Visit my website for hardware and software that will help you achieve your competitive goals. www.ShootSmallGroups.com #appliedballistics #believethetarget #longrange
People like Bryan are far and few between. He exhibits a humbleness born of honoring the scientific method in his work. That means continually pursuing the falsification of a working hypothesis. We wouldn't be awash in so much misinformation and outright falsehoods If more people took this approach in their thinking. Erik, thanks for having him on the podcast.
Bingo. Too few people, scientists included, can leave their ego behind in the pursuit of the facts. Why try and fool yourself, the truth will set you free 😉
@@redrock425 you're right, and facts here are the results on the target and not stats that don't take in account the most important and unexplained factors. If you can't prove scientifically that barrel harmonics have an effect on accuracy, it doesn't mean that it has no effect on it.
Thankyou Erik and Bryan, great questions and discussion. This is a video that watching twice will double what you get from it. I have been watching Erik's videos for about 4 years and they are improving, like his shooting. It is hard to wrap your head about the statistical sample size issue when it is hardly practical to shoot the required sample size. I recently viewed Erik's video with the developer of the OCW method of load development. A key point was that OCW looks at average impact point more than group size. This seemed like an Ah Ha!! moment for me. Groups are made up of a vertical component and a horizontal component and I have thought separating these components was necessary. Another point made in the OCW discussion is that flyers are probably shooter errors or some other factor rather than the load, but still a real event.
Erik with a “K”! Very interesting dialogue. Bryan has made a career out of testing data, with more resources available. It’s probably why his shooting days are behind him. Moving forward I am keep those 3 aspects in mind; ignition, harmonics, and external ballistics. I’m going to be getting a 223 AI, and I can afford to shoot larger sample sizes with that 😂. Thanks again, Isaac
Minimizing cumulative variation is how you get a small group. That includes ammunition component variation, equipment variation (temp, mechanical positioning, barrel fouling, etc), environment, shooter… reduce these and you get the small groups.
It would be extremely valuable to run a test using the groups from a bench shooter’s gun over it’s life after everything has been locked (bullet, case, base charge weight). It would be interesting to see if the sd of 30% for group sizes holds up. If it does this is a very useful piece of knowledge. If it’s tighter than that, it would explain why bench shooters can ‘whisper’ to their gun. A more precision instrument would be much more sensitive to slight changes, i.e. - much less noise more gain to read the changes. This would explain why the guys the big data statistical types are unable to understand why their methods work. Their assumptions assume wide variability and therefore requiring large sample sets to pick up on small improvements. For example, if a gun that is a .25 moa had a standard deviation of 10% you could pretty easily measure a change to .4 moa because that would place more than 90% of the shots outside of the 99% confidence interval off of .25. You don’t need a huge sample size to confirm that you’re falling out of tune, 2-3 shots could reliably show that you’re out of tune. Then applying prior experience and knowledge you would be able to make proper adjustments and then be able to test that you’re in tune again with a couple of shots.
I always thought the barrel sped up because the copper fouling in the barrel filled, smoothed and even lubricated the barrel, up to a point, and would even increase pressure. Cleaning or removing any copper in the barrel would lose pressure and speed. These guys know their stuff.
There are no arc’s in cnc interpolation between two axis like milling an curve between x&y on a Milling machine. But here is a true arc made with a boring bar! Hence thats why you bore a engine cylinder and don’t interpolate one.
Takes: -Abrasive barrel conditioning keeps velocities down better and possibly(?) gives more constant velocities -loading the same powder charge led to fps increase of 200fps after the powder dried with desiccant pouch in the ammo can -H4350 has 0.8% weight gain from 30% to 60% humidity -Primers make big change to how the powder acts and affects MV SD/ES
I like to load some cast bullets. Then for the last shot I have one that is lubed with fine valve grinding compound. Then I cut slips in a 1/4" wood dowel and put multiple cloth patches with more fine compound and go with the rifling. For deep cleaning I pull the barrel and plug both ends with my fingers. I have a bottle of mercury I pour in and tip the barrel for an hour, then pour it back to reuse.
