Hello,
This is a general question, but with a specific scenario as background context.
So yesterday afternoon, after my usual club outing, a good friend tells me he scoured the club's DUDS bin and found a ton of 7.62x39 rounds, brass cased, intact, with no popped primers. The vast majority of them were Remington-Peters, with some being Winchester. The Remington Peters were all soft points. Now, some of them I can tell why they ended up in the dud container - a few had recessed bullets. Others had bullets that were pretty loose.
My buddy knew I was reloading 7.62x39 brass so he collected it for me and said I can just pull the bullets and use the casing, after popping off the primers later this week when I back at my club.
Out of curiosity, I decided to bring out my RCBS scale, after calibrating it and weigh each bullet. I was a bit surprised for the Remington Peters bullets, all soft point rounds, that they weighed anywhere from 122.9 grains to 125.2 grains.
Now I went on the Remington Peters website and supposedly the Core Lokt softpoints for 7.62x39 are listed as 125 grains. Now, given what I understand to be an acceptable within 0.5 grain tolerance, I don't understand the ones at 122.9 grains and anything that was 123.x grains. Is it normal that there just such variation in bullet weights?
Now, I concede I don't know the origin of these rounds. It is possible that someone could have reloaded these, but even so you would think they would use the same batch of SP bullets, which presumably would be very similar in weight.
Regardless I segregated any of the bullets were were under 124.5 grain.
Curious if any of you have experience with RP SP bullets and whether this is normal or not. With the retail store bought bullets for other calibers, I have not been weighing them since I trust that when they say the bullet is X weight, it is X weight. With these duds, and in reclaiming the bullets (which I have not done before), I am a bit surprised at the disparity in weights...unless this is normal...
This is a general question, but with a specific scenario as background context.
So yesterday afternoon, after my usual club outing, a good friend tells me he scoured the club's DUDS bin and found a ton of 7.62x39 rounds, brass cased, intact, with no popped primers. The vast majority of them were Remington-Peters, with some being Winchester. The Remington Peters were all soft points. Now, some of them I can tell why they ended up in the dud container - a few had recessed bullets. Others had bullets that were pretty loose.
My buddy knew I was reloading 7.62x39 brass so he collected it for me and said I can just pull the bullets and use the casing, after popping off the primers later this week when I back at my club.
Out of curiosity, I decided to bring out my RCBS scale, after calibrating it and weigh each bullet. I was a bit surprised for the Remington Peters bullets, all soft point rounds, that they weighed anywhere from 122.9 grains to 125.2 grains.
Now I went on the Remington Peters website and supposedly the Core Lokt softpoints for 7.62x39 are listed as 125 grains. Now, given what I understand to be an acceptable within 0.5 grain tolerance, I don't understand the ones at 122.9 grains and anything that was 123.x grains. Is it normal that there just such variation in bullet weights?
Now, I concede I don't know the origin of these rounds. It is possible that someone could have reloaded these, but even so you would think they would use the same batch of SP bullets, which presumably would be very similar in weight.
Regardless I segregated any of the bullets were were under 124.5 grain.
Curious if any of you have experience with RP SP bullets and whether this is normal or not. With the retail store bought bullets for other calibers, I have not been weighing them since I trust that when they say the bullet is X weight, it is X weight. With these duds, and in reclaiming the bullets (which I have not done before), I am a bit surprised at the disparity in weights...unless this is normal...
