So though I have reloaded a lot I have never really tried to fine tune my loads for a rifle. I just loaded up a known working loaded and didn't try to make it better. As I prepare to build my 6GT I want to make it the most accurate load I can. The magneto speed sporter is $180 vs the $340 for a v3. The majority of my shooting will be done suppressed as this will really just be a plinking rifle and sometimes maybe hunting. My question is since the sporter model isn't really supposed to work with a suppressor I was planning on finding velocity nodes without the suppressor on and finding seating depth with the suppressor on. Then once I have a good combination of the two shoot without the suppressor to get SDs and ESs then run with the suppressor. Other than taking more rounds when I go to new ranges to check velocities and Zero because one would be without the suppressor and one with the suppressor is there anything else I should consider that makes saving that $160 not worth it? Thanks everyone.
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Load Dev and Magneto Speed
- Thread starter Mojo0254
- Start date
Pretty easy to spend $160 in ammo swapping things. Considering you’ll spend as much or more in extra ammo over time, I’d much rather have the v3 display box.
My magnetospeed sporter works with my supressor. I Just turn the sensitivity on high but have heard where it didn’t work for others. Never used the V3 but the display is better and the bayonet mount looks more robust. I agree that saving the 160$ isn’t worth the chance on the mount breaking and it not working with a suppressor.
Here’s my issues with going on a chrono: good numbers don’t mean it shoots good.
If I were to look at numbers only from this particular day in excel there is zero way I would focus on the 40.4. Yet for multiple weeks now the 40.4 is showing to be the center of its happy spot. (It’s had decent numbers in prior weeks, but the recoded velocities are sometimes flukes and not fully representative of what’s actually happening)
If I were to look at numbers only from this particular day in excel there is zero way I would focus on the 40.4. Yet for multiple weeks now the 40.4 is showing to be the center of its happy spot. (It’s had decent numbers in prior weeks, but the recoded velocities are sometimes flukes and not fully representative of what’s actually happening)
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Solid logic here ^^^^^^
I have always used this approach where I let the results on target determine what works best.
Recently I watched a video from Mr Cortana which suggested that his approach is to use the chrono to find the best numbers (38.9 in this instance) and then tune with seating depth. He states this will give the best overall load (low SDs & good accuracy when the correct seating depth is found) and ANY load can be tuned with seating depth.
I have never really played with seating depth but I have a new rifle to play with and this has got me thinking - has anyone else used the approach mentioned with success?
Yeah lots. My issue is that the sample sizes are just sooo small that these ES/SD numbers dont mean anything other than that they are a tiny statistical population. The ES/SD results can swing round, sometimes wildly within the statistical range that they actually exist inside of.
But what shoots good, shoots good. Plain and simple. The numbers are there just for a bit wider perspective. I know that it was going this fast to enter into my calculator etc.
Here is from my initial ocw on the virgin brass. Its basically backing up the above test I shared showing the 40.1-40.4 is a fine shooting area, at least no more egregious than the 38.9 area. But look at the numbers. The ~40.4 is just as good as the 38.9 in this test according to the SD numbers. Small samples sizes.
What Ill do now is actually bracket the charges around 40.4 and shoot 40.2, 40.3, 40.4, 40.5, 40.6 on paper at 500 yards and make sure that there isnt something funky and egregious going on between the lines. If it makes good groups around the size of my 3" target paster at that distance I call it good.
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I have found this to be objectively true but some still insist that they find MV flat spots (meaningful data) with just a few shots.....but, some believe that the earth is flat too so there is that.
We talk about SD/ES as though they'll move around, but it's more accurate to say that they will typically only increase the more data you accumulate. This is particularly true of ES, since it can never get smaller as you add data, only stay the same (if the new data fits inside the prior bounds) or increase (if you have a new data point outside the prior bounds). Take note of shots that are outside the bounds that you've previously recorded; odds are, those shots are closer to the true ES bounds than the few shots recorded on a prior string, unless some other variable has changed significantly (temp being the classic example, but different powders have vastly different response curves to temp changes).
ETA: Sorry, that was something of a tangent. OP, I too looked at saving money on the Sporter, and have never regretted owning the V3. Honestly, I usually forget there was a cheaper option available at the time, and never remember what I paid lol; however, if I was having frustrations with an inferior product, that would be a splinter in my mind that would never let up. Also, since you're just getting into the MS world, I would advise shooting for groups at distance without the MS attached, rather than 100 yd groups with it on. Velocity is useful as an additional pressure sign, but as others have observed in this thread, performance on target at distance is your best indicator of the "best" load. Frank et al. have made a really strong case for reverse-engineering a ballistic solver's outputs by doing the following:
- Zero at 100 yds
- Plug in a very rough estimate of MV in the solver
- Shoot out to 600 yds and observe the required elevation to center the group on the POA
- Adjust the MV in the program until the predicted DOPE matches observed requirements (NOTE: you need to ensure you've entered accurate environmental info for the actual conditions you're shooting)
This process eliminates issues associated with positive/negative "compensation," which is a theory that states there are some barrel dwell times that are best or worst for your particular load (stated differently, the fastest bullets come out of the muzzle when the "whip" is at its lowest, and the slowest bullets come out at the top of the "whip"). This theory may explain what @spife7980 is talking about with his 40.4gr load, but if you only looked at MV from the chrono, you'd never know that was happening.
