SmallCaliberCentral

Bangflop wrote:I found that the bullets seated to 2.312OAL strung out laterally at the range today. I had the same load seated to 2.325OAL and that brought them together to a half inch! These were 24.5 grains of Reloader10. The 25 grain loads performed well at 2.312OAL sub 4's! ....go figure. Looks like I will stay at 25 grains and play with seating depth for now. I was thinking of trying IMR8208 but that reloader10 really works. Thanks for all.

Simple rule not cast in stone

Horizontal stringing move bullets further away from or out of lands.
Vertical stringing move further into or closer to the lands.
Most shooters would recommend adjusting powder charges also. Horizontal back off. Vertical add more.
Personally I've found just the seating depth to have the greatest effect. Then tweak powder. Then retweak seating in small increments. How much tweaking is done depends on how much accuracy you desire.

Google "Secrets of the Houston Warehouse"
Interesting read on accuracy related issues designed mostly for entertainment value.
Theres a short excerpt in there explaining "the rule".
Found that article when I first started loading. Tried that rule and it works most of the time. Its been very helpful over the years.

Always a good blind test to see "is it the load or is it me?": Test the same recipie several times, day-by-day over a week's time.

... and if you are ignoring the wind, you are doing yourself an awful injustice and about to cause yourself a trip to the rubber room . I'll only do laod tests on dead calm or close-to-it days now. 'It took 900 rounds (literally) for me to lear that lesson...

Not that I am an expert bench rest shooter or anything but that one load is the only one that is stringing laterally. I can use more practice for sure but have shot for over 45yrs.. I just think it isn't coincidence. Still thanks alot, this site pushed me to own the .204 and sure glad you guys did! My loads have also been started with the input from this site and probably saved me alot of time and cash.