Is 100 yard testing a waste of time for long range loading?

[Bayourambler]

As time goes by and I spend more time,money and effort handloading rifle cartridges, I am coming to the conclusion that if my goal for a specific round is to play around and shoot targets at long distances, why test them at 100 yds? Lately I have been loading for my 260 Remington project, and there are loads that looked promising at 100, and failed at 300 yds. Now , I realize that many people don’t have access to ranges over 100 yds, and I understand. For me , when I walk out of my reloading room, I can jump on the golf cart and shoot any range I want. The gun I’m messing with will hardly be shot at 100 yds ,so why test at 100? I’m I the only one that feels like this? Or is there more to learn shooting 100 yards? Do any of you just skip testing at 100?

 

[troy fairweather]

As time goes by and I spend more time,money and effort handloading rifle cartridges, I am coming to the conclusion that if my goal for a specific round is to play around and shoot targets at long distances, why test them at 100 yds? Lately I have been loading for my 260 Remington project, and there are loads that looked promising at 100, and failed at 300 yds. Now , I realize that many people don’t have access to ranges over 100 yds, and I understand. For me , when I walk out of my reloading room, I can jump on the golf cart and shoot any range I want. The gun I’m messing with will hardly be shot at 100 yds ,so why test at 100? I’m I the only one that feels like this? Or is there more to learn shooting 100 yards? Do any of you just skip testing at 100?

it is always best to test at the range u do most of your shooting get on paper at 50 or 100 yards then test at your desired range.if windy keep it closer in but the wind helps with testing to in that u can see hat bullet bucks the wind better.

 

[Slamfire]

I shoot a lot at 100 yards, primarily because at my local gun club, walking to 200 yards takes too much time. However, now that I have access to CMP Talladega, I am zeroing my rifles at 100 yards locally, then get to CMP and shoot out to 600 yards if I fancy. Generally, I am shooting out to 300 yards with my hunting rifles. I do have some good 600 yard strings with hunting rifles, but, I am of the opinion that 300 yards is a long way, long enough for any game shooting that I might ever do.





I was able to check a cold bore zero at 300 yards, very gratifying to hit center with the first shot, using zero's established on a previous shooting session.



The rest of the story.



This pre war M70 has proven itself to be an exceptionally accurate rifle, all things considered. Overall, you have to shoot your rifle at the distance you want a zero, and, you have to shoot it with the load you plan to use, lets say, for hunting. I read all the time in Gun Magazines about 600, 800, 1000 yard shooting, about the ability of someone to just line up and let go, and hit whatever they are aiming at, without established zero's. This is nonsense. Book values will not put you in the middle. At best, they will put you in the black, but that could be feet away from the middle. Bullet drop and trajectory are not precise, there are little differences from book values even close up, and you have to establish this. The further out you go, the worse it gets. I got to tell you, trying to hit the 600 yard target with my 35 Whelen, with 200 grain round nose bullets, that was an eye opener. It took lots more elevation than I had ever used in any 30-06 round, and the accuracy was awful. I would not have known if I had not tried it on paper.

Still, because of the convenience, I will still be doing a lot of 100 yard shooting.

 

[murf]

so you can compare apples-to-apples when you work up a load, or change calibers. you still have to check your bullet drop at distance because ballistic charts get you close and 100 yards is a good starting point for most types of rifle shooting. if everyone tests at 100 yards, it's easy to compare notes with others on forums like this, or read about load testing on the internet, or in gun magazines.

luck,

murf

 

[Toprudder]

I'm no long range expert, so keep that in mind with what I am about to say.

I do all my load workups at 100 yards. I am pretty much limited to shooting 100 yards if I want to use paper targets. I also use a chrono, and I think a chrono is absolutely necessary if you are doing most of your initial work at 100 but plan to shoot further. You can have a tight group at 100 yards, but if the velocity spread is large, then that will translate to vertical stringing at longer ranges.

The range where I am a member has a 500 yard steel range (targets every 100 yards from 200-500) and a 1000 yard steel range, starting at 300 yards. They don't paint the targets often, and I have a really hard time telling where I hit the targets, so if I really want to know how tight I am grouping I can bracket the shots by aiming just inside or just outside the edges of the targets.

Before I ever shot past 100 yards with a rifle, I did a lot of work at 100 yards to find a load I was happy with (20" 223 AR). When I did venture over to the longer range, I was very happy with the results. I think I must have done something right.

