Load data from Berger for 6.5G

[LRRPF52]

And I agree with what you're saying, but in honesty since I haven't seen or evaluated anyone's QL program and their tweaks (I'm using Grt here), I can't categorically say their implementations are inherently bad or off - (I can say I'm basically skeptical, which is how I treat my grt results). Example, I do believe that Klem has said he uses his after having made several adjustments and views it as an info-only estimate... I don't use any of his data however. But your points here are absolutely well-taken to be sure.

As part of my career I was a senior license instructor/engineer for several full-scale reactor plant real-time operating simulators - ie, real-time complex math-model simulators of particular designs of nuclear reactor plants, the whole she-bang all the way from neutron fissions to putting 1000 MWe "electricity" on to "the grid". (I also have, as part of my career, operated, started-up from subcriticality to full power and shut-down real nuclear reactors literally hundreds of times, so I think I am knowledgeable in this area.) These simulators had a slew of full-time engineers and math-PhD's to evaluate, maintain and tweak/modify and they were very good simulator-models. But in the final analysis they were models only ("nature doesn't always read your script!!"). The real mcCoy's didn't have to act exactly as the models did. And I have 2 very explicit cases where operators followed what the "models" had told them yet missed what the "real" plant was doing... which in the case of large nuclear reactors, can be serious indeed.
So... math models are just that - models.
The real-deal data trumps anything a model might try to tell us.

btw, thanks for all the hard work you and your guys did to bring out the Grendel handbooks - they have been a great source for me, and if some may not appreciate what it took to do that, I just wanted to say that there are many of us that do.

Thank you for your kind words.

My uncle worked at Hanford Site doing that sort of work, while my dad was an aerospace engineer/mathematician/physicist for USAF/DoD. From as early as I could walk, I got a constant education in applied physics and math, in addition to instruction from my Douglas Aerospace machinist grandfather on cartridges, reloading, and firearms. I took it to a pretty extreme level as a kid in my teens with aerospace especially, and could ask and learn from all the professionals in my neighborhood at the time. That included calculating pretty complex equations for aerodynamic and kinetic performance of aircraft, where I was building atmospheric-variable diagrams for aircraft climb rates, instantaneous vs sustained turn rates, combat radii, and things like that.

My dad was able to assist me since he worked on theoretical flight model envelopes with NATO AeroEs when we were in West Germany helping on the EuroFighter program. I’ve always been passionate about developmental and cutting edge technologies primarily related to aerospace. These interests took far greater priority over whatever distractions were assigned to me in classrooms, not that I had any academic problems, but those were meaningless in comparison to my interests. Pilots were the raw performance checkers who could look at the engineers/mathematicians and say, “Yeah, we tried that and it does/doesn’t work.” It was very informative to watch all those types working together on developmental programs and see the nuances between theory and real world. The pilots are the ones with their lives on the line, so they tend to be very blunt, which is a healthy perspective to have. Most of these guys were AeroEs or MEs who went through USAF Test Pilot School as well, so they had endured academic rigor that every one of them describe as next to soul-crushing, interrupted often each day with test flights of dozens of different types of aircraft.

Bill Alexander is a joy to converse with in this regard, because he has extensive training and experience from UK MoD and his own independent efforts in firearms engineering, testing, development, and all the things he encountered over the years “stuffing different cartridges into the AR-15”. There was so much going on with the AR-15 that I was unaware of but thought I knew, that really pops up when you try to chamber it in something different.

One of the authors of the Grendel handbooks (and fellow forum member) did developmental weapons DoD work at Livermore Labs after his USAF pilot experience in SEA, and one of the other authors is a PhD who did the terminal ballistics testing, photography, and charts showing expansion threshold behavior.

So I have a very lifelong appreciation for engineers, academics, and hands-on technicians in the fields of mathematics and physics, especially the ones who are tasked with applying those to solving very consequential real-world problems.

Would love to hear your insight into Chernobyl some time, not to side track.