Until recently I avoided ladders as a reloading tool but finally decided to try them. I have ran a few different ones on various rifles with different bullet weights but I just dont enjoy it. I think the real enjoyment to me of target shooting is shooting small groups. When I shoot ladders I don't get to shoot groups at all in that session as I am going through 10 round ladders looking for nodes. Of course there is the lure of smaller groups in the future but in some way I feel like I can get similar results and still shoot groups.

For example lets say I shoot 20 rounds in a ladder .2grains or .3 grains apart and shoot 1-2 rounds of each charge I have shot 20 rounds covering a 2-3 grain range. For not that many more rounds I can cut the bottom out of the reloading chart and skip the bottom half of the range of charges for a specific bullet/powder. Then going down to maybe a 1.5 grain range shoot 3 round groups maybe .2 grains apart for a total of 21 rounds of 3 shots by 7 charges. Now I get the satisfaction of shooting groups which I enjoy and still cover a decent powder charge range for a particular bullet.

What do you all prefer for load development on a new caliber or bullet etc?

Thanks and I look forward to your thoughts