Just a fast note guys. I've been gone from this site so long my original user name (green 788) was no longer active. I re-registered because it was called to my attention that a member here is misrepresenting the OCW method, and has apparently been doing so for an extended period of time. I did a search, and sure enough--he's been consistent and seemingly relentless with the rhetoric.

I don't plan on becoming a fixture here again--I'm too involved with other forums and don't have enough time to contribute here.

However...

I do want to correct some things that have been stated about me, and the OCW method of load development. (If you're unsure about what OCW is, you can read about it here--> www.clik.to/optimalchargeweight

Anyway, my detractor (who I won't name, but most of you will know full well who he is ) began his rants against the OCW method and yours truly well over three years ago. At that time, he made no mention of the Audette Ladder test. It appeared (though I'm not accusing him outright) that he did not yet know what the ladder test was. It would seem that he only became an advocate of the ladder test after learning of it either from my website (where I point out the shortcomings of the ladder test), or perhaps from other members here who mentioned it. No matter, once he became aware of the Audette Ladder test, he became its staunchest advocate, i.e, "the never improved upon Audette Ladder test." B.S. Barbara Streisand.

Once other members began affirming that the OCW method worked, and that OCW recipes would generally work in different rifles (like Federal Gold Medal Match ammo does), my detractor modified his critique. He didn't want to appear novice to those who had learned better, but he still wanted to hammer the OCW method. So...

He then began telling folks that I have made claims that OCW loads were the "perfect" load recipe for any rifle. (Nope, never said that). And he has claimed (which I didn't realize until I ran a search here and found his words) that I have said that OCW loads are safe in any rifle. (I've never said that either).

There were other less egregious misrepresentations, (and more will likely come) but I won't go into correcting them all here.

I can't take the time necessary to peruse his words here and type responses to them ad nauseum, so I'll simply ask you guys this: Please be careful of what you read in these pages about me, or my load development method--depending on who it's coming from, it may not be correct.

If you have any questions as to whether I or the OCW load development process is being properly represented or not (by any member, for that matter) please feel free to contact me by email. My email address can be found at the OCW website I link above.

One more thing. In the last couple of years, I've been in contact with some pretty influential people in the shooting and reloading industry. Some of them contacted me first, with questions about OCW load development. Many have commended the method, and have noted that it works, and works well. I won't name drop here, as that would be inconsiderate to the individuals referenced. I say this merely to point out that the method is sound and reliable, and has garned a fair amount of respect from folks whom I have respected for years.

Thanks for your time and attention,

Dan Newberry

Hey Rookie green, You have now got the facts so totally contorted and wrong that you are way past the Full-of-Beans point. Anyone contacting you for information and claiming they work in the industry on "how to reload" would be a complete novice and pulling a clinton about his background. And anyone who reads the above claim by you and doesn't realize that, really deserves to be flim-flammed by you.

I've still yet to see any Reloading Manual say, "No need to try other Loads, this will work in EVERY RIFLE ever made in his caliber.", which is one of your old totally worthless and potentially dangerous claims. Haven't even seen a reference of credit given to your "Rookie Green Method". Obviously if your claims were true, the industry would give you due credit, but of course they haven't.
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I knew about and used the never improved upon Creighton Audette Method long before you were even born. Your plagerization and bastardization of Mr. Audette's Method is simply a joke to those of us who know better. And in your worst posts, you even endangered the other Rookies with your misconceptions concerning Reloading Reality.
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I suppose you are still telling people they can use a specific Load in any rifle ever made for that cartridge and it will be the most accurate Load they could ever expect to find and it is perfectly SAFE without developing the Load from below.

That was one of your halmark traits, claiming SAFETY for the Loads you suggested in EVERY RIFLE ever made for the cartridge. And I do believe it is what finally got you laughed out of here by not only people who have many decades of Reloading Experience, but also by people with only a couple of years of Reloading Experience.

It is all there for anyone to see that cares to go to the trouble of doing the searches. So your recent "skewing of the facts"(above) is as worthless as the rest of your foolishness and rookie ignorance.
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The very best thing about the entire issue is that once someone gets duped by you and they then get a few years of actual Reloading Experience and Trigger Time - they will know they have been fooled and who did it.

HC,

If it's "all there" then it should be no problem for you to pull it up and post it.

Dan

Dan,
I read your method. Unless I am missing something, the major idea is nothing more than 3 ladder tests all done at the same time.

I think its a good idea, because it helps to insure the data that is analyzed is more reliable. It gives less room for misinterpretation of "flyers".

I am stopping there. That portion of your methodology is certainly valid. Any other claims or misunderstandings that are discussed on this forum are most likely the result of inflated egos.

