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Rocky’s Reloading Room |
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Reloading software—Hits and Misses
Like most varmint hunters, I constantly test new load combinations in the perpetual search for better ammunition. And, as a freelance writer, I make extensive use of my computer. Looking for a way to link the two, I began searching for computer software that would allow me to keep track of the hundreds of load combinations and test results that I accumulate. There just has to be a way to eliminate those three-ring binders full of test load data, not to mention piles of fired targets and all those little scraps of paper with jotted range notes. I already had several pieces of excellent software on hand, but none did everything I wanted. Wayne Blackwell’s unique Load From A Disk software (W. Square Enterprises) allows me to predict and develop loads for both existing and wildcat cartridges, as well as provide ballistic and other data. It is indispensable. Oehler’s Ballistic Explorer is a very powerful and complete tool for predicting and comparing exterior ballistics. As vital as they are to me, they don’t do anything about the paper blizzard. So I decided to look for some program or programs that filled in the gaps. As I searched, I tried to find a program that would do three primary jobs: first, allow me to replace my paper load sheets for data keeping. Second, allow me to compare and rank loads in different ways. And third, be able to analyze and rate on-target groups. Aside from these primary needs, there were several features I rated as highly desirable. If possible, I’d like to be able to print load data labels to paste onto ammo boxes. I’d like to be able to import existing load data from outside sources. And, I’d like to be able to run a slimmed down version of the software on my laptop. Having decided on what I wanted, the next question was where to look. Naturally, as a loyal VHA member, I first looked in the Directory of Supporting Advertisers in TVHM. I also scanned the regular and classified ads of many shooting magazines, and searched the Internet. All told, I discovered half a dozen or so suppliers with software that seemed promising. I contacted all of them and requested review copies of selected programs. I also discovered that software companies and their products come and go about as fast as everything else that’s computer-related - some of my letters came back as undeliverable. First, a brief word about my test procedures: all software was obtained with the understanding that it was to be reviewed for publication. Unless otherwise mentioned, I installed and ran all software on two different Windows-based computers. The first is an older machine, typical of many home users. It is based on a 486 main processor running at 166 KHz, has 12 Meg of memory and a 500 Meg hard drive running Windows 95. The other machine is my main business machine, and is much more powerful. It has a Celeron processor at 466 KHz, 36 Meg of memory and a 2Gig hard drive plus a 1 Gig Jaz drive, and runs Windows 98. It’s typical of many newer machines and is much faster and more efficient than the older model. There were no differences, other than speed, in loading or running the software, with a few noted exceptions. The received software falls into two broad categories. Basically, there are programs that are on-disk versions of printed manuals, and there are programs that are sophisticated, user-created databases. On-disk manuals are from companies such as Barnes, Sierra, Hodgdon, Hornady, RCBS, and more. They basically duplicate the printed manuals offered by those same sources, plus contain other useful extras. Most include some sort of ballistic calculator, textual information and more. Like hard copy manuals, every reloader should own at least one, preferably the one that conforms to components most often used. Some of the same information can now also be obtained from the various companies’ web sites. Web sites are particularly valuable for information about newly introduced components. The Good, The Bad, and The UselessStarting with on-disk manuals, I’ll cover the ones from Sierra, Hodgdon and RCBS. The Sierra manual comes on CD-ROM and is self-installing. Only a minimum of hard disk space is required, as most of the data is retrieved from the CD as needed. That’s a nice feature. The Sierra program contains everything in their printed manual, including all photos, articles, charts, graphs and reloading data for handguns and rifles. It also includes a ballistics calculator and the highly addictive Varmint Hunter game courtesy of Burris Optics. There is also a link to the Sierra web site. The program is easy to use and is intuitive. I experienced no problems whatever. However, this software does not allow you to enter or use your own data. Being CD-based, it cannot be updated with new data, and there is no way to search or rank loads for comparison. The only annoying feature is the opening music, which repeats endlessly and loudly. I finally noticed what looks like an ordinary wall light switch on the opening screen. Click on the switch to kill the music. Next, I tried B.L.A.S.T. software from Hodgdon. (I have the original version, based on their #26 manual. There is now an updated and improved version based on the #27 manual. I have not yet tried the newer version). The CD-ROM software takes up almost 10 Mg of space, is self-installing and is easy to use. Unlike the printed version, the on-disk manual does not contain introductory material, articles, tutorials, photos or other how-to information. It does contain all the rifle, pistol and shotshell data of the paper manual, plus cowboy data. Like the printed version, the data contains only start and maximum loads with pressure data for both. It does allow user-provided data entry, although the entries are very basic. There are boxes for only powder, charge, velocity, standard deviation, bullet weight and cartridge name plus a remarks section. The program includes a limited version