About Snell's Notebook:

This is the work I started writing on the subject of reloading for accuracy. 

As it got bigger, and more detailed, I realized I wanted to add sections on other topics, and the scope of the book is now limited only to my interests and experience.

I started this project because I wanted to know how to quickly and accurately adjust rifle reloading recipes to achieve the best accuracy in a given rifle.  Being an engineer, I wanted to achieve the goal in a reasonable number of test shots, and that's where the fun started.

In due course, it became apparent that understanding how a rifle and its cartridge work (in excruciating detail) is critical to understanding why adjusting loading recipes provides the results it does.  Thus the section on Initial Physics. 

If you are only interested in how to quickly develop a loading recipe you can just go straight to the section titled Finding The Right Load. 

I was planning to condense Finding The Right Load into a step-by-step tutorial, but about that time Scott Satterlee came up with the '10 Round Load Development Ladder Test', and I went down the next rabbit hole trying to explain WHY his method works - with very little success so far.  However it is apparent the Satterlee method does work, and uses half the shots my method uses.  Scott's method is worth a try if you have a good chronograph, or are limited to a 100 yard range.

NOTE: One spot where Scott (and a lot of other people) seem to have a misconception is that rifle barrel 'harmonics' eg vibration, differs significantly for a small change in velocity.  This is not true.  For the same bullet, every time the gun is fired (within a 'reasonable velocity range') the barrel vibrates substantially the same.  What we all are looking for is how to get the bullet out of the barrel when the barrel is moving upward, but before it peaks.  As Scott notes, he finds the charge range which exhibits the lowest velocity variation, and then can load any 'reasonable' powder to achieve that velocity with consistent success.  My problem is in finding out why a low extreme spread or 'ES' occurs at that point.

ANOTHER NOTE: I started out thinking that small groups were the desired end state (thinking like a Bench Rest shooter) however, after a little analysis of the importance of consistent velocity, I have come to the conclusion that if you can get your groups under 0.5 MOA, then you should try to get your 5 shot standard deviation or 'SD' down to single digits.  Once this is accomplished, your time is better spent on the longer ranges learning to read wind, and anticipating wind's effect on your shot.

I apologize in advance to those who find my notes to be long winded and micro-detailed.  I am trying to document WHY and HOW things happen, and any failure to make it interesting and readable is my own.  I hope at least some members of the shooting community will appreciate a detailed description that might not be available elsewhere.