Precision Reloading Priorities in components

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b72471

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I'm wondering what shooters consider as a priority when sorting, weighing and measuring brass, bullets,checking runout; & oh yes and the overall weight of loaded shell?????
Sooo on the final sort for the shoot, which of these is given the priority?
 
You gotta figure it out for what works for you. Personally I don't weight sort anything, trickle every load and take time to minimize runout. Neck tension consistency is key in my opinion. Work up a good load. I don't win matches, so it is probably better to listen to those that do. I can't shoot well enough to notice past the above steps.
 
What level of performance are you looking for in your ammo?

To make ammo good enough to win at a world-championship level for prone shooting with iron sights at 600 yards, where the expectation would be to produce ammo capable of grouping close to 0.5 MOA at that distance:
  • I'd use good quality, known-to work brass (e.g. Winchester, Lapua), primers (e.g. Fed 210, CCIBR2, Winchester WLR), powders (N140, Varget, etc) and bullets (standard Sierra/Berger/etc match bullets)
  • I would not weight-sort any of my components, I would use them as they came out of the box
  • I would use carefully-thrown powder charges (+/- 0.3 grains), I would NOT bother weighing each charge
  • assemble the ammo with good sizing and seating dies, initially checkr loaded round runout to make sure things are set up right and once that is established just get on with making the ammo.

If your application is less demanding, you can be even less fussy than that. If your needs are more demanding there are some more things you might need to pay a bit more attention to, e.g. for 1000 yard shooting I would weigh my charges to +/- 0.1 grains, for F-Class shooting I would probably consider weight-sorting my brass and maybe weighing the charges to a tighter spread than +/- 0.1 grains.
 
You may wish to post this in the precision shooting forum. Far more tips from there.
I am a hunter, so I load for hunting. I had a buddy in Wilmot, NS that was into precision matches.
He weighed EVERY COMPONENT! He bought in batches of 10,000 (except cases, he only bought 1000 at a time). Weighed and sorted every case, primer, bullet. Checked the bullets for concentricity and sorted them again. Guy was NUTS! But he won stuff. It would take him a week to load test rounds and an entire day to load for a match. He bought huge kegs of powder from Ammomart that lasted a couple/three years and threw short loads which he then trickled up. He used a high end pharmacy beam scale for years.
He was constantly weighing, measuring, tweaking. Drove me crazy, but he loved it.
Dead now (15 years or so), I think his brother-in-law got all of his stuff and flogged it cheap.
 
Always start with end use goals and objectives. Hitting a pie plate at 600yds will have different need then trying to hit the same plate at 1600yds

Also, what is the rifle and quality of assembly/parts there? Race tires on a mini van only takes you so far.

With peak precision shooting, consider EVERY part of the system. Each step can vary in importance due to the platform used BUT it should all be considered.

Experience and that means shooting, is your best teacher. With every rifle, I review ALL parts and all steps, test to prove where the boundaries are and load for that barrel.

Jerry
 
For long range and field shooting I find the atmosphere to be the biggest variable. It far out shadows anything I do at the loading bench. I use good components, good loading equipment and reasonable loading process. Other than that I don't sweat the small stuff.

Years ago I spent all winter sorting and weighing an entire case of Rimfire ammo. When I got out into the field I didn't notice any difference in accuracy. The gopher didn't care if I hit him mid chest or in the ass. He flopped over dead and I counted a hit. Since then I have never sorted Rimfire and I don't kill myself trying to produce perfect ammo.

The first gust of wind and your perfect ammo is gonna miss by 4 feet at 1000+ yds anyway.
 
There's precision target shooting and bench rest shooting. Different techniques for both.
For regular target shooting, the overall weight of loaded shell is irrelevant. So is weighing cases and group sizes. Having the cases all the same length matters. As does meticulously weighing the powder. Match grade bullets matter too. Other than that, loading match grade ammo is no different than loading hunting ammo.
+/- 0.3 grains is enough to alter your POI and velocity. Isn't match ammo with that much difference. Isn't good hunting ammo either.
 
After my first fire on new cases my regime is as follows.

Full lenght size
deburr flashhole
turn every neck and verify runout with ball mike
trim to SAMMI and deburr necks
sort cases into 1 grain groups.

After the following firing
Body size minumum bump to chamber
neck size
load to the grain. I find that ONE physical grain of 4831sc is 0.1 to 0.2 grains. Takes me all night to get the powder and seating done.

If groups are shot with the groups of separated brass your loads will be tighter, so to answer your question, after uniforming, sorting brass is most important IMO.
 
I am a newb compared to some here, but my findings have been that brass prep played a huge role in group consistency - that is, use cases identical (not close, but identical) in brand, case length, neck tension, and neck/FL sizing. I already double weigh powder and used to check for runout - but runout disappeared when I switched all to Forster dies.
I haven't yet weighed cases or bullets.
 
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