weight sorting... primers, bullets and brass

G

Grant Shave

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so heres an interesting topic I think..... I know for competitive precision shooters this may not be breaking news and probably useless information to the average hunter who keeps his shots to no more than 300 yards

To the hunters, gopher wackers and longrange target enthusiasts who have a need to develop loads for longrange 300 yard plus.... you might find my observations usefull

Curious to know what the thoughts of the average shooter thinks on the topic, I know most are just happy when their gun goes bang.... but more interested in the thoughts of average shooters who are looking for a little more and maybe handloading and playing with these components

I have weights sorted and tested both primers ( by weight ) and bullets ( by weight and length of OG to base ) ( berger, sierra and hornady ) but not sorted brass either by weight or volume..... maybe later

Much to my surprise I have learnt a few what I think are important things about primers and bullets and how they preform when grouped together and how they can make or break a good load

I have not gone down the path of sorting brass.... yet

My conclusion .....

One thing I can say is my SD is now in the single digits and even my bad loads still form a group of reasonable perportion at distance

Weight sorting primers has had the biggest effect I think for me.... doing a traditional bell curve I was able to sort out the very light and the very heavy.... I then using the very light, average and the heavy and made up some test loads using a gun and known load for a gun that shoots consistently in the 0.300" ( 22 Br ) , I used an AND f120i for weighing powder, micrometer seater for seating bullets to 0.001", my set up I used my Farley front rest and rear bag on a cement top bench, set out wind flags, first I confirmed my gun/load accuracy level, I then fired these at random using a Labradar to track velocity spread, much to my surprise there was over 40 fps difference between shots, only thing that was different was the primer weights and well my group was not anywhere near the 0.300 " that it produced in the first 5 shots 10 mins earlier

Now based on that info I used weight sorted primers ( all weight the same in grns ) and tested bullets.... I found the berger target/hunting and sierra smk to all weigh with in 0.002 grns and OG to base to be +/- 0.002 also so guessed these would not likely to show noticeable difference on paper with my set up and ability.... which is what I determined in the end, also concluded weight sorting is not required if your using good quality bullets

As far as any Hornady bullets tested..... well you might want to sort them

Final thoughts... weight sorting primers seems to make a difference , in SD and bullet impact point, I call it extra quality control after the factory.... all the primers are good and usable, but I proved to myself if you are unfortunate enough to have a light and heavy primer mixed in with your test loads, hunting loads or worse yet in your string in a competition.... your probably not gonna be happy with the results at distance

My 2 cents worth of observation ..... G
 
Perhaps a waste of time for shooting 300 and under but there are lots of guys shooting 300-1000 and this may be something worth the effort. Have to try it myself to see if it's worthy of the time. Thanks for the info.
 
I always weight sort my brass. I've weighed all my match bullets, and never seen a difference greater than .2gr; so I don't see a point.

I also use match primers, but have never even thought of checking for a variation in weight. First I actually hear of this, but will look into it further.

Cheers.
 
Grant Shave said:
Now based on that info I used weight sorted primers ( all weight the same in grns ) and tested bullets.... I found the berger target/hunting and sierra smk to all weigh with in 0.002 grns and OG to base to be +/- 0.002 also so guessed these would not likely to show noticeable difference on paper with my set up and ability.... which is what I determined in the end, also concluded weight sorting is not required if your using good quality bullets

As far as any Hornady bullets tested..... well you might want to sort them

Final thoughts... weight sorting primers seems to make a difference , in SD and bullet impact point, I call it extra quality control after the factory.... all the primers are good and usable, but I proved to myself if you are unfortunate enough to have a light and heavy primer mixed in with your test loads, hunting loads or worse yet in your string in a competition.... your probably not gonna be happy with the results at distance

My 2 cents worth of observation ..... G
Click to expand...

Agree with your findings for the Hornady Match BTHP bullets. Not too happy with them. Weight sorting helps but what a PITA. Even the ELD-M are not very consistent. Better than the Match but still require weight sorting.

Agree with what you found with the Sierra SMK, Berger VLD and Berger Hybrids - yes, excellent consistency - load and shoot.