If I were able to shoot paper at 300 yards, then I might do load workups differently. I think a ladder load with one round of each charge will allow me to zero in on a smaller charge range with fewer shots. As it is, at 100 yards, I feel I need to shoot at least 3-5 rounds of each charge (OCW method).

 

[FROGO207]

Things do change at different distances but I start at a baseline distance and find something accurate then extend the distance to see if things are still good tweaking things as I go. I would never consider going to the range with never before tried loads and try shooting them at 600 YDS first thing. I should think that starting close first thing will at least get you on target with that new propellant or weight bullet, after that I could see stretching it out to longer distances quickly if that is the only distance you will be shooting. FWIW a good load that is stable over a wide range of temperatures and velocities up close seems to be just as good at longer distances from my past shooting experiments. If anything, the longer the distance the narrower the accuracy window seems to get. Still I never have experienced worse accuracy up close with an accurate distance load --but I usually only shoot 350 YDS max.

 

[243winxb]

Short range -100 yd testing for me. Less sighting error. Wind flags at 25 & 50 yds. help.

I pick a day with no or lite wind. Overcast with no sun to avoid heat waves in the 36X scope. A heat/mirage shield over the barrel helps.

When the 20 shot average is under .5" @ 100 yds, then move to 300 yds. This is the maximum distance available. Berger bullets in 68 & 90 gr match for groups.

Used a 6x18 variable on the 243 Win for woodchuck, crows to 425 yds, using some hold over. Zero was 2" high @ 200 yds. 85 gr Sierra 1530.

The farm is now shotgun only area. Miss the good old days.

Edit add- A 1000 yd competitor tests a 6mm Dasher at my club. Only seem
him shoot at 100 yds.

 

[jmorris]

I am coming to the conclusion that if my goal for a specific round is to play around and shoot targets at long distances, why test them at 100 yds?

If it’s not doing you any good, I’d quit wasting the time and money.

 

[Varminterror]

The 100yrd zero - AND THE OCCASIONAL CONFIRMATION OF SAID - is still very significant, even for an LR or ELR rifle. The zero is the foundation for all shots at ranges beyond, so if your zero isn’t rock solid and on center, everything else at range will be without hope.

Windage zero becomes increasingly difficult to establish, the farther out you try to zero. I like to zero my windage with a given load at an indoor 100yrd range, in fact. It also gives you an opportunity to confirm scope alignment more effectively - if you’re on center at 100, then a quarter inch right at 50, a half inch left at 200, and an inch left at 300, you know that’s reticle cant, not wind.

Equally, if you’re shooting a MOA based scope, your elevation can be within a 1/4” at 100yrds. If you do your zero confirmation at 400, is your group still small enough to be sure you don’t have an inch of wind or elevation to dial, instead of wind, imperfect range read, velocity error, BC error, incorrect wind call, mirage, pod-hop, etc...

If you only spend your time shooting long, too much gets lost in the weeds of a larger groups.

There’s also a coaching principle which lives in the idea of shooting bugholes at 100yrds is a means to confirm trigger discipline. When we shoot at 600yrds, some folks will feel just as good about a 5” group as they do a 4” group, but one is a .8moa group, one is a .65moa - if that’s all in shooter error, it would reveal itself better at 100yrds.

Don’t burn out your barrel at 100, but spend enough time confirming your 100yrd zero. I usually shoot my 100yrd group during my velocity check. 10 shots to be sure I know where my powder is running and my zero is good.

 

[Chuck R.]

I develop at 100, due to the lesser effects of environmental conditions, IE bad group VS. missed wind call.

I test and evaluate at distance, luckily I have out to 547 yards off my back deck. Usually IF a load is grouping well at 100 and it has decent chrono stats, it doesn't come unhinged at distance.

 

[Blue68f100]

For decades all I had access to was a 100 yrd range. I did all my development at 100 yrds. If the groups were solid and consistent I always called it good. Did not have access to a crony or longer range back then either. Moving forward and testing after I put my 300 yrd range in, the loads developed at 100 were good at 300 yrds. I still do all my workup at 100 yrds before moving to 200 or 300. So far I've had a couple of loads that did not shoot as expected at the longer range. It came out being the powder was NOT temp stable causing the problems. This did not show up at the shorter 100 yrd range. Hopefully this year I will be able to shoot at longer ranges and see how they preform. But were I hunt at 100 yrds covered every thing well.

 

[Captcurt]

I always check my loads at 100 yards first. When I get my groups under 1 MOA I start checking at longer range and see if they stay under MOA.

