Quickload?

[Parabuteo]

I have had the odd bit of input from people with it, but as usual end up doing tests as much as if I had not go the info.

Sadly it cant tell you the individual variations and quirks of your setup which puts me very firmly in the "Test shoot and record" camp, and the same goes for electronic targets. I have seen too many people left washed up because they tested and established zeros on ETs that were not correctly calibrated.

I can see it having a use for fast establishment of an arbitrary safe start loads, but then you can get that from the powder manufacturers data and apply a bit of common sense/experience. I can see it being usefull IF you were developing loads from scratch for a lot of different rifles but even then. Its what people want I guess.

A recent example was a colleague banging on about a certain manufacturer not having info for a 155 but they had it for a 168. I just pointed out that if he used the 168 data with the lighter bullet he should have as good a safe start as any, which is what I did, and cracked load testing with 3 different bullets in an hour or so. OK, I was fixed for COAL as the rifle was mag fed, silly velocities were not a requirement, and sub 1 MOA was perfectly good enough for the application. I was shooting with a 4x scope mag rested anyway so sub 1MOA is perfectly good enough.

Like most things, its what you are happy with but personally, holes in paper win out for me

[223AI]

I have had the odd bit of input from people with it, but as usual end up doing tests as much as if I had not go the info.

Sadly it cant tell you the individual variations and quirks of your setup which puts me very firmly in the "Test shoot and record" camp, and the same goes for electronic targets. I have seen too many people left washed up because they tested and established zeros on ETs that were not correctly calibrated.

I can see it having a use for fast establishment of an arbitrary safe start loads, but then you can get that from the powder manufacturers data and apply a bit of common sense/experience. I can see it being usefull IF you were developing loads from scratch for a lot of different rifles but even then. Its what people want I guess.

A recent example was a colleague banging on about a certain manufacturer not having info for a 155 but they had it for a 168. I just pointed out that if he used the 168 data with the lighter bullet he should have as good a safe start as any, which is what I did, and cracked load testing with 3 different bullets in an hour or so. OK, I was fixed for COAL as the rifle was mag fed, silly velocities were not a requirement, and sub 1 MOA was perfectly good enough for the application. I was shooting with a 4x scope mag rested anyway so sub 1MOA is perfectly good enough.

Like most things, its what you are happy with but personally, holes in paper win out for me

It does come in very handy for cartridges that don't have any or a great deal of load data for such as my .223 AI or my 25-45 sharps, to inform both best powders and safe start loads. (Thanks Guesty for all your help on both of those)

[Parabuteo]

It does come in very handy for cartridges that don't have any or a great deal of load data for such as my .223 AI or my 25-45 sharps, to inform both best powders and safe start loads. (Thanks Guesty for all your help on both of those)

Fair

[o2bmark]

I like it a lot. Good for looking for optional powders and running "what if" scenarios. It is somewhat of an art to use it effectively and requires calibration. I usually fire a few test loads over the chrono and then adjust the data to match my rifle. From that point on program tracks really well and gives me a much better idea of chamber pressures being generated. All things considered, it is an astonishing bit of kit. I do use optimal barrel time which works with most but not all of my rifles. I really like sitting in front of a boring TV show and playing with QuickLoad. It has really aided my understanding of ballistics and made me a much better reloader. You will probably have to read or watch a lot of tutorials to get you up and running effectively.