When & how does reloading improve accuracy?

These are multiple open ended questions, which you have in part answered for yourself. I think it depends a lot on how accurately you can/need to shoot.

If you shoot from the shoulder at close range at the boiler room in bushveld hunting conditions with open sights or a 4x scope, then it really isn't worth it working on accuracy, so long as your scope is zero'ed in. 3 or even 5 MOA accuracy will still work.

If you cull springbok, headshots only, in the 200-300m range, then you will only feel comfortable with a gun that groups less than 0.5MOA. In that case you have to work hard on your load development, and not all factory rifles will be up to the task of doing it. If you miss, you know for sure, that its you, and not the gun. It takes all the guess work out. A lot of accurate reloading has to do with building confidence in the shooter.

I think for general hunting use, simply getting the right charge and powder for a particular bullet rifle combo is the basic you need to do.

Second, I'd say a fine tuning of seating depth.

After that, there are 100 different things you can do with respect to sorting bullets, brass, cleaning , annealing etc, but these are tertiary, to the above, and the more you dig in, the more the law of diminishing returns applies.

Reloading improves accuracy when you can produce ammo that is tighter than factory spec, and tailored to your rifle.

Factory ammo is usually of a very high quality, and conforms to a very high standard.

It takes a lot of time, money and experimentation with both reloading equipment and reloading components to equal factory ammo quality.

It takes a lot more to make your reloads better than factory for your rifle.

The impression that new reloaders are given is that they can pull a press handle, and produce better than factory ammo while saving money.

That is true, it may just take several years of trying, and spending a lot of money, to get to the point where you can produce better than factory, and your loaded round cost stays less than the cost of a factory round.

Bursting my bubble ;D ;D

In the end, much or even most of modern rifle accuracy is located behind the stock of the rifle, ie the monkey doing the work.

Practice makes perfect proven once again.

Reloading allows you to tailer a load that is exactly for you rifle. Your rifle with its inch shorter barrel and supper tight bore, that one that only shoots cup and core flat based bullets.
You can tune reloading, the velocity,the jump, the type of propellant that doez not disturb the bullet with massive spike in pressure,or a propellant that does just that to quickly obugate the bullet in your loose barrel.
In short, you can reload a precise most suited to your rifle specific bullet.

Reloading allows you to tailer a load that is exactly for you rifle. Your rifle with its inch shorter barrel and supper tight bore, that one that only shoots cup and core flat based bullets.
You can tune reloading, the velocity,the jump, the type of propellant that doez not disturb the bullet with massive spike in pressure,or a propellant that does just that to quickly obugate the bullet in your loose barrel.
In short, you can reload a precise most suited to your rifle specific bullet.

This is correct, yet if I cannot shoot accurate enough to harness these gains from the rifle, the only gains are less expensive shooting and a fulfilling hobby.

One cannot emphasize the importance of regular practise enough.

Reloading improves accuracy when you can produce ammo that is tighter than factory spec, and tailored to your rifle.

Factory ammo is usually of a very high quality, and conforms to a very high standard.

It takes a lot of time, money and experimentation with both reloading equipment and reloading components to equal factory ammo quality.

It takes a lot more to make your reloads better than factory for your rifle.

The impression that new reloaders are given is that they can pull a press handle, and produce better than factory ammo while saving money.

That is true, it may just take several years of trying, and spending a lot of money, to get to the point where you can produce better than factory, and your loaded round cost stays less than the cost of a factory round.

I do not completely agree.

New reloaders, working monkey-see monkey-do, can quite easily load ammo that is equal, if not better than factory spec by just following the instructions. The caveat being that they use components equal or better than factory spec. The wheels come off when they start trying stuff they read on the internet or that they heard from others.

New reloaders, working monkey-see monkey-do, can quite easily load ammo that is equal, if not better than factory spec by just following the instructions.

That would be like a unicorn sighting.

Hey boet ! What are the chances of factory ammo being 80% as good as it gets, look at the variables when we reload, some rifles want .25 mm jump, some 8 mm. Some rifles want max velocity other not, no ways boet, factory ammo is pot luck and it may take many, many box's of factory ammo before you find a 1 inch group.
I believe factory ammo is for hitting things and often thats about as good as it gets - between 2 and 4 inch which settles at 2 inch abouts after the cost of a rifle in test ammo.

little fact, I bought a few box's of 45 ACP factory ammo in 1990 when I bought my first firearm, before I had shot it out I was reloading with a spoon and at some seating depth like the factory ammo.
I have never bought a box rifle factory loaded ever. I have rifles bought brand new, when rifle was approved there was 100 test rounds waiting.
Never bought a rifle box of ammo ever and only ever bought some 45 ACP - no 9 mm no 44, no nothing ever.
You may find it hard to believe, I have never bought a box of factory shotgun either.

I have been given a few thousand rounds factory ammo in many instances, mostly from families of deceased estates, or people that just no longer want guns, especially 38 sp, 12 G and 9 mm, all of them were shot out as plinking for the case to be reloaded.

I have never hunted an animal with factory ammo, ever.

I would You tube some of those Ron Spomer vids on .308. There he tests a bunch of .308 rifles with a number of different factory brands of ammo. This illustrates Treemans point exactly. Most rifles shot well with one or two types of factory ammo but not others. One factory offering will work in one gun, but not another. It is all guess work.

If I had to buy factory ammo, I'd have to start with a bunch of different brands, and keep trying different ones, until one of them works, then I would stock pile that one. This works out a lot more expensive than reloading, especially if the one that works is an expensive brand.

