"Ladder testing"
 

I recently took a pair of rifles wearing new scopes to a range in anticipation of drawing a pronghorn tag for this fall. There I had the pleasure of sharing the range with two nice fellows in their mid 20's who bent my ear on various topics related to shooting. These fellows educated me on the virtues of their new Savage rifles, Vortex scopes, and on ladder testing.

They were shooting groups and doing "ladder testing" on the 100 yard targets and shooting the 200 yard gong. They used rolled jackets as rests, checked their targets through their scopes, and were quite satisfied with the results.

Finally they left but did not take their 100 yard targets down, so I took a peek with my spotting scope. The targets looked a bit like someone was patterning a buckshot load. I do not think either one of them could have put three shots into a three inch circle on a bet. It really made me wonder what conclusions these fellows drew from their ladder tests. It must be a term they learned on the internet and decided it must be important. I question the value of ladder testing with a factory sporter rifle in most circumstances anyhow but with these results it just seems silly.

I don't know what ladder testing is, however, the way you describe those targets it seems to me they would have failed any test for accuracy.

Ladder testing is a means to find the sweet spot of your barrel's harmonics. Here's a good article on it.
http://www.6mmbr.com/laddertest.html

Also probably why the guys' targets looked all over the place. If it was vertical stringing then that's what they were doing. Maybe you judged them too hastily.

spend enough time at a range and you will see all sorts of things that will leave you shaking your head LOL

I seen guys taking 3 shot groups, using 3 different rifle, one shot from each at same target, to get there 3 shot groups??
they didn;t get the concept, of you should shoot 3 shots out of SAME rifle !

also seen guys setting up targets and others shooting at targets next to them, and didn't think anything was wrong,a s they were NOT shooting at there targets??

had a 2 guys at a range once, shooting MY target and didn;t know it, and got very upset when I asked them to stop?? telling me they were NOT shooting MY target< even though every 3 shot group I fired, I had 4-5 holes in my target??
Guess MY bullets were multiplying as they left my barrel LOL

had a gun store for many yrs, and the story's I can tell are from funny to frighting!
I now refuse to shoot on ranges with folks I don;'t know LOL will leave and come back later, or stick to my own private range!

That is a good explanation of the process in your article.

It was not vertical stringing and clusters on the targets. Shots deviated quite a bit both vertically and horizontally with no apparent clusters. The horizontal deviation appeared to be just as great as the vertical. I do not believe that any discernible pattern was on their targets, taken either individually or aggregated for each shooter. In other words these good fellows just banged away and hit the targets all over the place. It is hard to get any meaningful results out of bad testing and when your grouping is the size and shape of a ball cap you have problems other than barrel harmonics. Some combination of shooter and shooting gear was not quite up to the task.

The ladder testing process can be useful but only if the shooting is well executed.

Maybe they should buy a proper rest and bags, get some more real shooting experience, listen more and talk less, and perhaps read your article.

Mrbb I know what you mean. I used to help at a sporting goods store during the busy season. Like the weekend before deer season etc.
I had guys ask for, say a box of 130 grain 270 ammo, so I would grab them a box of Remington and they would say "No I can't shoot them. I have a Winchester rifle"!
So I'd just shake my head and get them some Winchesters and they went away happy but still not too bright. And there was no sense trying to explain to them because they wouldn't listen anyway.

from what I know about ladder testing, the test should be done at 300 yards, if you have an accurate load to start and want to tweak it with a ladder test, then 100 yards will not show the minute variences in the load, if you can see stringing at 100 yards your not ready to milk every bit of accuracy/velocity from your rifle by checking harmonics with the test.
RR

That sounds right to me. It makes sense for shooting an accurate rifle in changing temperature conditions that may cause small velocity variations. In that case the POI shift may move enough to have an effect the results.

That is a consideration for a target rifle and most noticeable at longer ranges. I have my doubts about it's value for most factory sporter rifles.

Where's the fun in that? I've derived a lot of pleasure at the indoor dot league practice nights by shooting an arrow left handed out of one of my bows and stacking another right beside it right handed with another bow.

I'm far more impressed by a 1moa 5 shot group fired one shot at a time by 5 rifles than I am with a half MOA 5 shot group fired from one rifle. 5 position builds, 5 different POA/POI relations, one POI... Pretty impressive.

Then again, I never have subscribed to the "beware the man with but one rifle" BS, as most guys who I've met who really own only one rifle can't shoot for schitt.