QuickLoad

soup

Member
Fellows ,

I'm thinking about purchasing QL software but I'm not exactly sure what it does or if it is for me ?

Do you still need to refer to your loading manuals or can you plug in a caliber -bullet and get what works best with your rifle formula
Thank you in advance for your time and help .
Soup
 
It is an excellent what if set up for getting a good GUESS at pressures and performance. It is nice to run loading manual data through to check validity. Taking real world numbers you've shot gives you a good baseline to look at to compare other powders. It is wonderful to plug in your own capacities and barrel lengths to see potential choices.

Lots of printable tables to give you ideas of powder choices and the bullet list is huge just like the powder list.

Ritch and I use it as a development tool on wildcats. The new 22-NXS was gamed out on QL. Once Ritch built the real deal vs. a virtual cartridge we are much more able to predict what we feel will be a safe loading, we are cautious, to start.

He and I have been using it for a couple years in developing the American 30 and turning other rounds. I'm able to create our specific case so I'm not locked into industry numbers. Also as a benefit when you read about XXX cartridge shooting YYY bullet ar a given speed with ZZZ powders it becomes obvious that there are some crazies pouring powder that don't have any understanding of internal ballistics and some claims are out and out hyperbolic claims.

Greg

In summation it's a cool tool.
 
Originally Posted By: soup....can you plug in a caliber -bullet and get what works best with your rifle....
What's best for your rifle is one step beyond QL capabilities.

Anyway, and first off, just plugging in cartridge, barrel length, projectile, COL, type powder, then powder load grains,
is the starting point that then needs to be further refined (fudged) with burn rate and case volume in H2O gn.
This will usually get you very close to actual chronograph fps for the above load.
Unlikely that both the original default burn rate (Ba) and default case volume match what you are using, but it might.

From the above, QL will show pressure vs time chart and final exit fps, among a ton of other result information.
The pressure vs time chart is helpful in selecting one powder over another powder, based on burn rate.
One of the other important results is projectile barrel transit time (in ms) for the above load.

The what's best for your rifle question is a question that QL can help with, by giving this barrel transit time result.
Those that pursue Optimum Barrel Time (OBT) theory will then say to tune your load to their magic OBT time value,
which is derived from the harmonics a barrel encounters after ignition.


So having said all that, QL is not a good absolute calculator that we wish it could be,
but it is a great tool to do "what ifs" once you are comfortable with its many limitations.
One such limitation is the lack of SuperFormance on the powders list.
Another is its poor estimations on straight walled cartridges (pistol).

For those curious individuals (me) that like to explore "what ifs" and take the time to learn QL inside & out,
will find QL to be a very enlightening tool. The user interface is a bit clunky, but it gets the job done.
One big lesson I learned from QL was the sensitivity of COL to exit fps, as well as peak pressure.

Once comfortable with QL results and OBT, you may then want to tweak QL loads for OBT,
and that is what they say should be a "good load for your rifle".
 
Gentlemen ,

Thank you for your prompt replies .

I've got the RSI Shooting Lab software right now and It is a little challenging for me.
I'm not a spring chicken nor a computer whiz, but I pay attention to directions . Do you folks think it would good for a reloader like myself . I've been loading a bunch of different cartridges for about 40 years or more .I'd like to get my rifles laded where they are accurate and efficient .
Thank you once again.

Soup
 
All I'll say is. it is a very challenging learning curve, IMO.
It took me about 3 months to get comfortable with it, and I'm a retired software eng.
Here's a screen shot of a typical simulation, with most of the key inputs circled.
The bottom right section is the numeric results.
168145698.U9Lbzduu.jerry_1B.JPG
 
I agree it's definitely not the most easy learning curve. I played with it several mornings to start to get it understandable enough to get me going. Over 100 pages of documentation is pretty daunting.

Greg
 
Thank you fellows .
Perhaps I’ll wait until I master the RSI Shooting Lab program prior to diving head first in QuickLoad .
I appreciate your time and consideration.
Good shooting Semper Fi
Soup
 
save your money, I played with it for a while trying to find fast 223 loads. it tends to show great speeds with loads that aren't able to even fit in the cases because there is no way to compress the load that much. I again fired it up recently to find loads for my 6mm DTI. I tryed everything I could to get it to match closely with the other quickload data I have. I could get it to match with one powder and bullet combo but as soon as I changed either the data didn't match up anymore.

I would not buy the program again.
 
Originally Posted By: Bob_AtlAll I'll say is. it is a very challenging learning curve, IMO.
It took me about 3 months to get comfortable with it, and I'm a retired software eng.
Here's a screen shot of a typical simulation, with most of the key inputs circled.
The bottom right section is the numeric results.
168145698.U9Lbzduu.jerry_1B.JPG


The boxes circled above will get you going in the right direction very quickly. I would also add the following box to use - the burn rate factor Ba. Once this is changed to match the velocity and powder charge you are actually getting then you are almost there.

Another thing to watch is the graph/diagram. There are two broken lines. One is pmax the other is z1. The closer these two are together the better the load is. These will not mean much if all of the other info is not populated correctly. OAL, bbl length, case capacity and the correct Ba need to be populated correctly for this to work.

I have used QL for many years along with an Oehler 43 PBL to verify pressures. QL pressure predictions are not exact as measured but are close enough that I only need to use an Oehler 35 now to get me close enough. Put in the right data and you will get excellent results.
 
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