I am sure this thread is going to go downhill fast. Good luck gentlemen and keep it civil...

I have no doubt that some powder charges and velocities will be more accurate than others. Is this really a new idea????

Is Chris Long really an engineer? What I read between the lines is that he a technician who calls himself an engineer, probably trained in the armed forces or maybe in a vo-tech school, as opposed to a real engineer who has a 4-year college degree that includes healthy doeses of physics, chemistry, and higher mathematics. I don't know the guy, but he doesn't seem to understand freshmen physics, as any engineer should. For example, he seems to confuse longitudinal waves traveling through steel (sounds waves by any other name) with tranverse waves traveling through a TV tower's guy wire. He claims that he got the idea by shaking a long guy wire and watching the waves travel back and forth (note that those transverse waves travel do not travel at the speed of sound, if they did, you wouldn't be able to see them, DUH). He claims that his sound waves cause radial stresses that actually enlarge the bore. (funny how they aren't picked up by radial strain gages, DUH). And so on. Any engineer, or any freshmen physics student, immediately realizes that Chris Long is full of it. Unfortunately, most shooters are not engineers, so they believe his misguided babble.

Dan, I suggest that you distance yourself from Chris Long's theory. Your OCW method may indeed be a viable way to pick an optimal powder charge, but the optimal powder charge concept can stand on its on two feet without the "help" of phony engineers and their phony theories.

My other concern about the OCW or similar methods is that people are not collecting enough data to prove statistical significance. If three consecutive charge increments land at different elevations, how do you determine if this is meaningful or just random variation? Obviously, you need to repeat the test over and over again, and preferably use a statistical measure like the student's t-test to determine if the results are meaningful. I think you mention doing it five times, but I've heard of people trying to draw conclusions from a single test. This is a common mistake in the shooting world and not unique to your method.

Before you belittle the value of standard deviation of velocity, be sure you are calculating it correctly. Too many people use 5 shots -- or worse yet, only 3 shots -- to calculate SD. The result will be little more than random noise. It takes at least 10 shots (Denton Bramwell published an excellent article on the subject, available at the RSI site). In my experience, there is a correlation between standard deviation and accuracy, when standard deviation is calculated correctly. The correlation is weak and there are many exceptions to the rule, but the correlation is there, nonetheless.

"(Denton Bramwell published an excellent article on the subject, available at the RSI site)."

From what I understand, Chris Long wrote much of the software for the RSI ballistics program. I do know that he is a well trained electrical engineer--however, not being so trained myself I can't really enter into a discussion about any potential strengths or weaknesses of his data.

"I think you mention doing it five times, but I've heard of people trying to draw conclusions from a single test. This is a common mistake in the shooting world and not unique to your method."

The traditional Audette Ladder test is of course a single test, and hence provides questionable data even when everything goes well (which it often won't).

Regarding Denton, he has spoken favorably in the past of the OCW method, and once offered a figure of its statistical superiority over the single ladder test--I cannot remember what that figure was now. I haven't spoken to him lately, however, so I don't know his current disposition on the method.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Dan

Here's a link to RSI's site and their comments regarding Chris Long...

http://www.shootingsoftware.com/barrel.htm

quote:

Originally posted by popenmann:
My other concern about the OCW or similar methods is that people are not collecting enough data to prove statistical significance. If three consecutive charge increments land at different elevations, how do you determine if this is meaningful or just random variation? Obviously, you need to repeat the test over and over again, and preferably use a statistical measure like the student's t-test to determine if the results are meaningful.

Actually, that is a overly broad accusation. If you were to exclude both type I and type II errors, then, yes, you often need more data.

However, you are only pursuing statistical confirmation in one direction. If the load is MORE accurate than expected, that's hardly an error we can't live with. Doubles the confidence interval of the t-test right there.

It's like shooting five shots, when the three shot group already falls outside the 99% confidence interval of acceptable loads. Why shoot twice more?

Statistics is in many cases the song of the siren. Numbers, black and white on paper. Standard deviations. Well, for shooters, SD is nice, but the relevant number is extreme spread. Four bullets in one hole, and the fifth 2 inches away still gives good statistical numbers. It makes for a shitty competition load.

The need for additional data is DIRECTLY RELATED TO THE AMOUNT OF VARIATION, and the TYPE OF VARIATION in the sample.

Ivory tower types have a tendency to want to determine beforehand how much data you will need - so they can write the cost of collection into their grant proposals. The fact is, you don't know the amount of observations needed until you know what the variation in the data is, and it's characteristics!

In many cases, two observations is plenty. If you are looking for a consistent .3 MOA load, and two shots give you 2 MOA, YOU HAVE ENOUGH DATA. JMO, Dutch.