of the Barnes Ballistic program for ballistic calculation. It’s important to understand why Hodgdon load data does not specify the bullet manufacturer. Hodgdon’s test procedure is to load several brands of bullets in each caliber and weight, but report only the data from the bullet that gave the highest pressure for those loads. Hodgdon data, whether paper or electronic, is therefore an excellent crosscheck for loading data from other sources. RCBS Load software is almost a tour de force offering, offering complete load tables, comparative capabilities, ballistic software and more. With its optional “historical” data disks (purchased separately) you can have virtually every loading manual ever printed in the US right in your computer. This has allowed me, on several occasions, to research applications for long-discontinued powders. The RCBS Load software has been reviewed thoroughly in TVHM in past issues, so I won’t go into it in much detail here, but I find it very valuable. Still, I didn’t find it very easy to use or very intuitive. You’ll want to keep the instruction manual handy, especially if you want to input your own load data. Now we come to some of the lesser-known names in the business. I found many of these titles in classified or other ads. I discovered others by searching the Internet. Like anything that is self-promoted, some are undiscovered jewels while others deserve to be undiscovered. I’ll go over the losers first. Please remember that these are MY feelings, and I’m reporting how things went on MY computers. Your findings might not be the same, and some software may have been revised from the version I reviewed. My job here, however, is to report my experiences truthfully. First is a series of programs from ARMS Software. The package consists of a number of programs such as ARMS Calc, Log, Load, Handgun, Rifle and Collector. All come highly compressed on floppy disks, and load to the hard drive only. When loading, however, the setup program modified my systems and configuration tables to such an extent that my older computer locked up and refused to run any of the software. When I finally got things going, the software turned out to be an archaic set of tables similar to primitive DOS-based software of 15 years ago. The programs didn’t even support a mouse, requiring me to navigate laboriously around the screen with arrow keys. I didn’t bother installing it on my high-end machine, both out of concern for my systems files and because I knew I’d never run any of these programs again anyway. Next came Reloader 2000 by Macort Software. This is a CD-Rom package touted to be very simple to understand and use. It might be, too – if I spoke Finnish. Presumably, because VihtaVuori Oy powders supplied the data, much of the tables and information are in Finnish. Material that had been translated to English featured very poor spelling and grammar. Some tables or panels of data simply end with no way (that I could discover) of continuing to the next screen. The Help (called Hjalp) section was unusable. Because the program was essentially useless, I did not install this one on my high-end machine, either. Latest and GreatestNow some better finds. Only a few days ago, I received an advance copy of Digital Reloader by Traves Peterson. This CD-ROM package is essentially an on-screen version of a reloader’s paper logbook. It allows one to record load data and range results on a very intuitive screen layout. My version loaded perfectly on both test machines, but there was one small system reconfiguration that had to be done manually. The final version, I’m told, will have this additional step eliminated and should self-install completely. Even as it is, the installation is completely described on the Internet web page. One very useful function is the ability to compare two loads side by side on the screen. This function can be used to compare two loads in a single gun, load performance in different guns, or you can print and file the data with a target to record varying impact/sight-in information. The program does not include a ballistics calculator or an existing database of cartridge component information. The user must manually enter all data, just as it would be with a paper-based system. As I mentioned, the main screen is very intuitive; all data is entered quickly and easily by tabbing between data boxes. After I’d entered a trial screen of load data I discovered that there is no “Save Load” button or command anywhere. However, the program saves all data automatically as soon as you move to another load. This is good if you are entering a lot of loads at once, because you cannot forget to save and thereby lose a lot of work when you exit. On the other had, it also saves any changes you might make to a load, even accidentally. I wish that the program would prompt me to save if I’d made any changes. There is also no provision to identify a cartridge by name. You are asked to enter the name of the gun and caliber, but unless you incorporate the cartridge designation into one or the other, you’d never know later exactly what gun/load data you’re looking at. Let me explain. Suppose you own several Remington 700 rifles. Two are chambered in .223, one is a .222, and another is a .22-250. If you enter Rem 700 in the gun space and .224 in the caliber space, you could be looking at load data for any of the three calibers. You would have no way of knowing which of your .223 rifles produced the range results shown. Worse, you might accidentally assemble a .222 load using .223 data at some future loading session, with possibly disastrous results. I recorded my gun data as “R700-1/223” and “R700-2/223” to solve the dilemma. I could have also designated the guns as R700-1, etc. and the caliber as .223 Rem, but there are no hints in the Help section to suggest either procedure. I am sure that that these and other suggestions could be incorporated into future versions of this program. The author specifically requests such input through the web site. All in all, Digital Reloader is a useful and