Okay I think I have a theory on why Bryan is right. You shoot 1,500 rounds with the same ammo you wear out the throat as well as the lands in the barrel. Throughout the life of the barrel the bullet is moving slower or faster through the barrel. So for instance when we “foul” out a barrel the pressure is increased and the barrel produces more speed throughout the life cycle of the barrel. This changes harmonics and if you figure out the effects of exactly how much wear causes these speeds and the speed increase then you can come up with a formula to adjust a tuner to be very reliable with group sizes. 100 rounds baseline my rifle starts to increase 45 fps. I clean and I lose 65 fps. My groups from 10 shots to 99 are .25” average while once I get over this 100th round I start getting .75” groups and 75 fps difference in rounds. I think that a barrel has a limit on how many rounds you can put through it before it starts increasing velocity and this is why the benchrest guys clean so regularly because they have a number of rounds they know they can shoot before this increase in pressure.
Pacnor polished barrel in 7MM never has copper fouled with Berger bullets. 20 rounds cleaned, with no deviation on clean bore shot to the next. Better on paper that on hide.
Maybe the bench rest guys understand that they can control the SD by constantly changing their ammo throughout the day as environmental conditions change
I don't care what my BC is, not one iota: it's only there to allow you to (very roughly) model the drag curve: if you can get me a personal drag curve then the BC is beyond superfluous! You can keep you BC at that point. I'm baffled that at that point anyone would be like "well, I have this personal drag model, but I'd like you average it out for me as a BC.
Eric, I love that you talk to so many people from various disciplines. So much of the info is compartmentalized by discipline yet we can all learn from outside our own bubble.
Still watching the video because I had to rewind twice so far to make sure I understood correctly. Thanks to both of you for this video. It takes a lot of intelligence, curiosity and a lack of ego to sit down and have an open-minded convo. 👏👍😎
Eric, the exposure you provide to us from the elites of the shooting sports gives us an immense opportunity to receive knowledge we would normally never have gotten without an untold amount of expenditure of funds at the loading and shooting bench. Thank you sir.
@44:00 The thing that kept coming to my mind is that there’s a point of diminishing returns in terms of barrel roughness and bullet velocity. That may also explain why velocity slows near the end of its life. Of course, I also like Bryan’s explanation for the bore size slightly increasing which may decrease friction and reduce velocity. Whichever the cause may be, his roughness explanation still makes sense to me.
Wow! By virtue of Government contracts, Bryan has experienced courses of testing that the rest of us are unlikely to ever achieve. Let's face it, who can blow off 1500 rounds of .308 every day for a week or so and not get excited about the cost? For the uninitiated, get a copy of MIL Std (Standard) 105 which is the government guidebook for quality control inspection and or testing. It lays out in text what Bryan is explaining in this video. What I just learned from Bryan is that I'm spinning my wheels weight sorting 22LR ammo because the small sample sizes I'm capable of are not sufficient to overcome the effect of natural selection. I'd need at least a hundred of each sample weight to have a prayer of learning anything from the testing. (Avg of each individual sample)
Thanks Eric. This series is turning out to be a gold mine of information, not to mention a ground breaker in moving shooters thinking toward a far more scientific & realistic outcome. I see your podcasts as well as Hornady, Litz & etc to be the tip of the spear in pushing the shooting community from the subjective to the objective way of thinking & determining an outcome. These podcasts will have a long term effect not only on individual shooters but the industry as a whole. Thanks again Eric. Great stuff. Looking fwd to the next interview.
Major take aways for me... There's a 30% allowable tolerance in group size. Fighting to get better than that as a recreational shooter is just banging your head against the wall. And... Now I understand why they weren't twisting barrels faster back in the day. From time to time you hear about certain cartridges "failing" because the barrels weren't twisted fast enough to stabilize the heavier bullets. Now I understand why. If you try spinning up an off balanced bullet too fast, it's just going to corkscrew on you. Once the manufacturing process was improved to provide better balance, you could then increase the twist rates.
Been hoping for this interview since the channel was started. It did NOT disappoint. (Except for being too short. ha ha.) Thank you Erik and Bryan for making this happen. Great conversation!
