OT - QuickLoad test

[JohndeFresno]

I have seen posts by FOTIS, KWK, CowboyTutt and others that extoll the virtues of QuickLoad. I am thinking about using it to save time figuring the difference in velocity, and therefore trajectory, between rifles and pistols, or short and long barrelled pistols, for a given load.

But before dropping $150.00, plus paying for upgrades as new powders show up, I would like to see how accurate this product truly is. I realize that velocity varies from firearm to firearm; but even given that, could one of you QuickLoad users please run these numbers through so that we can all see the results?

QUESTION IS: What does QuickLoad program show as the MUZZLE VELOCITY for the three loads below?

Here are my stats for three loads; actually, two loads and a second barrel length for one of the loads. They represent fairly common bullet types that users of this forum might use:
30-30 Winchester
.310
Bullet: LTD Custom 173 gr. #311041 Lyman FP-GC
Hard Cast - #2 Alloy, Moly, Crimped
BC: .220 SD: .260
Powder: Red Dot (Alliant) 9.3 gr.
Brass: Win Super-X
Primer: CCI 200 - Lg Rifle
COAL: 2.510"
Firearm: Marlin 336 Centennial, 20 in bbl
MV: 1408 fps Avg of 5 shots

44 Magnum
.430
Bullet: Magnus 240 gr. #701M SWC-BB (Keith)
Hard Cast - BHN 18-20, Moly, Crimped
BC: .182 SD: .185
Powder: Unique (Alliant) 9 gr.
Brass: Winchester
Primer: CCI 300 - Lg Pistol
COAL: 1.609"
Firearm: Taurus Mod. 44SS6, 6.5" bbl
MV: 1078 fps Avg of 5 shots

44 Magnum
.430
Same bullet and load as above
Firearm: Ruger Super Blackhawk, 10.5" bbl
MV: 1171 fps Avg of 5 shots

Thanks in advance for your assistance!

[KWK]

QL has its limitations, and you've just hit on three of them. It's list of bullets is not exhaustive; you'll have to supply the bullet length. Also, it doesn't care what primer you use; it models only an "average" primer, and there are effects on pressure due to primers (which, then, are not modeled). Above all, you will not (necessarily) get accurate pressures or velocities if you ask it what will happen if you put so many grains of such and such powder under this or that bullet. I know of no software that can do that with sufficient accuracy.

QL will do a fine job of estimating the performance possible at a given pressure rating. It will also select a reasonable powder to do said job. It will not be able to tell you which of several similar powders is the very best for the job, nor can it tell you exactly how much to use. It's ability to predict the pressure/velocity of reduced loads is not as good as picking full power loads.

If you supply some bullets length, I'll dust of my old PC on which my copy is installed and then get you some numbers.

Karl

[JohndeFresno]

Karl,

Your site (provided in the Members' Profile section) has a lot of excellent helps - thank you for assembling and sharing this material.

As for QuickLoad, it may not be for me. I already have RCBS Load, Point Blank Ballistics, Rob's Reloading Organizer and Load from a Disk (which does not address handguns). They don't address what I was looking for - "what will this bullet and load do in different length barrels?" Somehow, I thought that the QuickLoad could accomplish this, by taking into account the burn factors and characteristics of each powder, and using caliber, weight and BC to do the math.

And unfortunately, their site doesn't seem to answer questions specific to this.

Anyway, I would indeed appreciate your running the above scenario to see if the velocities calculated by that program can come close to what my Chrony Chronograph reports on the three loads!

Bullet length of the Keith style .44 Mag 240 gr. hard cast bullet (Magnus 701M) is .742"
Bullet length of the .30-30 FN 173 gr. Lyman 311041, which was measured with the gas check intact, is 1.05 "

[JohndeFresno]

Well, I've ordered the software, after talking to the person who sells the program, as noted below.

Given the limitations noted above, the software will still be able to put me pretty close to information that I wish to use - velocities and therefore bases for bullet drop info based upon a given powder and bullet, once I enter all the pertinent bullet information - on moderate loads. My aim is consistency and accuracy with reasonable velocities rather than pushing the safety margin and beating up the firearms, and then setting up predictable bullet drop info at various ranges. In this way, I don't have to wait until each shooter is finished at a public range and then move my target every 10 yards!

I talked to Ed Dillon (owner of Neconos, the U.S. company in Benicia, CA that sells this German made software). He gave me a velocity of 1435 fps for the Lyman .30-30 bullet, which is pretty close to what my bullet chronographed from my Marlin 336 rifle. And that was figured on a standard Lyman 311041 measurement, not necessarily precisely the measurement of the bullet that was cast for me.

The other two rounds were different because he did not have the bullet length for the .44 Mag rounds, and he used a different figure (longer bullet length for a Keith load than what my bullets measure) for the calculations. I was impressed with the intricacy of this software.