Hey Dan,

I just wanted to let you know that I very much liked the OCW method, that I profited from you sharing this with the shooting community, and that I regularly use your method. In the past, I had not been very systematic in my load development, and I was attempting to correct that. Your method seemed to offer a sensible approach, with a reasonable chance of success using a limited amount of components for initial testing. Once I have done the initial load development with OCW, I now attempt to pick out a couple of "load nodes" from the OCW data, and then attempt to verify accuracy at those load levels, and see what seating depth variation might additionally add to the equation. It seems to work reasonably well.

I certainly can't tell whether OCW is either the only valid method, or whether other methods might offer a better chance of success. But I enjoyed the way you presented OCW, and how you have been willing to share your experience with the shooting community.

Pity you can't devote more time to this website. In spite of being somewhat belligerent at times, there is a lot of interesting discussion going on here. The AR membership would benefit from your experience..

- mike

I don't see either/or as being the final answer.
I do an Audette to locate the load range then use OCW to to put a finer point on the load data. Both have a palce and used together can save burning powder putting bullets where you don't want them to go.
Of course, if you don't use the right bullet for your barrels twist you are pissing up a rope.

Dan,

I would like to thank you for sharing your method, as I have had EXCELLENT results with EVERY bullet I have tried, since using your method. I shoot my OCW tests through a chrony, which gets more work done in one range session.

All I have to do is choose a bullet, choose an appropriate powder (usually the one that gives the highest velocities, according to the loading manual), conduct an OCW test, and choose the one from the middle of the "sweet spot"- which will usually shoot them all in the same hole (and usually the one that gives the most consistent velocities) As I work up through the powder charges, it is very easy to see where the accuracy nodes are. (and where they aren't)

.300 Win Mag
80.0 gr H1000, 180 Ballistic Tip- one hole @ 100yds- 1 inch @ 500 yds- 3 inches @ 1000 yards

80.0gr H1000, 200gr Partition- one hole @ 100yds- no long range data for this one.

80.0 gr H1000, Berger 210 VLD- one hole @ 100 yds- several groups around 2 inches and change @ 700, 800, and 900 yds, and a group the other day of 2 and 3/16 inches, at 1030 yds. Do you reckon this one is hitting the "sweet spot"? LOL

83.5 gr H1000, Barnes TSX- one hole @ 100 yds, 3 shots almost right on top of each other @ 600 yds, and @ 1000, there was a fishtailing wind that made a wide group, (about 8 inches)- but vertical was less than 2 inches.

I have to sort the Noslers by weight, to get that kind of accuracy. The Bergers are good to go, just load them and shoot them.

I don't know why 80.0 gr is such a sweet spot for 3 different bullets.... and who cares, don't argue with good results, I say!

marc

Dan,

I wish to join with mho and welcome you back to AR. I have always found you to be a gentleman and worthy of our attention.

Just happened to notice that my old buddy Hot Core (you know the guy with one year of reloading experience 40 times in a row!) is at it again, misrepresenting OCW and me. So I'm bumping this thread so those who haven't seen it may get a chance to.

Dan

Hi Dan,

Hope all goes well on your OCW. I find you to be a gentleman.

OCW

marc357, you should take that rifle to the bench rest championships since the 1000 yard world records are 4.228" for light gun and 3.151" for heavy. I am not calling bullshit yet since they had to shoot 10 shots and you probably measured 3, but you should seriously take it to the BR matches.

Savage 99... thanks for the kind words.

quote:

marc357, you should take that rifle to the bench rest championships since the 1000 yard world records are 4.228" for light gun and 3.151" for heavy. I am not calling bullshit yet since they had to shoot 10 shots and you probably measured 3, but you should seriously take it to the BR matches

If you were to shoot the gun in a 1000yard match,I personally would enjoy seeing the results..

Dan,

I've always found you to be a gentleman. I've come to the conclusion that their is NO easy way to CONSISTENTLY find a great load. Some work, some don't....but the OCW is a great technique which makes it easier. I still like the Audette. My jury is out as to the best. Thanks for the time you've spent w/ me on the phone. I still have your # on my cell's speed dial just in case.

I run the OCW round robin for 5 ladders. I have yet to see it not be spot on the first time around. My best group is then taken for testing at more distance, and it comes out as the best load even at distance. I sometimes will even take the load on either side of that selected load from the OCW, and run all 3 loads against one another at some 300-400yds. Very rarely will another load than the one I selected outperform it. Although I may run 40rnds for a powder/pill combo, I find my very first go-round to give me the accuracy load I need for that combo, and my match barrels are the better for it.

I use the OCW Dan, and it works well for me.