Eric the look on your face during the early part of this interview is priceless. When Bryan speaks people listen. 🤣😭🤣😭🤣😭 I’m not busting your balls either. The look on my face was the same😬😭🤣😭😬🤣 I was hanging on every word!!!!!!😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Thanks Bryan for bringing true knowledge of population distribution and statistical inference to the discussion. Like one of my stats teachers told us, "use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post, for support not illumination".😊
i agree i feel like he was tying to complete with him. eric, if you do another interview with bryan do us all a favor and STFU and let him talk. eric thinks he is more knowledgeable that what he really is.
I've always looked at things like everything is just another data point and the more you can put together the better informed decision you can make. This is why I love these podcasts so much you're taking info from every discipline and putting it out there for everyone which is amazing. Great video as always keepem coming brother!!!!
In my opinion, most shooters who've been in the LR/ELR shooting game for a long time aren't as open-minded as they'd like to believe. We have "our way" and that makes us feel good so we don't look for better ways. This is why I'm glad to see people challenging old ideas like Litz. After a while, the knowledge increases/changes, based on actual evidence, and newer shooters take advantage of this by not getting stuck in the "only way." The goal is not to have it all figured out, the goal is to be less wrong as Litz emphasized.
Yes, modern affliction to think anything old is wrong and new is good. Usually it's a bit of both. Too many "scientists" only interested in proving themselves right rather than testing the hypothesis, revising it and retesting. Lots of rumour, habit and superstition in shooting sports.
One more question, maybe?lol. With annealing, how many more reloads do you get verses not annealing. I admit that I am relatively new to this and haven't annealed yet. That is my next step in the process. I have to say with some brands of brass I get as little as 4 to 5 reloads (nosler) and other brands 10 to 12 reloads while not annealing depending on quality. Thank you so much. I am learning so much from your experience.
I am greatly appreciative of the interviews you do and the wealth of knowledge that is passed along to new shooters like myself and those who have been at it for awhile. I’m blown away by how far down the rabbit hole really goes !! Keep up the good work 👍🏾💪🏾
So I liked this podcast but I must say after reading Brian’s books and listening to his podcast for months now , we are dealing with a data driven shooter . For me this is beneficial because it deals with facts , tested facts . I think the best thing you can do is learn from proven consistent champions who love to share there information. The thing you have to determine is what ur trying to achieve. For me it’s hunting long range . So I need good cold bore , low ES and SDs . Good BC killing bullets at distance. So I incorporate some bench rest practices and ELR practices into my reloading and shooting. You need to pull form each discipline. Brian is scientific based data driven proven champion shooter ! Jack Neary is a proven bench rest champion . At 100 yards , SDs and ES s don’t matter, just groups . So u can’t take that load and shoot 800 yards . I did think Eric had small problem by trying to maybe disprove some of Brian’s scientific data driven facts ? Maybe do to the turner article in his book 🤔 Brian is a humble guy which goes along way with me . Here’s the proven data ? You don’t have to believe it , you can continue to thrash around spend hundred if not thousands on tools that aren’t proven to consistently work . Over all good podcast . These are just my opinions and you know what opinions are like !
Hello. I agree with you when you say that all depends on what you're trying to achieve, and the way is to understand which techniques are the best to do it. About tuners they work from what I know after using it in rimfire benchrest shooting for years. What isn't statistically relevant on 100 or 1000 rounds for Mr Litz can be relevant for benchrest shooters : 5 shots groups aggregates, load development based on 3 shots groups, positive compensation with barrel tuners and powder charge or seating depth tuning... Otherwise he could just try to prove them they're wrong by winning their competitions by only using what's in his books. Because they know that science just explains very few aspects of reality, scientists don't fear to admit the huge part of ignorance in our knowledge. Even if ballistics rules and chronograph stats explain a lot of things, to my mind it's a wrong way to try to explain everything with it, especially what he hasn't been testing yet.
Lots of new scientific brilliant theories every year. But no matter of how 'brilliant' it is, if a scientific theory doesn't say the same as reality, change your theory.
For me the comment "they try to attack everything at once, they are really confusing themselves" is 100% accurate. After I shot 1200 rounds in two and half months I decided to get into reloading and it was overwhelming. I just wanted to keep shooting at the volume I was but do it for cheaper. I had to slowly work on each piece of the reloading process. Now I feel much more comfortable with everything. Just need to get a damn lab radar lol.
