Catchy headline, I know. Fortunately it peaked your interest and you opened the post and it didn't send you cowering to a corner remembering nightmares of college and questions about somebody choosing two non negative integers X and Y and secretly writing them on two sheets of paper. The distribution of (X, Y) is unknown to you, but you do know that X and Y are different, with probability 1....
Anyway, I'm back from my corner now. So with limited reloading supplies, how comfortable are you with working up a load to a bullet manufacturer's maximum published load using minimal data points? For instance, starting 1 grain back on a 69 grain max load and working up from 68.0gr powder, looking at the case, primer and velocity. Good to go, then try 68.5 grains, again looking at case, primer and velocity. Good to go, then try 69 grains, again checking case, primer and velocity. Good to go - load up 20 and confirm zero and ballistics for your hunting rifle, monitoring each shot for pressure signs. That's kind of where I am at.
It seems 1 data point at a particular charge isn't the most reliable sample size, however, I figure the manufacturer has way more than that in their tests. Has anyone here experienced a serious issue (kaboom) loading a max published load, when taking care with proper loading procedures (published C.O.A.L., full length resize, published primers, newish (once fired) inspected cases, etc.)?
Anyway, I'm back from my corner now. So with limited reloading supplies, how comfortable are you with working up a load to a bullet manufacturer's maximum published load using minimal data points? For instance, starting 1 grain back on a 69 grain max load and working up from 68.0gr powder, looking at the case, primer and velocity. Good to go, then try 68.5 grains, again looking at case, primer and velocity. Good to go, then try 69 grains, again checking case, primer and velocity. Good to go - load up 20 and confirm zero and ballistics for your hunting rifle, monitoring each shot for pressure signs. That's kind of where I am at.
It seems 1 data point at a particular charge isn't the most reliable sample size, however, I figure the manufacturer has way more than that in their tests. Has anyone here experienced a serious issue (kaboom) loading a max published load, when taking care with proper loading procedures (published C.O.A.L., full length resize, published primers, newish (once fired) inspected cases, etc.)?