With most rifles that are bedded and shoot well, you can develop a load with 12 bullets (4x3shot groups), where at least one of the groups fall inside an accuracy node, and get you to 1MOA. This is a lot more cost effective than buying boxes of 20 bullets of different brands, until you find a good one.

There was one match shooter who didn't have time, or enjoy reloading. So he would buy a few thousand rounds of match ammo of the same batch, then go to the range with a saw, and then shoot a group and trim the barrel, until the gun grouped perfectly, where the barrel harmonics matched the ammo, instead of the other way round.

I bought my son a Remington 512 rifle in .22. It was a gun being handed in for destruction at DFO and I had wages in cash on me at time. It had an original everything on it and the stock was like new. I feared my 5 year old would ruin the stock, so I modified a stock I found in a gunshop junk pile. I spray painted it black because the 5 year old wanted "like you dad"

I was amazed at how accurate the rifle was, grouping little cheapie beauty. One day when he was playing with it I noticed the stock was very loose, very loose, rattle loose.
I asked for rifle, took my Leatherman and tightened up that stock properly.
Only a few minutes later I had, "no daadddee, make it like it was", the rifle when tested shot everywhere. I would like to think i listened to what cody said, but -Ya!. i loosened the stock and it shot better, I made it just lie in stock attached and it shot R5 coin groups all day.

Guns are a female - there is no one make happy answer

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Guns are a female - there is no one make happy answer

... and the right answers can change at any given point in time... ;)

We reload for several good reasons: it is more cost effective, it improves accuracy, it is a great hobby, it gives a perfect combination of cartridge and rifle for specific purposes, etc.

Regarding the "better accuracy" argument: When does accuracy improve very much? What is necessary for pin point accuracy?

Reloading for long range and extreme long range makes much sense, simply because one has to eliminate as many variables as possible.

Is reloading necessary when hunting? I think yes, because it could be the difference between a dead or wounded animal.

The question: what is necessary to improve accuracy from 1MOA to .25MOA? How big a difference does the rifle setup make, and how much influence does the shooter have, and how important is the quality of the reloaded ammunition?

There are many reasons for reloading. Cost is not a valid one. We might shoot for less money per shot, but in the end I suspect our shooting budget goes up, not down.

There are many variables involved in good precision. (Accuracy is a different matter and relates more to marksmanship.) To mention a few that we as reloaders can cater for:
1. Selecting components that your rifle likes. (Being female, they are sometimes quite picky about what they want or not.) This also helps on the long run if you can get the same components again or stock up on what works.
2. Consistency. If you load for precision, you can do everything to much smaller tolerances than a big factory can.
3. Fine tuning your load to your rifle. You can only do that by loading your own.
4. Confidence. Marksmanship is dependent on shooter confidence. Loading your own helps you to build (or ruin) your confidence in your ammo and rifle.
There are probably more things that can be added here.

Point # 3 Fine tuning your load to your rifle. You can only do that by loading your own.

Its almost everything, unless you wanna keep buying rifles till u find a rifle that likes the ammo you can find. Then later you can buy another rifle to match the new ammo on the shelf because the old accurate in your rifle stuff is not available any longer in our lovely country.

I actually cannot grasp the concept of shooting and not reloading, how do you hunt with what ammo is available, "that which you could find?"

MORE SO - HTF do you feel good about shooting with a rifle that kinda hits somewhere abouts more or less where the cross of your R20 000 scope indicated?
If you do not reload you may as well have a R2000 scope at a fixed 4 power, kinda indicates you shooting in the right direction ;D

There are many reasons for reloading. Cost is not a valid one. We might shoot for less money per shot, but in the end I suspect our shooting budget goes up, not down.

Yes and no. Cost can be a very valid reason. A packet of 308 ammunition costs anywhere between R600 - R1500. How much would a single range session for target practice cost me if I had to buy those 20 rounds?

Point # 3 Fine tuning your load to your rifle. You can only do that by loading your own.

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MORE SO - HTF do you feel good about shooting with a rifle that kinda hits somewhere abouts more or less where the cross of your R20 000 scope indicated?
If you do not reload you may as well have a R2000 scope at a fixed 4 power, kinda indicates you shooting in the right direction ;D

You have a very good point here. I have not often participated in shooting days or - competitions, yet I usually ended up in the upper third of the competitors.

My setup is a 6x fixed telescope on all my hunting rifles, which are basically stock standard themselves.

My setup is a 6x fixed telescope on all my hunting rifles, which are basically stock standard themselves.

I love a fixed scope for hunting. By nature of the simplicity of the design, you always get more bang for your buck with respect to image quality. When you shoot a lot of the same kind of animal, you get good at judging distance based on the size of the animal in the scope picture. The only downside, is if you want to use the same scope of delicate load development work and target shooting. But they have become very scarce, a pity.

I have done load development using peep sights for most of my shooting experience over 20 years. You might be surprised how precise you can aim and shoot like that. No special skill required.

I see a lot of times shooters blame the low magnification scopes that they use when in actual fact it is the load or the rifle that is not producing the groups that they want.

I have done load development using peep sights for most of my shooting experience over 20 years. You might be surprised how precise you can aim and shoot like that. No special skill required.

I see a lot of times shooters blame the low magnification scopes that they use when in actual fact it is the load or the rifle that is not producing the groups that they want.

Please elaborate - which calibres and distances?

.308Win, .303Brit

All done at 100m.

I see a lot of times shooters blame the low magnification scopes that they use when in actual fact it is the load or the rifle that is not producing the groups that they want.

Please elaborate - which calibres and distances?

I know a 50 BMG shooter that uses a 10x fixed power scope. Good enough for him to compete with to 2 miles.