A noob's rant on reloading content.

[yakimanoob]

And this is an utter and completely meaningless overstatement.

As said by others - different needs/uses require different degrees of precision.

I think you misunderstood me. All I'm saying is that if you have three data points, adding up the squared differences between each data point and the mean and then taking the square root gives you no meaningful information.

 

[Addicting]

I just point my gun at stuff and kill it. mtmuley

You shoot a Creedmoor now?

 

[mtmuley]

You shoot a Creedmoor now?

Can you really kill stuff with a Creedmoor? mtmuley

 

[JLS]

This

 

[JLS]

Can you really kill stuff with a Creedmoor? mtmuley

I don’t think the white packages in my freezer walked in there of their own volition. Maybe I should go check to make sure they are all still dead.

 

[mtmuley]

I don’t think the white packages in my freezer walked in there of their own volition. Maybe I should go check to make sure they are all still dead.

Humor. Maybe you've heard of it. mtmuley

 

[JLS]

Humor. Maybe you've heard of it. mtmuley

Likewise?

 

[mtmuley]

Likewise?

Yep. mtmuley

 

[JLS]

CMR ded.
MR not.
SAR. C@ white paper?
LIB. SAR.

 

[VikingsGuy]

I think you misunderstood me. All I'm saying is that if you have three data points, adding up the squared differences between each data point and the mean and then taking the square root gives you no meaningful information.

I think you misunderstood me. I do understand the mathematics behind this, I was just returning your hyperbole with my own. . Every data point has some inherent value and does tell you something - depending on your needs your "n" may need to be big or it may be ok to be small.

 

[JLS]

Three really shitty data points can certainly tell you the load sucks. It sure isn’t going to get better after that.

Maybe I making a big assumption here, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would think the standard deviation value based on a sample size of three is worth anything? But, for the ranges I hunt that I honestly don’t really give two shits about standard deviation values anyway. I confirm my drops for field ranges instead of relying on ballistic calculators.

 

[ImBillT]

The OP is 99.99999% correct.

A 95% confidence interval of an actual ES or SD based on three shots would be quite broad.

I often seen people trying to tune 1” guns based on a handful of shots. If a gun, and brass(which most hunters don’t uniform or sort) and bullets aren’t all capable of shooting around .5MOA or less, then tuning becomes an long painful process that just about isn’t worth doing. When a rifle is good for .1MOA or less, and so is the brass(that was good to begin with and better after you uniformed and sorted it) and so are the bullets(go ahead and tell me that your Noslers are that good), and your dies are custom made, and your barrel is hand lapped(so that you know fouling hasn’t impacted your groups), and you shot ten consecutive 5-shot groups averaging .25MOA or less last weekend at the match, and you have 2-3 wind flags between you and the target, then seeing one round 5-shot group that is .250” and one oval 5-shot group that is .450” does actually tell you something. On the other hand, taking your Winchester brass and Nosler bullets out to the range for your factory gun, and loading with Lee or RCBS dies, shooting two or three 3-shot groups, and declaring that the .5” load was better than the 1” load, is almost impossible to prove statistically. The truth is, the .5” load and 1” load may be equal, or the 1” load might even be better.

 

[MO Betta]

Udderly you say?

 

[N2TRKYS]

83% of all statistics are made up.

 

[noharleyyet]

CMR ded.
MR not.
SAR. C@ white paper?
LIB. SAR.

View attachment 200795

Choot'em in the blood pump or carbureter then finish em off with a Dexter sectioning & hypothermia...

 

[coleslaw]

That's exactly right...reloading is a never ending tinker. New brass, new bullet, new powder, new primer all in an attempt to improve or fix. I just got 150 pieces of Peterson Brass for my 280ai that already shoots 1/2" groups for no valid reason except to tinker.

Yep. Nothing but a rabbit hole. It's as complicated or as simple as you want to make it, with the difference in results between complicated and simple often being only miniscule.

 

[noharleyyet]

Yep. Nothing but a rabbit hole. It's as complicated or as simple as you want to make it, with the difference in results between complicated and simple often being only miniscule.

....gnawing nabobs of negativity.

Alliterally...

 

[44hunter45]

I just point my gun at stuff and kill it. mtmuley

 

[yakimanoob]

I think you misunderstood me. I do understand the mathematics behind this, I was just returning your hyperbole with my own. . Every data point has some inherent value and does tell you something - depending on your needs your "n" may need to be big or it may be ok to be small.

I agree you can learn alot if N=3, but you won't learn anything from calculating standard deviation. That is, again, all I'm saying.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

I worked up a sweet load that shoots .3345 MOA (all day if I’m doing my part, I assume, only shot a 3 rd group) with an ES of 7. But now you guys are telling me it might not consistently do that?

Thanks for the buzzkill @yakimanoob