usable product with a great deal of promise. One of the smaller programs I found while surfing the Internet is Group Size Calculator by R.A. Wilson. Although not a reloading database, it does perform a single very useful function. It is designed to allow shooters to load fired targets into their scanner, then perform a statistical analysis of the groups. It is shareware, meaning if you try it and like it, you are expected to buy it. I downloaded the demo version of the program, but had trouble setting it up. To gain meaningful results, you must first calibrate your scanner. To do this, you are directed to scan a sample target, measure very carefully, then set a “magic number” that tells the program what size everything really is. Either I didn’t understand the instructions, or the program wouldn’t respond correctly because I tried several times without success to input my magic number. If I ever get it working, the program would save me many hours of laboriously measuring groups and calculating data. I’m sure this will be a useful tool. On the other hand, I may never need it. Another downloadable product just might do everything I’m looking for. It’s called Point Blank, from Burgoyne. This program includes no load data, but allows you to enter or import any number of your own loads for analysis. After you enter load data, you can mouse click shot holes on a target grid and input chronograph data shot by shot. The program then automatically computes average velocity, group size and distance from center. Neat. In addition to the target/group analyzer, it includes a ballistics chart function and several other useful tools such as a recoil calculator. There are several minor drawbacks to the program, but no serious bugs. First is a problem similar to one noted in a program above. The data fields do not include a “Cartridge” box. If you enter .224 in the box called Caliber, you won’t be able to tell later if that load is for a Hornet, Fireball, 222, 223, 22-250, 220 Swift, a 224 Weatherby or any other .22-caliber round. There needs to be a data box for the cartridge name. Nor is there a way to record the gun used. If you owned both a Remington 700 and a T/C Contender in .223 Remington, you wouldn’t know which gun produced that great group you recorded. I also had a problem when trying to record old load data without target info. My old records include group size, but I have not retained the actual targets. When I entered average velocity and group size on the main page, then switched to the target page to record miscellaneous notes, the program invariably would reset velocity and group size to zero. I was forced to cheat by recording two-shot groups with the appropriate size and average velocity. The program also bases its load data on but a single group, which may not be indicative of that load’s true performance. I wish it would allow recording multiple groups with a single load. While I’m at it, I wish the program would also calculate velocity standard deviation and extreme spread along with velocity average. In the nitpick department, I see no reason at all to record both primer type and size, nor for empty case weight and length. The manufacturer’s number tells me what type and size a primer is (i.e. CCI 350 is a Large Pistol Magnum). If I were a benchrest shooter, I might sort cases by weight, but I’d also store that information with each batch of cases. By eliminating three of those four data boxes, there would be room to record sized and fired case expansion, both measurements I consider essential. With just a bit of tweaking, Point Blank could easily be the best and most useful of the reloading data programs available today. It has almost all the features I had hoped for when I started my search, with very few immutable drawbacks. It has the potential to be nearly perfect. The best news about this program is that it’s absolutely free. You read that right. Free. Unfortunately, none of the programs reviewed would allow me to print mini-labels for cartridge box pasting. Perhaps later versions of some will include that ability. Nor will the CD-ROM programs run on my admittedly primitive laptop, although they certainly will on a more current model. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to convince my honey that I MUST upgrade the old clunker, right? As I mentioned at the beginning, software comes and goes as fast as newspapers. I will undoubtedly look at other packages in the future. One product I positively lust to own is the Oehler Model 43 Ballistic Laboratory, which provides electronic chamber pressure measuring, acoustic group size recording and lots of other magic bells and whistles, all linked directly to a laptop right at the range. But for now, the better packages reviewed in this article provide me with almost all the functions I need. The ones I use daily include Load From A Disk, Oehler Ballistic Explorer, the various on-disk manuals, plus the new Point Blank database. For the computer owner and shooter, “loading” now has two very different but increasingly related meanings. # # #
Published in The Varmint Hunter Magazine #36, October, 2000) |
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W. Square Enterprises 9826 Sagedale Dr Houston TX 77089 281-484-0935 after 7 pm www.loadammo.com (Free Demo)
Oehler Research PO Box 9135 Austin TX 78766 800-531-5125 www.oehler-research.com
Hodgdon Powder Co Inc PO Box 2932 Shawnee Mission KS 66201 913-362-9455 www.hodgdon.com
Sierra Bullets 1400 West Henry St Sedalia MO 65301 800-223-8799 www.sierrabullets.com
RCBS 605 Oro Dam Rd Oroville CA 95965 800-533-5000 www.rcbs.com |
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Macort Software 1248 W 44 Place Hialeah FL 33012 305-556-7912 www.macort.com
ARMS Software 4851 SW Madrona St Lake Oswego OR 97035 503-697-0533 www.arms-soft.com
Group Size Calculator rawilson@megsinet.com
Point Blank www.burgoyne.com
Digital Reloader 822 West Timbervale Trail Highlands Ranch CO 80126 www.digitalreloader.com
(Note: names, addresses and websites were correct at time of publishing) |