"Testing" vs. "practice shooting" saga

I think I get it. I buy a gun, like last time my dan Wesson PM-9. I did some testing to find out what it likes and does not. I loaded a few powders and different bullets. Found out real fast it does not shoot lead well, or plated. I also found out it likes max loads.

After a bunch of loading and testing from a bench, I was getting tired of all the bull and just want to practice shooting bullseye. I also shoot steel pins with that gun. Different load, or more like a good place to get rid of the oddball extras that I did not need to pursue testing. I finally settled on 4 loads that all shoot just over an inch for 5 shots at 25 yards.

Love it, now zero it and shoot.

Then I bought a Dan Wesson Valor in 45. Starting over again. Its kind of cold here to be screwing with the crony, but in the end I will have some good loads and am NOT buying another gun for a while so I can just enjoy these.

Load development is not practice to me. I have refined my bench shooting techniques with pistol.

Once I have what I am looking for I load up 500 to 3,000 to keep me supplied for hopefully a year.

David
 
I used to do a lot of testing. Now I do mostly shooting (for fun, no interest in competition). I found loads that shoot well in my revolvers in a variety of powders. I have my everyday 'goto' powders, but have many 'fall-back' choices if for some reason my goto powder is not available. Works for me. That said, occasionally a powder will perk my interest and I'll buy a pound for testing. But nothing 'hard-core'. In fact this year I don't think I tested at all that I can recall! :eek:
 
I need to stop buying new guns. New guns is the devil ! New gun = more handload testing = missed opportunity for just "fun" shooting.
 
Like 5whiskey I'm a "good enough" reloader. I determine the velocity I want to achieve and the accuracy level. Once I find a load that consistently meets that standard I load however many I need and transition to shooting that load in field positions.

This may bring groans of dismay but if a load for a deer rifle will group into 1.5 MOA for me, I'm satisfied. That will easily bag a deer at 300 yards. Further fine tuning for me is a waste of components that I could be using for practical practice that will pay off in the field.

For those who enjoy pursuing greater precision or just experimenting, that is justification enough. We all win in our own way.
 
Like many handloaders I have a deep passion for consistency and precision. I am constantly in the hunt for that specific gun's "magical combo". I load 18 different calibers and thus far have 966 loads tested and documented. I keep saying to myself "I need to spend more time practicing than testing" Yet seems most of my range trips is spent testing a "new combo".
Click to expand...

See it with several friends. They want to shoot to get better at shooting, but then get into reloading so that they can shoot more and then shooting turns out to be a way not to get better as a shooter, but better as a reloader. It might have been fine if folks could manage to find something that works and just run with it, but it seems that once most start, they just need to keep tweaking and it becomes a never ending addiction, LOL.
 
I shoot to empty brass for reloading. Cleaning, measuring, weighing, sorting brass feeds my OCD. Throw in some Quickload with barrel times and I can tweak for months. Dead set on getting 55gr bullets @ .09 per to shoot like 69gr match bullets. Grew up shooting bolt action and am challenged by AR15's lack of accuracy.
Did rattle off 80 rounds of 8x57 last week through a Yugo48 in order to use up my last bit of IMR4064. Wow! 8mm is like handling artillery shells compared with .223 Rem. Was really enjoyable blasting away at 50 yards with no chrono to mess with.
 
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