I spent a month training for a six sigma black belt certification under a very accomplished statistician it was massively eye opening. Couple things I got out of it: engineers (like me) are not statisticians and we routinely make errors in data analysis and two, we rarely know all of the real variables or their impact on the outcomes… So my take on some of this is that bench rest types have experience that engineers and statisticians can’t find the measurements to explain and they don’t precisely know how to explain it…
Thank you both for sharing what many of us have been looking for ,information based on sound trails and years of experience... wow what a great pod cast..
I wasn’t sure about listening to a two-hour video, but it was certainly worth it. Thanks to you both. I am still puzzled about one thing that was mentioned here and I first read in volume III of Litz’s advancements in long range shooting book: How can external humidity affect powder that is contained inside a stout metal cartridge case that is stoppered with tight fitting bullet and primer? Mention was made of “leaky” cartridges. How does that occur? Are the bullets seated so loosely that air can migrate in and out of the case? Does change in atmospheric pressure due to weather conditions or altitude make that happen?
Ambient temp and altitude maybe? The brass heating up and offgasing from the air inside expanding? The higher drier your altitude the more its gonna wanna expand/depressureize the air inside the case like an airplane? Also the lower more humid altitudes causes a vacuum inside the case from the ambient pressure being more compared to where the ammo was loaded causing a strong vacuum in the case therefore the case will pull in moisture? Crack a fresh bottle of water in ambient temp put it in the fridge and it may shrivel up some, take it out of the fridge and let it sit and it will expand and youl hear it pop from it expanding, thats also happening to ammo but the world is its fridge lol
What Litz did not point out when Eric was asking about BC and software is that the G1 and G7 software is based on how a particular shaped bullet flies. The bullet used to develop the G7 curve has a 7.5° boattail 0.6 calibers long, a shank 1.45 calibers long and a 10 caliber tangent ogive. Unless your bullet is shaped EXACTLY like that, the equation will predict the wrong drop. It might get close, but it won't be perfect. A custom drag curve is developed for the specifically for the bullet you are shooting.
take note that when Bryan talks about velocity SD, he doesn't mention ES and that is because ES is not a valid statistic. If you want some measure of extreme spread add +/-multiple of SD to the average.
Thank you Bryan and Erik, Excellent topic. As I shoot Bench Rest from time to time , I use the frequent cleaning method, using solvents, during Load Development, in my Hunting Rifles. I shoot .270 Win AND .270 Weatherby mag most often. One range session is either 15 or 18 or 21 rounds as I shoot 3 shot groups. . Thats it, then clean that rifle. During load development, I, may go to the range twice a week, with one rifle. until I have the group size, I'm looking for , at the velocity I need for Hunting applications. Thank You both again for an excellent Pod cast.
Man! The last few days have been like Christmas! These podcasts have been popping up in feed... Seeing Erik interview Frank Galli AND Bryan Litz! Phenomenal stuff.
Bahaha finally someone made erik think "fuck maybe I'm not the best." Got really errogabt til Bryan said yeah in 17 I shot 3rd in the world 🤣🤣🤣 erik I watch this because of who you have on. You're just a bit to errogant for me boss. Humble up a bit
Let me start by saying my brain hurts from all this knowledge bomb being dropped! So much great info. But I can’t believe you did this to us!!!!!!!!! Lol😂 dang that was a cliffhanger like no other! I can’t wait for the next segment! Thank you so much and thanks for a great tuner break!
It's very cool how you don't have to be a scientist to understand everything Bryan says. Only the best of the best can articulate such topics in Layman's terms.
With regard to abrasive cleaners “smoothing” out the barrel….wouldn’t a copper jacket blistering down the barrel at 3100 fps also be pretty abrasive and smooth it out? That argument has always felt flimsy to me.
I think Jayden said there's about 54,000 data points, but I don't remember if it was in 100 or 1000 yards. This was in the hornady podcasts, I think #78. They used the radar and discovered the meplat relationship with BC by accident.
