Do you weigh bullets? And what tolerance do you use?

[300 Driver]

So first off, I've never weighed bullets before. But, I bought a few boxes of the ELDX seconds from Midway and thought I better try to find out why they were "seconds."

200gr ELDX

Min weight 198.6
Max weight 200.9

I had almost 100 bullets at 200.2 +/-.1gr

I had a group of 30 or so at 199.9 +/-.1gr

Then a group that was 198.6-199.7gr and a group that was 200.4-200.9gr.

Will the extremes in the weight make a difference in ladder testing? I was thinking of using the looser tolerances bullets in the ladder and finalize with the tighter tolerances. Just looking for any input from the guys who actually weigh each bullet and any observations they've seen.

Thanks fellas!

 

[MagnumManiac]

I have never seen weight variance in bullets make a difference to accuracy at range.

An imbalance or air pocket does, this is never known until the bullet is fired downrange of course.

Cheers.
gun)

 

[FearNoWind]

I know a lot of bench rest shooters who, with the objective of putting every fired round into the same hole, weigh and measure everything.
Having come from that fraternity, I can tell you that unless you're shooting scores that are competitive with national championship matche results, don't waste your time.
For example - all other factors being equal: A 7mm round weighing 180 grains and fired at about 2600 fps will, mathematically, score as little as .5 inches or less different at 1000 yards than the same bullet weighing 183 grains.
Load 'em and shoot 'em. This is supposed to be fun.

 

[Gene]

A .2" difference is pretty low, compared to others. But weight is not as important as length of the bearing surfaces (from base to ogive). Measure those and put them into similar groups. The target will show you why to do this. You can find this method by googling it.

 

[Corey Schwanz]

Do a little test. Shoot a couple 3-5 shot groups with bullets all weighing exactly the same. Then do it again with bullets with as big of a spread as you can from your box and see if the group size changes significantly enough or not.

 

[tbrice23]

So first off, I've never weighed bullets before. But, I bought a few boxes of the ELDX seconds from Midway and thought I better try to find out why they were "seconds."

200gr ELDX

Min weight 198.6
Max weight 200.9

I had almost 100 bullets at 200.2 +/-.1gr

I had a group of 30 or so at 199.9 +/-.1gr

Then a group that was 198.6-199.7gr and a group that was 200.4-200.9gr.

Will the extremes in the weight make a difference in ladder testing? I was thinking of using the looser tolerances bullets in the ladder and finalize with the tighter tolerances. Just looking for any input from the guys who actually weigh each bullet and any observations they've seen.

Thanks fellas!

I weighed some 6.5mm 140gr 'NON-factory seconds' eld-x. My ES was significantly higher than your ES.
Weighed with Gempro 250.

I check weight variance from random samples of every lot of bullet I buy.
600yard BR match ammo gets loaded with 100% weight matched bullets, within .1 gr. But not much sorting to do for Berger 6mm 105gr target boat tails.

Hornady bullets almost always have to get sorted into weight lots, even for hunting bullets(FOR ME). Bergers have had outstanding weight and bearing surface consistency in recent years, for their hunting bullets I'll check a few and decide it's wasted time to sort.


You guys are doing a Good job Corey!