After looking further into the KWK site (http://kwk.us/), I see where Karl gives a comprehensive review of the software. Thanks again, Karl, for the info; I hope that this posting helps others if they are looking into ballistics software.

The RCBS software, by the way, is of good quality and updateable, with an impressive amount of information. It lists load information from all or most of the reloading manuals, Shooting Times, and so on, as they become archived, among its many other functions. One can obtain load info from various web sites, but some of the information might be questionable; so I use the RCBSLoad data as a basis of comparison.

It has gobs of tables and aids, such as a Twist table, Powder Burn Rate chart, Primer equivalency chart, MM to Inch conversion, on and on. Although I find features that I like in every piece of software I have, I would recommend the RCBSLoad over many others, since it pretty much has it all - EXCEPT PREDICTING VELOCITIES WITH DIFFERENT BARREL LENGTHS, which is the reason I purchased QuickLoad. How many of us own firearms with test barrels, all having the precise barrel length shown in the handloading manuals?

Load From A Disk has some nice features, but it does nothing for the handgun shooter, as mentioned in the KWK site. I wouldn't have purchased that, had I known.

[KWK]

Hmmm, my (older) copy estimates just under 1470 fps. It doesn't have a length stored for the Lyman bullet, so I used yours. I also forgot to ask what the capacity of your brass is; I used 45 gn. The program estimates pressures are high enough it can't be certain it is safe (although the 37 ksi computed would--if actual--be so).

From time to time, the author releases updates for the equations used to represent the burning characteristics of the powders. Perhaps mine is dated?

For the .44 Mag, it predicts 1160 fps in the Taurus with low pressure. The program needs the breech to muzzle length, and I assumed yours would be 8.2". The predicted velocity is high, and this is in part due to the fact the program does not compute the effects of the cylinder gap. For the longer Ruger, it predicts 1240 fps. This is about 7% over the Taurus compared to 8.6% for the measured values. The trend is right, but the absolute fps readings are off, which is not unusual, especially for pistol cartridges.

Above all else, remember QL is not pressure tested data from a load manual. It can badly underestimate pressure. You will learn a lot from it, but don't assume it is always correct.

[JohndeFresno]

...For the .44 Mag, it predicts 1160 fps in the Taurus with low pressure... the program does not compute the effects of the cylinder gap. For the longer Ruger, it predicts 1240 fps. This is about 7% over the Taurus compared to 8.6% for the measured values. The trend is right, but the absolute fps readings are off, which is not unusual, especially for pistol cartridges...

Very interesting. I had forgotten about the cylinder gap, which truly poses a problem with these type of programs.

As for the discrepancy in the .30-30 load, I did not tell Mr. Dillon what my figure was for the load - he merely supplied that velocity in the blind, initially replying to my e-mail with the figures that from the first post of the thread. Since I had negelected to supply a bullet length, I can only assume that he either pulled out a bullet from his stock and used that length, or else the program shows all of measurements for this classic .30-30 load, and it supplied the information.

I noted that his website shows an update for sale; perhaps QL has made some revisions for certain loads.

But the pistol thing is another matter.

1) Do you think one can infer that all loads for my particular Taurus will therefore show up 7% over the actual velocity on this program?
2) Do you think one can run chronograph versus QL velocities for other revolvers, in the same manner, to use as a constant differential plug-in?

[KWK]

No, I do not think the errors will be consistent. I would hazard a guess that the gap will affect the slower powders more than the faster ones. Regardless, the program is simply not accurate enough to predict fps and--especially--pressure correctly; no software is. Powder lot variation alone prevent this. Differences in primers can affect real world pressures, especially with jacketed bullets.

I suspect that instead of a constant differential, there'd be more of a (more or less) constant percentage error.

The program is very good at predicting cartridge performance at a given pressure level, but it is not reliable for predicting which powder--and how much of it--is needed to attain that performance. It will let you home in on which group of powders is most suitable for a cartridge, but it can't reliably tell you exactly which one. Another way of looking at it: no one powder is accurately modeled for all possible burns, but no one powder is ridiculously unsafe in its representation.

The program will give you a good short course on internal ballistics, and it made me much more cautious at the reloading bench. I recommend it, and I think you'll enjoy it, but please don't assume too much with the estimates it creates. Please let us (or me) know how it works for you.

Combined with a strain gauge, the program will allow a handloader to rapidly home in on an ideal load, but strain gauges have their own quirks. I've done work on a rather large article on this topic for my site, but other demands on my time have kept me from finishing it. Maybe this winter...

Karl

[JohndeFresno]

I guess it's time to bump this up to the top again with this posting, since I have used the QuickLoad program on quite a few loads and I am pretty impressed with it.