On top of all that, the MS definitely messes with POI. Some (including David Tubb) believe that this effect is consistent enough to adjust for; I'm of the line of thinking that says if something messes with my external ballistics, I don't want it affecting the data I'm using for decisions. So, I get MV with one batch of the load to get an idea of where I'm at in the pressure range for the cartridge, and then go shoot groups at distance to decide which charge weight to use.
Good luck!
ETA: Sorry, that was something of a tangent. OP, I too looked at saving money on the Sporter, and have never regretted owning the V3. Honestly, I usually forget there was a cheaper option available at the time, and never remember what I paid lol; however, if I was having frustrations with an inferior product, that would be a splinter in my mind that would never let up. Also, since you're just getting into the MS world, I would advise shooting for groups at distance without the MS attached, rather than 100 yd groups with it on. Velocity is useful as an additional pressure sign, but as others have observed in this thread, performance on target at distance is your best indicator of the "best" load. Frank et al. have made a really strong case for reverse-engineering a ballistic solver's outputs by doing the following:
- Zero at 100 yds
- Plug in a very rough estimate of MV in the solver
- Shoot out to 600 yds and observe the required elevation to center the group on the POA
- Adjust the MV in the program until the predicted DOPE matches observed requirements (NOTE: you need to ensure you've entered accurate environmental info for the actual conditions you're shooting)
This process eliminates issues associated with positive/negative "compensation," which is a theory that states there are some barrel dwell times that are best or worst for your particular load (stated differently, the fastest bullets come out of the muzzle when the "whip" is at its lowest, and the slowest bullets come out at the top of the "whip"). This theory may explain what @spife7980 is talking about with his 40.4gr load, but if you only looked at MV from the chrono, you'd never know that was happening.
On top of all that, the MS definitely messes with POI. Some (including David Tubb) believe that this effect is consistent enough to adjust for; I'm of the line of thinking that says if something messes with my external ballistics, I don't want it affecting the data I'm using for decisions. So, I get MV with one batch of the load to get an idea of where I'm at in the pressure range for the cartridge, and then go shoot groups at distance to decide which charge weight to use.
Good luck!
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So I know many will tell me I'm wasting my time but well it's my time, gun, and rifle and I figure if anything I still learn from this. My plan is to take the first 100 rounds and zero the rifle and then just practice at distance with a lighter load as the barrel will still be speeding up. Then take those once fired brass and use some of them to determine a seating depth shooting groups at 100 yards. Then take that seating depth and load up 15 rounds at .1 grain increments and look for the Velocity flat spots. From there I will load up the rest of the once fired brass and shoot a 5 shot group at 100 yards and just confirm a good SD/ES and tight group at 100 yards. I will shoot at distances until I have 200-250 rounds. Then I will verify all of my data by shooting to 300 yards then 600 yards to verify DOPE/MV. Then shoot at 1000 to true my BC. Then take that data and shoot groups at 300 and 500 yards.
I'm amused that you want to save money on the Magnetospeed but are approaching the rest of the reloading process with a "I'll waste what I damn well please" attitude. You forgot to mention money, btw; every live-fire trigger pull costs money on top of everything else you mentioned, as has also been noted by others in this thread.
Listen, not trying to be a prick here, but you've said this is your first rodeo with tuning a load. Many of us have wasted significant amounts of time, effort, and money doing things that were either inefficient or utterly useless in this process, between the range and the bench, and you're being offered insights into how to avoid doing the same. If you're already dead set on your whole process, then sure, go for it, and that's not even what you asked to begin with in fairness.
To answer your original question: a dramatically better UI, more sensitivity options, a cord that's less likely to get damaged (and is cheap/easy to replace if it does), compatibility with suppressors/rimfire/competition-contour barrels, data logging, onboard statistics with shot deletion, and an available adapter for mounting on a pistol picatinny rail are lots of reasons to go with the V3. Just the user interface alone is worth it, because there's nothing worse than loading up a single ladder's worth of ammo then losing data after you've driven however far to the range and having to re-do the whole process. Take it from someone who knows. Add to that the fact that you want to run a suppressor, which will change your MV, and I think you have your answer.