Maybe Cayen Wojck was talking about Radar derived Vs actual mathematical BC models is looking at Radar derived as the Radar takes into account the distortion of the bullet created by being fired through riffling and all that pressure. Thus the distortion changes the actual BC and that new BC can be calculated. . LoL, and you guys start talking about picking primers for a load, try even getting primers here in Canada let alone just willy nilly getting to chose from lots of different types.
I had a Remington 700 bdl in .223 that I bought barely used, meaning less than 500 rounds. It also came with over 90 reloads and the recipe. I pin wheeled targets at 100 yds. It was mounted with a 6 power Redfield wide field scope. Although, I kept this gun in great shape, I used it to hunt everything from gophers to deer. I never did completely clean the barrel and it never stopped shooting. It would shoot 3 shots in the bull that you could cover with a mercury dime. I could and did shoot multiple shots trying to to take out the lines of the bull. I was always successful when hunting antelope. Though I no longer have the gun, it makes me wonder if I could have made it better by a better job of cleaning.
Welp, I've been in the power industry for almost 40 years. I know things about the combustion process of VOCs that most engineering disciplines wouldn't even suspect. The easiest little tid bit to remember is simply that water increases in volume by 1600 times when it transitions to steam. I'm going to let everyone discover the rest for themselves 🤙
I think Bryan's point with the custom drag table is that you can more accurately determine dope when targets are at varied distances. Obviously it wouldn't be useful for a known and zeroed distance such as 1000yds. For prs when you need to hit a plate the first time this is much more convenient then doping @ 100, 200, 300 and all the way to 1000yds.
2 great shooters in one pod cast. nice to see them on the same stage. I have read 4 or 5 books of Bryan Litz most of the pages I had to read 2 or 3 times to get it but Bryan's knowledge has made me a great hand loader and shooter. Also I have put a lot of old wise tales about loading and ballistics to rest around the campfire.
And who is Bryan and what has he accomplished again? 🤣🤣🤣 Erik, you got too excited to give an introduction. In all seriousness, that is exactly why I subscribe to The Science of Accuracy!!
I’m wondering if the constant shifting of new loads helps to factor of the noise.. the high end I mean.. this subject is like looking into a black hole while wearing blinders… wow.. It’s like you can’t know what you don’t know..
Why can't you message the difference in bore volume between a new barrel and a used barrel? In a sense, the same way you can measure case volume. 🤷🏼♂️
It's funny to see how many shooters are obsessed by SD and ES since Litz, instead of looking at the groups sizes on their targets. I mean you can have brilliant scientific like theories, the truth is always on the paper.
So funny with all the “gotcha” questions. Base to ogive was more important back when there was variation within a batch. It’s not really fair to take a single variable question and then say someone’s wrong when you add another variable.
Bryan mentions gov contracts, would this be why getting bullets and other supplies is so hard, are they buying them up so we have troubles getting them, i noticed on Eriks other vlog with Bartlein they have gov contracts too
When breaking in a barrel, your work hardening the stainless steel , try using a 1/8 drill on stainless sheet and put drill on fast , ok the drill will burn and the stainless instantly hardens , when we run a barrel in we are work hardening the core using bullets , so we don’t want to aneal imperfections into the base metal , so as we smooth the surface ( and harden) we clean as much as we can , until no copper gets left between shots then groups of shots , Dan Australia
One of the factors that constantly changes is temperature. From chemistry the rate of a chemical reaction doubles for each 10° increase in temperature.
I found it very interesting that two professionals in their respective areas of ballistics and marksmanship have such varying opinions on different things. It doesn't mean that either is wrong or right, but it opens up dialogue that makes us think outside the box that we normally hang out in. Pretty good interview. I love your channel.
Litz is incredibly smart, talented and insightful. Peterson is a babbling drug addled grifter that’s done so much Benzodiazepines and Klonopin that it’s permanently damaged his brain. They are absolutely nothing alike.
Great video; would be interesting to have Speedy comment on the content of your video 23-27 minutes. Better yet, someone in BR test these comments on the line.
I believe that the best BR shooters are able to see/read the variances and know how to compensate with their loading whether it's caused by the humidity or the natural curve.
Bryan, are you going to put together a list of the best primer/powder combinations? Is this cartridge specific or is one powder always ignited best with one type of primer?