Any change in load needs to be checked at longer range. The first acceptable load that I had for my Creedmoor shot dead on with the Minute marks in my Vortex scope from 300-500 yards. It was H4350 pushing a 129gr Nosler ABLR. I switched to the 143 gr. ELD-X over R-17 and shot high, slowly climbing to 6" high at 500 yards. I still scratch my head over this. Was it the difference in BC or something else? Both loads were initially sighted in at 100 yards. You would think that the heavier bullet would have more drop, but not in this case.

 

[Bayourambler]

I had some time to work with my rifle a little while yesterday and was hoping to shoot at 300 to test, but wind was too high. So yes, the wind has to be pretty flat to test with meaning at that range. I ended you shooting at 100 near a tree line to block the wind. I still don't understand why some bullets will shoot great at 100 and not work out farther out. I was loading 140 barnes matchburners and got a few groups between .5" - .8" at 100. Choronograph showed sd of 7 on 10 shots. Shoot it at 300, 4" group. I'm about to give the chronograph away!! I think its some junk! Same thing happened to my 308 , showed sd's in the 20 something range. that load shoots a 7" vertical at 1000 yds. I guess you get what you pay for...

 

[Nature Boy]

I perform all my load development at 100 yards, them move to longer ranges to validate it. If I do it right they usually work.

Here’s my .308 test. This is the load that I use in 600 yard F/TR matches. This test was performed at 100 yards.



What you do is compare adjacent groups looking for the least amount of vertical deviation. In this case it’s between 43.3 and 43.6. Also note that the average FPS also shows the least amount of change between these two charges. That’s a good indication that this is the accuracy node. In this case I split the difference and went with 43.5g

Next I’ll take that load and do a seating depth test



As you can see, the group knot up nicely at 0.000 and -0.030 off the lands. I picked 0.000

Then I’ll take the load to 500 yards (the limit of my home range) and shoot 20 rounds to validate.



Although I’ve only been competing for 8 months in F Class, this load made me a High Master in my first 4 matches. Not only that, my daughter started going with me 3 months ago and she earned her High Master in three matches. Last month she shot a 596 with 22 X’s using this load.

Put that in perspective. That means that she put 56 out of 60 rounds inside 1 MOA (6”) at 600 yards and 22 of them were inside 3”

All with a load I developed at 100 yards

 

[dh1633pm]

I site in at 25 yards. I then use a calculator to get me to 100. Why, 25 yards is a shorter walk than 100 yards. I then move out to 200 yards. I then make a dope sheet for the rifle with clicks at 25, 100, 200, and for some I do 300 yards. With a known load and a crono, I can get it close at all yards. Not an expert here, but I have found something that works for me and gets me on the paper close to where I want to be. Dope sheet is printed and taped to the ammo can. Electronic info in saved in my phone.

 

[Bayourambler]

I perform all my load development at 100 yards, them move to longer ranges to validate it. If I do it right they usually work.

Here’s my .308 test. This is the load that I use in 600 yard F/TR matches. This test was performed at 100 yards.

View attachment 798703

What you do is compare adjacent groups looking for the least amount of vertical deviation. In this case it’s between 43.3 and 43.5. Also note that the average FPS also shows the least amount of change between these two charges. That’s a good indication that this is the accuracy node. In this case I split the difference and went with 43.5g

Next I’ll take that load and do a seating depth test

View attachment 798704

As you can see, the group knot up nicely at 0.000 and -0.030 off the lands. I picked 0.000

Then I’ll take the load to 500 yards (the limit of my home range) and shoot 20 rounds to validate.

View attachment 798705

Although I’ve only been competing for 8 months in F Class, this load made me a High Master in my first 4 matches. Not only that, my daughter started going with me 3 months ago and she earned her High Master in three matches. Last month she shot a 596 with 22 X’s using this load.

Put that in perspective. That means that she put 56 out of 60 rounds inside 1 MOA (6”) at 600 yards and 22 of them were inside 3”

All with a load I developed at 100 yards

That's a clean, simple explanation to your process. The success you have here speaks volumes. Thanks for sharing that with us! How much do you rely on your chronograph numbers?

 

[Kaldor]

That's a clean, simple explanation to your process. The success you have here speaks volumes. Thanks for sharing that with us! How much do you rely on your chronograph numbers?

The FPS number isnt that important except for figuring out how much you need to dope your scope for a particular distance. The important numbers are SD and ES which are what contribute to your overall accuracy. If your ES and SD are good with an accurate load at 100, then chances are it will be just as accurate at extended ranges.

