Weight sorting brass

Weight sorting is a very crude at best method of determining case volume. Many competition shooters have switched to volume sorting their brass. This can be done with water but I see a lot of people saying they are using 98% or 99% isopropyl alcohol. If you zero a case on a scale and fill it with a liquid you can find a fairly accurate volume based on the density of the liquid. Water is easy since 1mL equals exactly 1 gram. The exact volume doesn't matter so long as they are consistently the same volume. There are a lot of benchrest and long range hunting forums where they discuss this and find that cases with the same volume can sometimes be a grain or two apart in weight when empty.

Personally, I weight sort my brass but just to get rid of the extreme outlyers. I recently sorted 150 Winchester 308 cases and found they are almost all 155-160gr. A few were as light as 151gr or as heavy as 164gr. I culled the outliers into my plinking-only bucket of brass and kept the 155-160gr centre range. I only needed 100 cases so managed to use just the 157-160gr cases. That's good enough for me.
 
Just for fun I randomly picked different case stamps to see weight difference here's what I found. These were all prepped the same. Being this range fired brass I dont know the exact firing but I assume they are all 1x fired as they looked great and most reloaders keep their brass unless its noticeably bad.

Barnes 91.4

FC 92.8

Hornady 93.4

Win 94.8

Nosler 96.5

Cheers!!
 
dirtyw said:
I was told by an experienced reloader to sort by 0.1 grains. He had excellent results with his rifle and so have I.
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Would you be able to provide an example how your would group your brass using your method of 0.1? What ranges you keep to use or not?

Would anyone be able to provide and example let say out of 100pc of brass what weight you would keep to use competition?
 
More to the point, would someone sort some brass, in lots with only 0.1 grain variation, lots with only 0.5 gr variation, and lots with perhaps 2, or 3 or 5 grains range, load them with equal care using data proven to group decently in the subject test rifle, and have a competent shooter bench test them, known only by lot name - i.e. Lot "Q" , Lot "R" Lot "H".

Measure group size, rinse and repeat,. some statistical genius on here will know how many rounds per group, how many iterations of the same study - weigh cases, lump into lots, hand load, blind test for group size, and then we will have an answer. Well, an answer for that one rifle, so perhaps the same statistical genius could tell us how many different rifles in how many different cartridges you would need to test to be able to answer the OP's original question - how small a variation in case weight is necessary to achieve his accuracy goals.

The rest is just global warming. I believe because....
 
Weight sorting seems like a waste. Volume sorting makes sense. Sorting cases for thin side bodies makes sense. Best lesson of last five years, leave Winchester components on shelf.
 
I weight sort to within 1 gr. for .308 and only because it makes me feel good about my reloads. I only use Lapua brass and batch them in MTM boxes of 50. My spread is from 151 gr to 154 gr.
Sorting by volume might be better, but who has time for that? Sure the weight difference could be in the extra .001" on the diameter of the extractor groove or the extra .002" in the web of the case, or the case that is .003" shorter than the rest. I will bet money that more points are lost due to missing a wind call than that extra .3 gr or .7gr case difference.

And if you really want to drive yourself nutz, weight sort your match bullets and see how many lots you end up with.
 
I believe that it was the British teams that started weight sorting the ammunition they were supplied for international competitions.
Didn't matter if the rounds used were at the low end, high end, or in the middle. What was important was that the rounds were all from the same weight range.
 
Sorting in groups of less than 1 grain variance is a waste of time IMO. Next time you trim cases, weigh the chips. Then think of all the places that extra brass can hide in a case. Sorting by volume would be much more productive, albeit I have not done it.
 
I sort my brass +or - 1 grain. I just started using lapua brass recently, I weighed 50 of the 100 cases and there was a difference of .5 gr. I'm now a lapua fanboy. Winchester and Remington brass can vary as much as 6 grains.
 
scott_r said:
Just for fun I randomly picked different case stamps to see weight difference here's what I found. These were all prepped the same. Being this range fired brass I dont know the exact firing but I assume they are all 1x fired as they looked great and most reloaders keep their brass unless its noticeably bad.

