Weight sorting brass

[elk wallow]

How close do you get your brass when sorting them? Within 1 grain, 2grain?

Thanks

 

[WeiserBucks]

I tried sorting brass years ago with nothing to show for it . In my opinion it's best left to precision benchrest competition, where every .001" of group size matters, and those guys have the rifles to realize the effects of sorted brass . I've shot my share of 1/2" groups, but neither me or my rifle is going to become 1/4" due to sorted brass .

 

[Alaska2006]

weight sorting of brass is much like riding a rocking horse. Its something to do but don't get you anywhere.
I have done it several times and tried to measure any improvements without much success. Nothing wrong with doing it just been my experience there is little return on time invested.

 

[tbrice23]

How close do you get your brass when sorting them? Within 1 grain, 2grain?

Thanks

I used to weigh sort brass after every loading,***!
Now I buy a large lot of brass, sort into groups of weights ( light ,mid-weight, and heavy) up to 3 grains spread with magnum sized cases and just shoot one lot till that lot is trash, then shoot the next lot.

You would probably be better off sorting bullets by wieght, and bearing surface / base to ogive.

 

[J E Custom]

I still weight sort my brass for one reason, It improves the SDs and with that comes better groups.

I agree that it doesn't add much, but any improvement is worth it to me. when I do everything the best I can, my hunting rifles will best 1/4 MOAs when I just load and don't do the prep, they will still shoot less than 1/2 MOA, but just barely.

I do all the prep, Size, trim, and turn and then I weight sort to less than 1 grain. If I want to see what a rifle can really do I load up 10 or more that weigh the same. And apply all the other steps that I can to make the ammo as perfect as I can get it. (weigh each powder charge down to the last powder grain, seat the bullets to the exact same depth and then check for concentricity to within
less than .001).

It is a lot of trouble but when you shoot groups less than .100 thousandths, it is worth it.

This level of loading is not for everyone, But I enjoy loading the best ammo I can and my rifles seem to like it so if they are happy, I am happy.

J E CUSTOM

 

[MudRunner2005]

Buy Nosler and Lapua brass, and you won't have to worry about weight-sorting. All of my Lapua cases are VERY consistant, and Nosler pre-sorts their cases before they package them. Most are within a grain or 2.

 

[J E Custom]

Buy Nosler and Lapua brass, and you won't have to worry about weight-sorting. All of my Lapua cases are VERY consistant, and Nosler pre-sorts their cases before they package them. Most are within a grain or 2.

+1
I have to say that the Lapua brass Is the best and normally very close, But I still check it to make sure it is all under 1 grain after prep. If it is not , I still batch it. The difference is that with some brands of brass I may end up with 7 or 8 batches and 3 or 4 cases that are to far off to use at all.
(I use these for seating depth gauges, and leave them in my die sets).

I wish that Lapua made all cartridge cases but they don't and you are forced to use other brands
that are not so good and weight sorting is a must In My Opinion.

After buying some Nosler weight sorted brass I found that each batch is very close, "BUT" they were way off from the first batch if you buy some at a later date throwing your/my loads way off.
So I don't buy it any more because of there batch to batch inconsistency and price. Also the Nosler brass is made by Federal and I have not had very good luck with it.

Good ammo is only as good as the effort you put into it and weight sorting is only one element in making good ammo, so I will do what ever it takes to make the most consistent ammo. (Just ME)

J E CUSTOM

 

[toddc]

Since ES is the holy grail or LR shooting, I do weight sort. I try not to use American brass so that helps and then sort to within .5 up or down after trimming. Most brass work I do is aimed at ES not accuracy per se. Accuracy is easier to achieve than ES under 5, so I need all of the help I can get.

 

[Frank in the Laurels]

For a hunting rifle, don't waste your precious time, grab a beer and watch a football/hockey or baseball game, you'll accomplish about the same thing and more than likely enjoy yourself more..just no purpose to do it, bench rest or any real competition you should already have been doing it, it does matter when .001 count but never hunting, one little unseen puff of wind without flags matters a lot more ..

 

[toddc]

For a hunting rifle, don't waste your precious time, grab a beer and watch a football/hockey or baseball game, you'll accomplish about the same thing and more than likely enjoy yourself more..just no purpose to do it, bench rest or any real competition you should already have been doing it, it does matter when .001 count but never hunting, one little unseen puff of wind without flags matters a lot more ..

You could be right OR wrong depending on the hunting involved. At 600 it doesn't matter. At 1000 it could turn a good kill into a nightmare.
A 7mm Berger 180 VLD at 3000 yields a 244" drop at 1000. At 2900 it yields a 264" drop. That's 20" inches! At 2980 its still 4" which will turn a heartshot into a brisket hit on a deer.
Depends on the hunting you do and what you will accept as reasonable accuracy. I shoot for ES under 10 on everything I shoot and have found that weight sorting and other high end brass prep is essential to get there. 10 ES is still enough to screw you at 1500. With the 180 Berger at 3k a 10 FPS difference will move you 6" vertical at 1500.
All depends on what your hunting style is and how far you shoot. I have been shooting ELR in the wind a long time and can read wind, ES and vertical stringing is harder to get on top of and account for.

 

[elk wallow]

Thanks for the info guys. I just bought 200 pieces of Winchester 7mm WSM brass. I usually don't buy that much at a time but since it's so hard to come by I snatched it up. It was only $40 per bag so I couldn't pass it up.

Kevin

 

[Mikecr]

#1. Brass weight does not always correlate with capacity. In fact, the attributes are very different and separate.
#2. You will not know capacity matches until measuring this. So if you want matching capacities you should just measure and match them directly.
#3. Given #1, and depending on the percentage of case weight variance flagged, any actions here could be a detriment rather than benefit.

If you separate 40 out of 50 cases by weight, it could be that 4 of the 10 discarded were actual capacity matches to a mean, while 18 of the 40 kept actually depart from capacity matching. This would be a bad move on your part, as you'd have been as well off doing nothing at all.
But, you could have gathered the 26 cases out of 50 that were actually matching in capacity, -had you measured that.
So does that make brass weighing a bad shortcut?
ALL SHORTCUTS ARE BAD

 

[toddc]

Good point and post. I have often wondered on that myself and I always try to shoot over a chrono and number my brass so if I see one loafing or speeding I cull it. Not a great method.
How ever measuring case capacity accurately over a large range of brass isn't easy either.
What method do you use and how repeatable is it?
When I have tried H2O I can't seem to get it close enough to convince me it's really predictive. Do you have a better method? I haven't researched other mediums.

 

[toddc]

One other thing I have always wondered about is how much brass has been trimmed to reach the length you weigh at...... .1 grain .5 grain. That is another potential variance.