How To Compare Loads

Every year dozens of articles are written about the advantages of one load or another. Most articles include muzzle velocities, ballistic coefficients, and bullet weights for the loads they are discussing. With these three pieces of information you can compare the loads in the articles with your favorite load or any other load.

Enter your favorite load into trace 1. Enter the article's load into trace 2. Set the Find parameter to Sight Adj. and enter an appropriate yardage into the Zeroed Rng parameter. In the field there's usually some cross wind, so it's a good idea to set the Wind Speed parameter to at least 5 MPH and the Wind Dir parameter to 03:00 O'clock (cross wind).

To get the best view of the overall performance of the loads, select the Graph display. The Energy, Path, and Wind Drift graphs should give you a very good picture of how the loads compare with each other. For a more detailed look, you can select the Examine display and compare the actual data of the loads.

Which load is best for your purposes depends on many factors besides ballistics. For example, what's the cost and availability of the ammunition and the guns that shoot it? What's the weight of the gun, what type of actions are available, and how severe is the recoil? One thing gun experts agree on is that no one load is always best.

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