Listen, not trying to be a prick here, but you've said this is your first rodeo with tuning a load. Many of us have wasted significant amounts of time, effort, and money doing things that were either inefficient or utterly useless in this process, between the range and the bench, and you're being offered insights into how to avoid doing the same. If you're already dead set on your whole process, then sure, go for it, and that's not even what you asked to begin with in fairness.
To answer your original question: a dramatically better UI, more sensitivity options, a cord that's less likely to get damaged (and is cheap/easy to replace if it does), compatibility with suppressors/rimfire/competition-contour barrels, data logging, onboard statistics with shot deletion, and an available adapter for mounting on a pistol picatinny rail are lots of reasons to go with the V3. Just the user interface alone is worth it, because there's nothing worse than loading up a single ladder's worth of ammo then losing data after you've driven however far to the range and having to re-do the whole process. Take it from someone who knows. Add to that the fact that you want to run a suppressor, which will change your MV, and I think you have your answer.
I apologize I thought I had posted this before. Based on everything everyone has said I agree getting the V3 is worth it and the route I'm going to take. I am interested in your opinions about my statement on load development though since you brought it up.
What would you like to hear more about? Fair warning, you ask five reloaders and you'll get five different answers lol
It is, the v3 is a good choice.
Its just the "velocity flat spots" which dont actually exist.
As far as opinions on the load “development”, (I mean this in the least offensive way possible) what you will be doing is the equivalent of putting charge weights on a pin wheel, spinning it, and loading whatever it lands on.
There are exactly zero shooters who have been able to provide long term chronograph data which shows consistent flat spots exist.
However, there are thousands who have shown long term data which shows that they don’t exist.
I’ll never discourage anyone for doing their own test with an open mind. However, you’re going in with a bias that you’re looking for flat spots. You’ll find one (unless you run a statistically significant amount of shots, then you won’t. Which is about 30 rounds) with the pin wheel. And because components and rifles are so good, it will “work” because the difference between a good and bad load now is not enough for most shooters (especially steel and such) to notice.
I realize asking a reloaded an opinion is like asking opinions on barrel break in. Just any critiques you have on my plan. I’m all ears. Like I said I’m learning so I try to take in all opinions and then formulate from there possibly a combination of things.
That makes sense. I mean even loading 5 rounds the same one round may be 20 FPS faster so it is in part like you said a luck thing and not as much true data.
Yea the other thing I have read is choose a charge weight and find a seating depth that works for that weight. It will find a seating depth that eventually works.
Tagging onto what @Dthomas3523 is saying, there's a growing body of evidence that velocity "nodes" don't really exist, in that they can't be repeatedly demonstrated at a given charge weight, or across a given set of identical charge weight ladders. So, there's a growing group of people who are starting to abandon that approach, and either just pick a speed to target, such as reloading manual maximum, or look at mid-range performance on target to determine an OCW. Many of the top long-range shooters out there do currently subscribe to the theory of positive/negative compensation, which is another reason to look for your OCW on target rather than across a chrono, since barrel harmonics might effectively "cancel out" variations in MV across a limited MV range.
I'm actually working up a load right now, and I'm trying out Scott Satterlee's approach, which is to rough in a seating depth first, using a "safe" charge weight (you can use manual minimum, or manual "middle" if you like), then run a powder ladder after. Specifically, I did 0.010" increments of increasing jump, starting with 0.040" and going up to 0.100", looking at group size and impact location. This was just at 217 yards since that's the max my local range can offer, and the reason I jumped so far (as opposed to "kissing" the lands up to say 0.020" jump) is some recent tinkering that Satterlee and Mark Gordon of Short Action Customs, among others, which suggests that longer jumps offer a more stable seating depth (i.e., resistant to accuracy issues from erosion of the lands causing your depth to get "out of tune") and longer barrel life. I'm frankly quite fed up with tinkering with load dev, and am hoping this new barrel will dial in quick using this prototype method, and that I won't have to screw with it halfway through the barrel life.
Anyway, so after I checked seating depth and decided on 0.100" (much better group than any other, but similar average POI as 0.070-0.090", I ran a quick powder ladder to look for pressure signs, just a single round at 0.4gr increments (6.5CM, so those are ~1% increments). Never saw sticky bolt lift, but the amount of powder compression was getting pretty up there towards the top of my ladder and I started seeing light ejector marks around 2750-2800 fps so that's my cap (happens to correspond to Hornady's max speed, I'm shooting their 140gr HPBT because it's cheap, I don't need top-flight accuracy and I could actually find the damned things during the pandemic). Now I've loaded up a ladder in 0.2gr increments up to the charge that showed ~2800 fps, and I'm gonna take 'em out to 600 yds to observe group size and average POI elevation ("DOPE") to feed my ballistic solver an average MV (this is Frank's method, makes a lotta sense to me after chasing velocity nodes). My biggest concern with this next step is my own ability to shoot good groups at 600yds haha, but we'll see how it goes.