Although there is no perfect predictive ballistic program, as stated in other posts, I found that this program will indeed allow you to change the grains of a given powder and see the change in velocity to at least some degree of accuracy. Likewise, if you own two firearms with different barrel lengths, the program can be adjusted for those differences if you enter your firearm statistics (caliber, barrel length, and the like) into the firearm tables. You then select the gun with its particular barrel length before selecting the bullet, powder, and the like. In reading the above posts, it sounded to me like you can't make allowances for powder and barrel length variations; but you surely can.

Although I would certainly consult the proper manuals of the powder companies and powder manufacturers, and carefully work up the loads starting with lower pressures, I can nonetheless see where this program can drastically shortcut powder selection in a number of ways. One way allows you to enter the maximum pressure for your loads, and it charts all of the powders that can be used at the push of a button. And there are step tables, again at the push of a button, that predict the various loads available in descending or ascending order by grains of powder for one particular powder, if you wish. Sweet.

The software is not cheap, but it is a great tool for a handloader who really wants to see, with some degree of accuracy, what the loads are doing, the pressure curves, and so on - while saving time in suggesting several powders that might not be found, except by jumping from manual to manual.

I like the fact that you can enter the data for even a custom cast bullet - that is, one that has a different weight and length than others of its caliber - and achieve fairly accurate results in predicting what that round will do.

This is a long post; I'll use another post to show y'all some results.

[JohndeFresno]

OK - Here are some preliminary results. I can cite several examples where the information supplied in manuals is very close to what QuickLoad shows; but I have also found some loads that disagree by 100 fps or more. Then again, we are held hostage by whichever firearm is used by the person(s) writing the manual. With QuickLoad, you select your firearm, caliber, barrel length, seating depth of the bullet (COAL) and the like - and it takes all of these variables into account.

The following chronographs were recorded on a Chrony Beta with at least 5 shots for each test. The temperature was in the mid 70's; all of these were done on the same day.

223 Rem Mini-14 Ranch Rifle (1 in 9 twist)
Barnes 53 gr #33443 TSX-FB
BL-C(2) (Hodgdon) 26.6 gr; WIN WSR Primer
COAL 2.200 (entered this; slightly different than tables)
Estimates compiled from various sources - 3100 fps
QuickLoad - 2932 fps Warned me of slightly compressed load!

44 Mag Taurus Mod 44SS6 (6.5 in bbl)
Magnus 240 gr #701M SWC-BB Moly, BHN 22 (approx)
(I entered bullet data myself, incl. length of bullet)
Unique (Alliant) 9.0 gr.; CCI 300 Lg Pistol Primer
COAL 1.609
Chrono - 1078 fps avg
QuickLoad - 1124 fps
Difference: QuickLoad predicted 46 fps faster.
Remember, there is a cylinder gap.

44 Mag Ruger Super Blackhawk (10.3 in bbl)
Magnus 240 gr #701M SWC-BB Moly, BHN 22 (approx)
(Same load as above - my favorite .44 plinking load)
Chrono - 1171 fps avg.
QuickLoad - 1224 fps
Difference: QuickLoad predicted 53 fps faster.
Very close to difference shown above.

30-30 Win Marlin 336 (20 in bbl)
Lyman 311041 173 gr. FP-GC Moly, #2 Alloy
Red Dot (Alliant) 9.3 gr; CCI 200 Lg Rifle Primer
COAL 2.510
Chrono - 1408 fps avg.
QuickLoad - 1448 fps
Difference: QuickLoad predicted 40 fps faster,
similar to revolver velocity differences.
Not bad for a reduced load!

This is just the start of my chronographing of loads vs. QuickLoad. But given the fact that it worked well even with handgun loads and with a reduced load (9.3 gr. Red Dot for the .30-30), I am impressed with the program so far.

[Borregos]

Thanks for posting. Sounds like a very interesting and informative program.
Quite pricey as you say though.

[AJMD429]

As mentioned above, the RCBS software is nice. Its ballistics features seem to incorporate every needed variable, and report out in several ways on screen and paper that are helpful.

I think the 'user interface' could be improved, but otherwise like it.

That being said, I've never used it to 'predict' velocities; just to predict trajectory once I know the velocity from my chronograph. There it seems accurate.

[BAGTIC]

I have use Quickload for many years. I am a believer.

There has always been a close correletion between Quickload's projections and my own test results. There are always variations between gun and normal round to round variations and Quickload is right in the middle of them.

I can not measure pressures but when I compare Quickload pressure estimates with published data from the manufacturers they are very close, uncannily so.

The problem with limited bullet selection is true as the latest version lists fewer bullets than some of the older versions. The important thing is bullet seating depth which influences usable case capacity. If one has a calipher and measures bullet length and seating depth unknown bullets can be allowed for. The Quickload data base allows users to enter data for their own components which makes it possible to tailor one's loads based on variations in case capacity, bullet length, bullet weight, chamber dimensions, etc.