Quote Originally Posted by michaelnel View Post
OCW evaluation doesn't have squat to do with group sizes. It has to do with where the center of the group is in relation to other charges nearby. If you are gonna just choose the smallest group you don't need to do OCW testing.
Shooter skills and equipment might affect the usefulness of these load optimization techniques.

Can someone post a link with a definition and critical review of the the Optimal Charge Weight (OCW) method?

I ask because I have used it to plot both group centers and group sizes. My understanding is that one can identify accuracy nodes by finding where the point of impact slowly changes and to look at group size. While I have turned in a few .3 to .5 moa 5-shot groups, my typical group is more like 1 moa, so tweaking load recipes to knock off .1 or .2 moa becomes a challenge when trying to separate signal from noise.

In other words, the problem with both this method and the ladder is when looks at one shot, or even three shots in isolation, the random nature of shot dispersion can overwhelm any useful signal. This is also why the Round Robin technique is useful -- the aggregate wind, temperature and light conditions affect all groups equally.

Even so, the odd bad or the odd excellent group confuses the message. That's why more shots, for me, at least give more confidence that I've walked the recipe to a good place.