Samesaw
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2012
- Messages
- 47
Sorting brass?
- Thread starter Libbylogger
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Mikecr
Well-Known Member
For analogy, imagine a process needing balloons inflated at precise pressure to reach a specific circumference. You could pretend they're to be special gas flasks for NASA, and made of standard 'yellow rubber' composition.
You could merely weigh the flat balloons, assuming heavier balloons are thicker, and lighter balloons are thinner, in every way that would determine the circumference at inflated pressure. But NASA says no to this. It's important to them that the balloons actually meet the standard they're paying you for. Their QC will be checking, and your contract payment is tied to it.. In other words,, it matters.
So you engage in testing, and find that NASA's concern holds merit. It seems there are variances in composition and elasticity of yellow rubber. And some of the balloon material does not end up in circumference. With this, you see less weight correlation, and even occurrences of heavier balloons finishing larger, and lighter balloons finishing smaller. So sending out correct balloons will take a lot more work.
Maybe it's why NASA is outsourcing this supply of frickin balloons... Ya think?
Anyway, if this is important enough to do right, you're not going to be taking the weighing shortcut. You'll test, learn, understand, and manage actual field capacities.
There are many who think this is purely mass of brass held against chamber walls at peak pressures, changing effective chamber area by that much. But that is not why you would go through any trouble here, as it means nothing in the big picture. The chamber volume is small w/resp to bore area/effective pressure area. Brass thickness variance at chamber walls is a way way smaller factor still. It's utterly meaningless.
However, change the initial volume of cases, w/resp to chamber area, and now you're making a measurable difference. A matter that actually affects powder burn & pressures. Small compared to all the other abstracts present, but large enough to measure with all else at standards, and large enough to screw up with shortcuts.
You could merely weigh the flat balloons, assuming heavier balloons are thicker, and lighter balloons are thinner, in every way that would determine the circumference at inflated pressure. But NASA says no to this. It's important to them that the balloons actually meet the standard they're paying you for. Their QC will be checking, and your contract payment is tied to it.. In other words,, it matters.
So you engage in testing, and find that NASA's concern holds merit. It seems there are variances in composition and elasticity of yellow rubber. And some of the balloon material does not end up in circumference. With this, you see less weight correlation, and even occurrences of heavier balloons finishing larger, and lighter balloons finishing smaller. So sending out correct balloons will take a lot more work.
Maybe it's why NASA is outsourcing this supply of frickin balloons... Ya think?
Anyway, if this is important enough to do right, you're not going to be taking the weighing shortcut. You'll test, learn, understand, and manage actual field capacities.
There are many who think this is purely mass of brass held against chamber walls at peak pressures, changing effective chamber area by that much. But that is not why you would go through any trouble here, as it means nothing in the big picture. The chamber volume is small w/resp to bore area/effective pressure area. Brass thickness variance at chamber walls is a way way smaller factor still. It's utterly meaningless.
However, change the initial volume of cases, w/resp to chamber area, and now you're making a measurable difference. A matter that actually affects powder burn & pressures. Small compared to all the other abstracts present, but large enough to measure with all else at standards, and large enough to screw up with shortcuts.
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Ldigio21
Active Member
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2011
- Messages
- 36
I have a lot of Winchester 7MM WSM nickel plated brass as well as 10 boxes of factory Winchester 160 gr silver ballistic tip and 2 boxes of Federal 160 gr accubond. I have no use for it any m ore as I had the gun rebarreled to a 300 WSM. I need the space e on the shelf more than the ammo and b rass I have no use for.
If interested you can contact me at [email protected] . yours really cheap if you want it.
zb338
Well-Known Member
Forget all the technical stuff. Do what the late Lyle Kilbourn (probably spelled wrong)
used to do before he shot his brass in a bench rest match. He loaded and shot the ammo that he had and any brass that went out of the group he used for practice or
hunting. He was a brilliant guy.
Zeke
used to do before he shot his brass in a bench rest match. He loaded and shot the ammo that he had and any brass that went out of the group he used for practice or
hunting. He was a brilliant guy.
Zeke
loaders_loft
Well-Known Member
I also reload for my 7wsm hunting rifle and I have learned alot in doing so. First, as you have noted, brass can be difficult to find. When I first started out with this rifle, I had one bag of prepped brass and one bag of fired brass. I didn't keep track of how many times cases were fired, resulting in situations where a bag could have brass fired twice or five times. This led me to accuracy problems and random split necks, not to mention lots of frustration.
Here's what I do now. I buy new brass, then sort by weight. I record the weight of every case to 0.1grain accuracy. I'm not sure why you went through the effort of weighing all your brass and then lumped them into groups (hopefully you just reported it that way for your post, not actually sorted that way). If they are lumped, you might want to re-weigh as above. It's only 100 pieces.
Next, I look at the ammo boxes I plan to use. For WSM you basically have two choices. 50 rounds or 22 rounds. I prefer the 22 round boxes, as this is a hunting rifle and I don't need to carry 50 rounds for hunting. Once brass goes into an ammo box, it stays with that set of 22 pieces for the entire life of the brass. I mark them with a letter (box A, B, C, etc). I prep them the same, load them, fire and then repeat, as a single set, never mixing between boxes.
