I "play" with external and internal (hand loadng ) ballistics and would like to banter about them. There doesn't seem to be a "catagory" for these. Is there a "group" or thread that would be appropriate .

What exactly do you 'play' around with? Theoretical or actual? Hypothetical or pragmatic?

My guess would be he has Quickload, but that's just me.

Carl,

Welcome to the forum. Rules are to join in, have fun, be polite and play nicely with the rest of us kids.

Most of the internal and external ballistics talk seems to happen in the Handloading Procedures/Practices forum, since they usually tend to be the concern of persons trying to create loads for one purpose or another. They happen in the other forums, like this one, more specific to platforms.

That said, I will take your post as a suggestion that a separate forum for these topics should exist and pass that along to the administration. As long as it didn't devolve into flame wars over "my cartridge is better than your cartridge", it would be fine.

By the way, didnt mean to be rude. Welcome to the forum !

youbetcha, welcome to the Forum, hope you enjoy it as much as I do, I've learned a lot, there's a real good bunch here....

and Nick , I know my cartridge is much better'n yers ;)

youbetcha, welcome to the Forum, hope you enjoy it as much as I do, I've learned a lot, there's a real good bunch here....

and Nick , I know my cartridge is much better'n yers ;)

That may be, but it's not better'n mine.

See what you started already.

LOL .... too cold up there to have a hot ca'tridge :D

Carl: Well, since the banter has begun (welcome to this forum, btw), let me ask a quuestion.
I "play" with external and internal (hand loadng ) ballistics
What does that mean to you? Playing with those two ideas accurately involves being able to gather information about an event (the cartridge firing), being able to measure and then evaluate.
How do you go about that?
Manufacturers of bullets and powder have very sophisticated equipment, most of which is beyond the capabilities of even a dedicated handloader. Oehler produced a fairly useful/affordable system involving strain gauges. The gauges, though, had to be soldered (or epoxied) to a deblued section of gun barrel - something most shooters are unwilling to do to their favorite rifles.
So the question is "how do you gather information?" Maybe it deserves it own thread?
Pete

Just to make sure members are aware - the home page of this board has a ballistic calculator set up for your use.

Pete,

RSI (http://www.shootingsoftware.com/) makes a strain gauge instrument called Pressure Trace. It uses a superglue to attach the gauges so they can be applied without altering the finish, and may be removed with acetone. I have one, and it takes a bit of getting used to, but once you learn how to apply the gauges properly it works just fine.

Nick: Thanks for that. I did not know that. Oehler used to make the model 43 "Personal Ballistics Lab" a strain gauge setup but it required removing the blue from the gun IIRC. Sherman Bell made extensive use of that equipment in his "Finding Out for Myself" series in "The Double Gun and Single Shot Journal".
Have you found the RSI set to give you accurate, repeatable results? I assume so.
Pete

LOL .... too cold up there to have a hot ca'tridge :D

lol - you have NO idea!

Wednesday/Thursday this week WE HAD 2" OF SNOW!!! How's that for the "Great White North"?

(sorry for the derail)

Pete,

It has proven to match QuickLOAD predictions quite well in most instances. Within 10% pretty easily. It actually has a faster analog to digital converter than the Oehler 43, so you see a bit more noise and curve bending in the plots, but nothing you can't read through. I actually like having the extra detail. Watching shot-to-shot variations is highly informative.

The only drawbacks to the system have been that the connector wire pulls loose a little too easily and the glue does not last as well as a permanent epoxied strain gauge. That said, you can also choose to epoxy the strain gauge if you want to make it permanent?

if you want to make it permanent?
No, the idea that I could remove it is appealing. The T/C Contender, seems, to me would be an ideal firearm for load development using the RSI setup.
Pete

It is. I have a .44 Mag barrel for my Encore that works great with it. I also had a custom straight barrel chambered in .45 ACP just so I would have a test platform for that round (permanent install there). The steel is so thick it challenges the system's sensitivity, so I had some trial and error work finding the right sensitivity setting, but it works.

check ot my reloading of the hornady ftx bullets in .430 they might work in your encore!

Did, thanks. Here's a link (http://shootersforum.com/showthread.htm?t=57178) for others who are interested.