Barnes 91.4

FC 92.8

Hornady 93.4

Win 94.8

Nosler 96.5

Cheers!!
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Curious where r-p would fall on that list, have any?
 
I usually start with a bucket of brass of 500 pieces. I put masking tape labels on plastic tubs. With ordinary brass I label the tubs in 0.3 increments. Then I fill the 50 round plastic ammo boxes with brass and put a label inside the box of what tub they came from e.g. 162.3

If I was starting with a small number of cases, like only 100, I would weigh a few to get a feel for the average and then weigh them into 3 weights. Middle wight being say 162 -162.5, and the other two being the cases that were heavier and those that were lighter.

or weigh the 100 into 1.0 gr increments.

Over the winter it is easy to find the time to sort brass by weight. Only have to do it once. The 308 cases I load now were all weighed about 10 years ago. They have been re-loaded 8 times, trimmed once.
 
For competition i use all the brass except the one's way out to lunch I weight sort them into .2 grains and I place them into groups of 50. I also weight sort my bullets into the same groups. As long as you use the same groups for the competition you will be consistent. Just don't use the high end and the low end in the same competition.
 
charles69 said:
For competition i use all the brass except the one's way out to lunch I weight sort them into .2 grains and I place them into groups of 50. I also weight sort my bullets into the same groups. As long as you use the same groups for the competition you will be consistent. Just don't use the high end and the low end in the same competition.
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If you go to a week long competition where you will use, say, 500 rounds, you probably take most of your match brass. This is why I record the brass weight batch inside the 50 round box lid.

before the shoot, I put all the boxes in order of increasing weight, and number them. then I shoot the boxes in that order. On a typical day I would finish one box and start the next. At worst, there would just be a 0.3 gr change in brass weight. I had no problem making that change in the middle of a string on score.
 
Ganderite said:
If you go to a week long competition where you will use, say, 500 rounds, you probably take most of your match brass. This is why I record the brass weight batch inside the 50 round box lid.

before the shoot, I put all the boxes in order of increasing weight, and number them. then I shoot the boxes in that order. On a typical day I would finish one box and start the next. At worst, there would just be a 0.3 gr change in brass weight. I had no problem making that change in the middle of a string on score.
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Yeah I record all the weights in the inside of the case and keep that brass together for the life of the brass. I try to keep weights close for the stuff I take to competitions to, I like your idea of starting at the bottom and working your way up that way do not get some odd ball stuff at the end with large differences in weights
 
Case weight sorting is a waste of time.

If you must check, confirm the volume of the 1F brass before sizing. Simple and fast to do with a very fine grain ball powder.... or salt. I have checked case volume on a wide range of brass in both cals and manf. I have yet to find anything that was out enough to worry about.

Otherwise, let the target tell you if you have a bad case.

Use brass from the same manf and the same lot. Lot to lot can vary but within the lot is typically very consistent regardless of the brand.

You can have massive weight variation on how the extractor groove has been cut - how useful is that?

YMMV.

Jerry
 
Mystic Precision said:
Case weight sorting is a waste of time.

If you must check, confirm the volume of the 1F brass before sizing. Simple and fast to do with a very fine grain ball powder.... or salt. I have checked case volume on a wide range of brass in both cals and manf. I have yet to find anything that was out enough to worry about.

Otherwise, let the target tell you if you have a bad case.

Use brass from the same manf and the same lot. Lot to lot can vary but within the lot is typically very consistent regardless of the brand.

You can have massive weight variation on how the extractor groove has been cut - how useful is that?

YMMV.

Jerry
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Thanks, appreciate the info as you are one of the few that can back up your talk...no offence anyone else.

So in your opinion is Lapua really worth buying new vs say Remington.. for the non competitive shooter. I do strive for the best accuracy out of my rifles though.

Cheers!!
 
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