If using 22 round boxes like me, then you're looking at 4 boxes (88 rounds) and maybe a 5th box with up to 12 rounds. I would play with the numbers a little and see if I could get each group of 22 pieces within 2 grains or less. Most likely you can get 4 boxes at 2 grain increments, since the entire group is just under 8 grains. Within 1 grain would be even better, but you may only get one box that tight. This will tell you what brass to cull.
Personally I have winchester and CCI magnum rifle primers, so I start out with winchester for the first few firings, then switch to CCI once the winchesters seat with little to no resistance. Also, I anneal after about four firings to prevent split necks. If you stay off the max, you should get LOTS and LOTS of firings from this brass (winchester I assume). Lastly, expect about 700-800 rounds from that pac-nor barrel (that's how long mine lasted). After that, I highly recommend a cut-rifled barrel (I like Brux).
Here's what I do now. I buy new brass, then sort by weight. I record the weight of every case to 0.1grain accuracy. I'm not sure why you went through the effort of weighing all your brass and then lumped them into groups (hopefully you just reported it that way for your post, not actually sorted that way). If they are lumped, you might want to re-weigh as above. It's only 100 pieces.
Next, I look at the ammo boxes I plan to use. For WSM you basically have two choices. 50 rounds or 22 rounds. I prefer the 22 round boxes, as this is a hunting rifle and I don't need to carry 50 rounds for hunting. Once brass goes into an ammo box, it stays with that set of 22 pieces for the entire life of the brass. I mark them with a letter (box A, B, C, etc). I prep them the same, load them, fire and then repeat, as a single set, never mixing between boxes.
If using 22 round boxes like me, then you're looking at 4 boxes (88 rounds) and maybe a 5th box with up to 12 rounds. I would play with the numbers a little and see if I could get each group of 22 pieces within 2 grains or less. Most likely you can get 4 boxes at 2 grain increments, since the entire group is just under 8 grains. Within 1 grain would be even better, but you may only get one box that tight. This will tell you what brass to cull.
Personally I have winchester and CCI magnum rifle primers, so I start out with winchester for the first few firings, then switch to CCI once the winchesters seat with little to no resistance. Also, I anneal after about four firings to prevent split necks. If you stay off the max, you should get LOTS and LOTS of firings from this brass (winchester I assume). Lastly, expect about 700-800 rounds from that pac-nor barrel (that's how long mine lasted). After that, I highly recommend a cut-rifled barrel (I like Brux).
Bret GRAVELINE Graveline
Well-Known Member
Perhaps someone else has covered this, I've been doing this a very long time, I have over a hundred sets of reloading dies from 17 hornet before it was a factory round to 470 capstick, theirs not much I've never worked with, your is one I've encountered many times, some guns it just does not matter period, so take your five most extreme cases verses five of the closest match, fire the two to see what happens, I own a 2506 I can use 5 different cases verses 5 carefully sorted, you don't be able to tell which is which, that is with a 23 grain variation,
Sam Summey
Well-Known Member
If you are going to go to this level of detail, first resize them, then trim them all to length and deburr inside and out. Then weigh them. Those first three steps are things you can do to establish uniformity. Measuring case new or once fired, you will find a variety of lengths.
Marc Gauthier
Well-Known Member
Before weighing, we must clean, and redimpose, and standardize the primers pokets, and standardize the necks, and trimer.
Dardeer
New Member
I always weigh cases and use the ones that weigh within 3 grains of one another for hungtin after I size, trim case length and bevel inside of flash hole. I get good results.
ntsqd
Well-Known Member
I fell into the mental trap of thinking that if the exterior dimensions of the cases were the same then those that weighed the same must have the same volume. That is incorrect. There is a post in my thread on this topic that explains this better than I can.
https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/revisiting-sorting-cases-by-weight.221575/#post-1650101
https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/revisiting-sorting-cases-by-weight.221575/#post-1650101
corsair4360
Well-Known Member
and what do you mean by redimpose? A joke?
25WSM
Well-Known Member
I don't weight sort anymore. I do all my prep and then load develope a low sd load then chrono them all with the same load. I then sort them into groups of brass that are within 5fps of each other. I've done so much testing things for 1000 yard benchrest. I found weight of the case is not a good way to sort. During testing I found light cases and heavy cases that shoot the same speed. Also cases that weigh the same that were 10 fps different. If you want SD to be 5 or less you want to speed sort them.
I also weighed primers till I tested the results. Out of 100 I took the 5 heaviest and 5 lightest and alternated them with a single piece of brass same load. Not much different at all. Needless to say I don't weigh them any more. All my loading is done with result driven loading techniques. If you want to know 100% test it and see. You will come to 3 conclusions. It's better. It's worse. Or it made no difference. So of course better is better. Do what works for you best. Good luck.
Shep
I also weighed primers till I tested the results. Out of 100 I took the 5 heaviest and 5 lightest and alternated them with a single piece of brass same load. Not much different at all. Needless to say I don't weigh them any more. All my loading is done with result driven loading techniques. If you want to know 100% test it and see. You will come to 3 conclusions. It's better. It's worse. Or it made no difference. So of course better is better. Do what works for you best. Good luck.
Shep
del2les
Well-Known Member
If you noticed in my reply, "in my BR guns" and "extreme varmint rounds". As a longterm BR and comp shooter who strives for ultra precision, the rest is a given.
MOA? Even my AR's shoot better than that. Each to their own, but MOA just doesn't do it for me in LR/ELR shooting.
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