The only real caveat to shooting at longer ranges is that wind becomes way more of an issue and can take what was a great 100 yard load and make it look like trash, thus this causes you to doubt the load and or your skill. There are exceptions to that rule obviously

 

[Nature Boy]

How much do you rely on your chronograph numbers?

It's another data source that I find it indispensable. Sometimes, but not always, you'll see the speed flatten out at the same place where the vertical flattens out. That's a verification that you found an accuracy node. Also, it helps to know your speed so you can plug it into your ballistics calculator. You can back into it for sure, but it's nice to have the empirical data

 

[Blue68f100]

I always check my loads at 100 yards first. When I get my groups under 1 MOA I start checking at longer range and see if they stay under MOA.

Any change in load needs to be checked at longer range. The first acceptable load that I had for my Creedmoor shot dead on with the Minute marks in my Vortex scope from 300-500 yards. It was H4350 pushing a 129gr Nosler ABLR. I switched to the 143 gr. ELD-X over R-17 and shot high, slowly climbing to 6" high at 500 yards. I still scratch my head over this. Was it the difference in BC or something else? Both loads were initially sighted in at 100 yards. You would think that the heavier bullet would have more drop, but not in this case.

RL-17 is one powder that is very temp sensitive. If I recall it was near 2 fps/deg. I had some in the 6.5 CM too, I started blowing primers with a 35-40 deg temp change from when I developed the load. I've started shying away from the RL powders for this reason. There fps/deg is greater than most others.

Edit: Found my sheet on fps/deg. RKL-17 is ~1.5fps/deg

 

[Bayourambler]

One thing I thought about that could affect my Imr 4350 loads is often I load them in my load room (70 degrees) and walk outside to shoot them in 100 degree heat right away. The first one is shot within a minute and the last mybe 5 minutes later. I doubt that could have that much of an effect?

 

[Bayourambler]

I shot this load a couple of days ago one 5 shot group at 100 and the other at 300. Sd on these strings was in the 20’s. I think my chrony is not very reliable.

 

[Varminterror]

How much do you rely on your chronograph numbers?

You didn’t ask me, but that’s never stopped me from answering before, why stop now, right?

Chronograph doesn’t mean much if you’re shooting shorter ranges and at the same size targets every match, and especially if your match offers sighters at the target range that day.

If you’re shooting longer ranges, velocity spread WILL reveal itself as vertical dispersion. If you’re shooting variable range, variable size targets, especially blind stages or unknown distance targets, velocity and consistency can be more important than any other aspect of your load.

For me, like @Nature Boy has sort of depicted in his recent threads, I check my load velocity before every match. Usually the day or two before. If I’m a little fast or slow, then I know where my data moves for the match. In most instances, I would rather have a 3/4” 100yrd group with an ES of 12 than a 3/8” group at 100 with an ES of 50 - the consistency in speed will manifest itself as more impacts at range than the extra horizontal spread will as misses. If I didn’t have s chronograph, I would unwittingly choose the smaller group and lose points.

 

[PWC]

Conventional wisdom to find the best load for a non-precision rifle means several powders and types of bullets.

I realize that ladder testing is best used to characterize rifles for long range shooting. However, Nature boy has shown here in post #14 that it is useful for 100 yds. Further, can't it be used for a non-precision rifle like a 03A3 or M1? It seems the greatest limitation for these firearms at 100 / 200 yds is that they don't have a scope to use to keep the same POA/POI for each shot.

Now, if each load had the bullet "colored" with a different color of magic marker, it would mark the target hole. If after shooting the target, horizontal lines were drawn thru each hole, wouldn't it be possible to 'group' each color for vertical spread (disregarding horiz spread)? I know, I know, shooter inconsistency on same POA/desired POI is the big problem, but if this variable can be kept to a minimum wouldn't it work?

What would be the best target to use at 100 / 200 yds that would be visible thru mil surps aperture (peep) sights?

I know you great Gururs of bugholes might be able to help or have alternative suggestions. Thanks in advance

 

[Charlie98]

and there are loads that looked promising at 100, and failed at 300 yds.

Question for everyone... Have you ever developed a load that shot great at say 300yds, but awful at 100yds? My theory is to start at 100yds as a reasonable test of it's accuracy and work your way out. I guess if you were developing a load for only 300yds or only 500yds, you could just start there, but I don't know how many people do that on purpose besides those shooting in competition. Unless there is some sort of ballistic anomaly I've never seen, if it doesn't do well at 100yds, it's not going to get any better at 300yds.

 

[Nature Boy]

if it doesn't do well at 100yds, it's not going to get any better at 300yds.

That’s been my observation too.