of observations from a light weight, pencil barreled, long action hunting rifle.

Nobody on the internet cares how your rifle shoots. Do enough load dev that YOU are satisfied with the results.

That said, I’m a proponent of “practice how you play” and would argue in favor of doing load dev on the rifle in the config it is employed “for real.”

Agreed.
Those that propose to shoot a "statistically relevant" number of rounds for load development often ignore their own advice when choosing a low Standard Deviation and Extreme Spread...both happen to be Statistics terms employed by the shooting community.
Shooting a system clamped down to the point it is now little more than a test barrel will react differently than a system that is experiencing recoil. Monkey on the trigger or not.
Again, plus one for "practice how you play".

 

[Doom]

About to do some load development on a lighter-weight rifle and I’m thinking about adding a decent amount of weight to the chassis, so it’ll shoot a little easier during the process. Will the load act the same once the weight is removed (if I can still drive the rifle in the same way) or should I shoot it how it is, if I want it to act the same for when I hunt etc?

Not knowing your load development process or what you actually need in terms of precision I can only make some assumptions. Barrel harmonics with a free floated barrel should not vary much with weight added to the chassis so you may be able to have similar results. It is likely that once the weight is removed the point of impact will change so you can expect a POA adjustment will be needed.

When you add weight you change the free recoil velocity and energy so it's highly unlikely you can drive the rifle the same way. You will likely see groups open up some.

If this is a hunting rifle only I'm not sure that doing a formal load development is necessary.