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Old June 28, 2010, 07:53 AM   #1
dlb435
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Ballistics software???

I'm looking for advice on what ballistics software to get. I want to be able to estimate case pressures and velocities with different powders and barrel lengths. Any advice would be appreciated.
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Old June 28, 2010, 09:21 AM   #2
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QuickLOAD and Load from a Disk are the only two interior ballistics programs I am aware of for consumers. QuickLOAD uses powder data and actual analytical model. This gives it a lot more flexibility than Load form a Disk, which is bases on the old Powley slide rule computer. The latter is limited to a narrow range of powders, having been developed only for IMR rifle powders originally. You can't add powders not on the built-in list. It also limits you to a narrow range of load densities that does not include compressed loads. To me, this makes QuickLOAD the only serious game in town for interior ballistics, but Load from a Disk does cost less than half what QuickLOAD does. To better understand Load from a Disk's limitations, go to its web site and read the FAQ.

QuickLOAD is not exactly a breeze to learn because it lets you tweak every influence, but once you get used to it and if you have a good chronograph for feedback, it can be astonishingly accurate, sometimes predicting measured performance behavior within a couple of feet per second. QuickLOAD comes with two exterior ballistics programs included, which are QuickTARGET and QuickTARGET Unlimited. The former is a fairly straightforward exterior ballistics program with the usual tweaks except that it also handles G7 ballistic coefficients as well as the usual G1. QuickTARGET Unlimited is a 3 degrees of freedom program which can work with all manner of drag functions, with 12 standard ones in addition to the usual G1, plus individual drag functions for specific bullets and loaded rounds of ammunition commercially available and for popular target bullets that are more exact than using ballistic coefficients of any kind. It even includes allowing you to change the geographical location you are shooting from to allow for Coriolis effect. A long list lets you select longitude and latitude and range direct for specific country, state, and shooting clubs. I leave Camp Perry selected in my copy all the time.

Both versions of QuickTARGET import QuickLOAD results directly to obtain the muzzle velocity.
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Old June 29, 2010, 09:14 AM   #3
dlb435
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I check out both of them and QuickLoad is by far the best. Now I have to decide if $150.00 is worth it to me
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Old June 29, 2010, 09:57 AM   #4
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What are you wanting to do with it specifically? It is a good general tool. It is less accurate with straight wall cases than with bottle neck rifle cases, for which the model was developed, but still can be tweaked to give you a good idea of what is going on. Personally, I consider the chronograph an essential tool to get the best load predicting use from it.

One of the reasons it is expensive is many of the powder companies refuse to share (or sometimes don't have) all the technical details needed by the program to make the predictions. As a result, the author had to build a calorimetry lab that lets him make these measurements of samples of the powder himself to be able to add new powders to the database over time. That's an expensive undertaking. A Hodgdon tech said it costs them about $50,000 to pay a laboratory to do a complete set of characterization tests on one powder.
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Old June 29, 2010, 04:47 PM   #5
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Does anybody know of any ballistic software that will work on a MacIntosh computer? Everything that I have seen is Windows based. Sierra used to have one about 15 years ago, but has not been available for years now.

And, before you laugh, I wouldn't give up my Mac. Not even for your gun. HaHa

Thanks for reading this.
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Old June 29, 2010, 04:50 PM   #6
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I run the windows ballistic software on my mac by using vmware. Personally I use AccuLoad and like it, but I don't think it's available anymore.
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Old June 29, 2010, 04:53 PM   #7
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Macintosh compatibility

I had trouble installing/running the QuickLoad demo on Windows XP under Parallels, but it worked fine in Windows 7 under Boot Camp.
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Old June 29, 2010, 04:55 PM   #8
Brian Pfleuger
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Quote:
And, before you laugh, I wouldn't give up my Mac. Not even for your gun. HaHa
There's no reason to "give up on your Mac." They will do everything that a PC will do and more, assuming you're using one from the last 5 years or so, and you don't have to worry about viruses or spyware.

If you have a slightly newer intel-based Mac (last 4? or 5? years), it will run virtually every application that a windows machine will run via software called "Parallels", and a Windows installation, which can be had together for less than $100. Quickload will work under Parallels.

If you have an older machine (older than 5?), you're probably out of luck unless you can find a copy of Virtual PC, in which case you could run windows and QuickLoad under that application also.
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Old June 29, 2010, 05:40 PM   #9
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I also had problem with Parallels which is why I switched to vmware. It can run the ballistics software you want just fine without rebooting.
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Old June 30, 2010, 09:50 PM   #10
Kevin Rohrer
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Load From a Disk works fine on my iMac under Parallels.
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