Tuner brake and reloading

[irishlad]

I was at the county range this morning testing some 6.5 CM loads. There was one other person there( a nice guy). He came over and he asked me if I knew what a tuner brake was. I told him yes, but had never used one. He told me he was a pretty new to reloading and was working up a load for his 308 and using a tuner on the rifle. I was under the impression the tuner brakes are for factory ammo. I thought it was counter-productive to be doing both. Or am I being silly thinking that. Thanks

 

[AJC1]

It's a way to change barrel harmonic timing. Can be used with any ammo

 

[irishlad]

It's a way to change barrel harmonic timing. Can be used with any ammo

I understand what it is. But why use one when reloading. Doesn't it make more sense to develop an accurate load without it?

 

[AJC1]

I understand what it is. But why use one when reloading. Doesn't it make more sense to develop an accurate load without it?

It's just another step in development. It can also help in changing conditions once the load is developed

 

[Varminterror]

I was at the county range this morning testing some 6.5 CM loads. There was one other person there( a nice guy). He came over and he asked me if I knew what a tuner brake was. I told him yes, but had never used one. He told me he was a pretty new to reloading and was working up a load for his 308 and using a tuner on the rifle. I was under the impression the tuner brakes are for factory ammo. I thought it was counter-productive to be doing both. Or am I being silly thinking that. Thanks

Not knowing your age - many cars used to have two sections to the frequency tuner knob. One section would crank very quickly, while the other section of the knob was geared slower for fine tuning - turning the fast section let you cross the frequency span quickly, but it wasn’t great for honing in on a clean signal. The fine tuning section was made for that purpose. Turning both, sometimes that kind of radio could reach out in rural areas and pull in stations which might have otherwise been “staticky,” or not really come in at all…

Reloading behind a tuner is kinda like that - it basically gives us a tighter control, because we can fine tune our harmonics with two independent methods. So we find our load node, then tweak ever so slightly with the tuner and we have even better control overall.

A couple guys I know will even bring extra ammo to adjust their tuner the morning of a match, or will record settings for different temps or DA’s to be able to hold in the middle of a node as weather changes.

 

[mdi]

Using one would/should be able to enhance the accuracy of any load. Go through your normal work up process then take your most accurate handload and make it better. Waaaay more advanced for any reloading/shooting I do...

 

[Kaldor]

Not knowing your age - many cars used to have two sections to the frequency tuner knob. One section would crank very quickly, while the other section of the knob was geared slower for fine tuning - turning the fast section let you cross the frequency span quickly, but it wasn’t great for honing in on a clean signal. The fine tuning section was made for that purpose. Turning both, sometimes that kind of radio could reach out in rural areas and pull in stations which might have otherwise been “staticky,” or not really come in at all…

Reloading behind a tuner is kinda like that - it basically gives us a tighter control, because we can fine tune our harmonics with two independent methods. So we find our load node, then tweak ever so slightly with the tuner and we have even better control overall.

A couple guys I know will even bring extra ammo to adjust their tuner the morning of a match, or will record settings for different temps or DA’s to be able to hold in the middle of a node as weather changes.

This a genius explanation. Well said.

Finding that initial node where you get the right velocity and accuracy with the tuner effectively at zero is the "big knob" as @Varminterror suggested. Then once you have that where you want, you use the "little knob" to fine tune the harmonics of the rifle to bring that group in tighter.

Eric Cortina has a good explanation on YouTube about the do's and dont's. Well worth a watch.

 

[irishlad]

Waaaay more advanced for any reloading/shooting I do...

Me too.