Planning your load dev.

[jLorenzo]

How many bullets do you budget out for developing a new load?
How to you separate your brass and track firings?
Generally I like to do brass in batches of 100, lately I finding that I only use 40 or so rounds to develop a new load so those 40 end up having a extra firing compared to the others and need trimmed at a different time. If you have 100 pieces of brass and 40 of them have an extra firing on them does that make a difference in overall performance?
Just curious as to how other budget out their components and plan out their load development.

 

[spife7980]

Just don’t reload those 40 until all the rest are shot and do them together at once. It’s easier than it sounds lol

I test until I find a load that proves its worth a damn, shoot that in the remaining brass and then size it all as the single batch it is instead of arbitrarily only doing a few of then at a time.

 

[ChrisGarrett]

I’ll usually start out with a set combo and a box of 50 rounds. I’ll then vary the powder charge and load up 15, 15, 10 and 10 and just see what I see on paper.

Chris

 

[straightshooter1]

How many bullets do you budget out for developing a new load?

I think you'll find it really depend on how extensive one's load developing process is, huh? Not everyone has the same goals when they're reloading. For me, it's typically somewhere between 50 and 100 for developing a good precision load. So, I guess you'd say 100 is what I "budget" for.

How to you separate your brass and track firings?

I keep each batch of brass in a container and within the container I'll keep the fired brass separate from for the non-fired brass (kept in a plastic freezer bag). Along with the brass in the container, I keep a log with the dates, stages of process, measurements, number of firing, etc. for that batch of brass.

If you have 100 pieces of brass and 40 of them have an extra firing on them does that make a difference in overall performance?

Each batch of my brass is not processed until all in the batch has been fired.

Since I anneal after every firing, I see no difference in overall performance if some have an extra firing. But I don't have or use a way to distinguish which has the extra firing or not. If any in the batch have issues (split necks, separation indications, loose primer pockets, etc), I just ditch to whole batch and move to another batch (a batch that's not virgin).

If one is not annealing their brass, there could be some difference in performance at some point when there a one firing difference. Whether that difference is significant enough to really be an issue depends on one's particular shooting discipline or how much importance is placed on that difference.