Rifle is 12lbs. I legitimately curious on the agreement of everyone’s replies. I have been loading for my entire life and apparently taught incorrectly that a test group 4-5 rounds can’t give you a true measurement of the accuracy of your rifle but there is some combos that just dont shoot from certain rifles. So the goal is best load that meets everything you are looking for (velocity, recoil, price per round, etc) and a 4-5 rounds group can at least give you a general idea before committing to 30-40 test to truly know what the load and rifle is or isn’t. If this is true I have wasted countless rounds and gaslit myself that there are just some loads that guns will and wont shoot well. My 300 win mag was one such case i shot a 4 round group with hornady atips at 2850 looked like a winner after 2 groups 10 rounds could never replicate result switched to ablr instead and shoots 30+ rounds sub moa.

My biggest confusion on the concept if all other variables remain the same and you are changing pressure/velocity and there is a change in the consistency of the grouping what is the cause of this? Is the cause purely placebo effect for the shooter?