Konrad's journal of Highpower Rifle Competition

"Mental Focus. Not Equipment Hocus Pocus."


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Load Development

 

Short answer: I have never done load development.

Longer answer: I have never had any interest in "load development". It seemed to be the opposite of what I have been trying to achieve. That is, executing each shot as best as I can. Shooting from a bench is fine when you're plinking but it's not nearly as enjoyable as actually working to make yourself shoot better.

Besides, I just asked the shooters that were winning matches what loads they were using in their rifles and copied that. Seemed easy enough.

Updated longer answer: With the advent of optical sights in highpower, the relationship between the shooter and his equipment, and the relative performance limitations have changed. The rifle's sighting system used to be a limitation in the shooter's ability to shoot small groups. Now, scopes have reduced that limitation. As a result, the shooter can transfer more of his marksmanship skills to the target. We can see this with smaller and more centered groups.

Before optics, decent ammunition didn't expand the size of these groups. Now, the groups may have shrunk to a size where even decent ammunition produces variables that potentially expand the size of the group. The question is whether the effort to improve that ammunition is worth the incremental decrease in group size. I'm still trying to answer this question.