One thing I've learned multiple times over, though, is to always load up a few spare rounds before I head to the range. If I'm doing a ladder, it's spares of the lowest charge weight (in case I get surprise early pressure signs); with seating depth, it honestly doesn't matter so I pick either the least or the most jump. These are sighters, and I need them because I move my scope between rifles regularly, and I hate using up what should've been actionable data just getting on the freaking paper. I also draw up charts with columns and rows for all the info I care about in my reloading book beforehand, because it saves me tons of range time and I'm also less likely to forget a critical parameter if I do it in advance. For example, for my 600yd day coming up, I'm tracking the following:
- Environmentals
- Wind direction and speed (average is fine)
- Dialed elevation for each charge weight group (since I expect to have to dial down as charge increases)
- Average POI elevation (i.e., dialed elevation plus target center offset) for each charge weight group
- Vertical spread for each charge weight group
- Horizontal spread for each charge weight group
- True DOPE for each charge weight group
- Calculated average MV for each charge weight group (back-calculated using the ballistic solver)
- A sketch of each charge weight group (shape matters, even distribution is best and I don't have one of those target photo apps like Ballistic-X since my phone is too old, but if it wasn't I would absolutely get that program)
- Notes for each charge weight group
I also loaded up five sighters of the lowest charge weight, in addition to the five rounds I'll use for the "score" group.
I agree with your plan to break the barrel in with virgin brass; Satterlee has noted that his barrel didn't speed up when he ran tons of jump, but that's just one barrel and anyway pretty much everyone agrees that once-fired brass is better to work with than virgin, plus you can get comfy with the rifle before you start shooting groups that you'll make decisions from. I wouldn't worry about SD/ES, honestly. There aren't a ton of things you can do to reduce them, you've likely already decided which ones you'll do and which you won't (such as annealing, sizing with a bushing or honed FL die, choosing top-tier brass and bullets, and choosing a temp-stable powder), they have a lot less effect on your ability to hit steel at longer ranges than most people realize, and also you'll lose all your hair if you stress about chasing single-digit SDs. Powder increments of 0.1gr seems pretty small, and depending on your scale, that might be better than it can consistently measure anyway; on any mid-sized case, including your 6GT, I would personally (others might disagree) say that 0.2gr increments is as fine as it's worth going, since your ES at any given charge is likely bigger than the average change caused by a 0.1gr powder change. I like the rest of your plan.
There are tons of ways to skin the cat, and I know I've typed out a novel here. If I were to give any advice at all (now that I've given a ton), it would be this: decide what accuracy level you are after before you start, don't pursue nitpicky crap beyond what it takes to achieve your goal, look for ways to simplify your process unless you want reloading to be your only hobby, and always take a few extra sighters with you to the range haha.
Finally, PRB has written some really great articles lately that run directly counter to some very popular conventions in the shooting world, specifically the jump testing stuff and the "Does It Really Matter?" series. Here are links to those, if you can at least believe what the DIRM series is telling you (tiny ES, tiny groups, and hot-rodding a load don't help very much) then that alone will save you a ton of headache.
Hope this helps, and ask any more questions that strike you!
Whoops, forgot the links, here ya go:
precisionrifleblog.com
precisionrifleblog.com
Bullet Jump Research: Executive Summary & Load Development Tips
This is the last post in a series of articles focused on bullet jump research that has been conduct...
precisionrifleblog.com
How Much Does It Matter? Overall Summary
As long-range shooters, we tend to obsess over every little detail. After all, we’re trying to hit r...
precisionrifleblog.com
This was great. Yea the video Satterlee did with the Lily’s on YouTube is what had me focus on seating depth first. I didn’t think of the .1 grain change still being less than an ES could be so thanks for pointing that out. As much as I would like to anneal and trim brass to get longer life out of it I can only buy so much at once so annealing will have to come later. In the end yes my goal is consistent .5 MOA groups. I don’t need anything better than that really. Thanks again for all of the input.
You're welcome! To clarify, 0.5 MOA groups at what range? Because it should be quite doable at 100 yds with that cartridge, a good rifle setup and solid fundamentals, but out at 300+ yds that challenge goes way up and ES starts to become a major factor.
At 100 yards. At 300 I’m hoping to hold .75 and hoping for 1 MOA beyond that. At the end of the day I’m taking a PVA prefit and putting it on a terminus Zeus putting all the parts made by great machinist and gunsmiths together myself. Essentially trying to make a great shooting rifle that I don’t really need any special tools myself for. I do have a fat wrench and a 65 inch pound torque wrench but I don’t consider those too special.