Never bothered to look at the primers as I have never noticed much variation but it is something to think about doing I guess.
 
posted on 6br
http://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/300-wsm-primer-alternative.3907209/page-3
JIMPAg I just weighed 1 sleeve of 100, Fed 205M. Highest weight 3.730- Lowest 3.675. You think that's going to make any difference on a target? Highly doubt it. If I screwed up it's because I didn't read the flags right, didn't hold where I was suppose to, and pulled the trigger at the wrong time not because of the minute weight difference in primers. People put too much emphasis on petty things and not enough on things that really matter like flag reading.

my response below

I thought this same thing then yet one more person told me that he cut his es/sd numbers by weighing primers. so i did a test.
205m two different lots (keeping both lots separate)
using a Fx 120i
I used the magneto speed for all testing

i batched the primers into two group. 3.68 and below and 3.70 and above total spread was 3.64 to 3.74.

I had two different barrels, different lots of bullets (same weight) and different lots of powder.

The 32" barrel had rounds left over from 2015
The 29" barrel had rounds from August 15th this year.

the test was conducted Sept 24th 2016

I made fresh loads (using the sorted primers) the week prior to Sept 24th for both barrels making sure to match the bullets,powder and primers to there respective barrels.

MY results were mixed. one barrel showed sorting primers would reduce my es/sd by at least 50%
while the other barrel showed no difference but the SD was low and the results were more then acceptable

29" barrel with the unsorted primers gave me an SD of 8 over a 10 shot string
the sorted primers reduced the SD to 4 over a second 10 shot string.

This was an aw F moment as i just woke up to the realization that sorting primers for this barrel was verifiable, and would produce numbers that would eliminate more then half of the vertical I was experiencing... at any distance but most notable at 1,000 for F class.

I then switched barrels to the 32" using the same action and conducted the 2nd set of tests.
shooting the sorted primers first i got a similar result SD under 4 for a 10 shot string. however the un sorted primers (remember different lot) also held the SD under 4.


My premise, does the action make it worse, equal to or better than my existing process. In two of the 3 scenarios i would not continue sorting however if better then i would add sorting to my process

My conclusion YMMV is that sorting has been proven and while it may not have helped the 32" barrel (it did not improve my ES/SD number) for the 29" barrel it cut the SD by 50%
 
Very interesting observations.
I know of, and did it myself, sorting brass and bullets by weight.
Sorting primers by weight seems just to be the overkill.

You might improve the performance of your reloads quite substantially by hand polishing the powder grains, then sorting them by size.
 
I weight sort my brass, well, sometimes the loaded rounds, the chamber sets the volume and it doesn't change.
Some bullets I weight sort just in case there's 1 that is way off out of the 100, some of them I length sort.
 
To the OP and others that weigh-test your bullets...here's another test that will tell you more than a simple weight test. My old man used to do this before bullets were built in digital machines and he bought just the cheapest bulk bullets he could get back at that time (1960-70's). He did this with every bullet he planned on using in one of his "practice sessions", gophers at 300 yrds with a 30-06 with a weaver 4 power LOL.

He had a piece of heavy glass about a foot wide and 2 ft long that he would set a piece of 2 in. thick hardwood under one end so it sloped down at an angle the long way. He would test that it was very level side to side by rolling a 2 in piece of ground rod from top to bottom, it had to land at the bottom straight down from where he released it.

Now he would roll every bullet from the top to bottom, if any bullet rolled right or left of center it meant that the center of spin inside the jacket (or the jacket itself was mal-formed) was out by a measurable amount. If a bullet rolled one way or the other 1/2" from center it was still used for hunting moose & elk but they never made it into the "Gopher pile". Anything over 1/2" roll-out was just used for plinking and to "prove his theory" to shooting buddies.

I haven't done this in years (got to lazy) but am getting back into rifle bullet casting more, I'm thinking this will be a good Q. C. test on them.
 
Grant Shave said:
so heres an interesting topic I think..... I know for competitive precision shooters this may not be breaking news and probably useless information to the average hunter who keeps his shots to no more than 300 yards

To the hunters, gopher wackers and longrange target enthusiasts who have a need to develop loads for longrange 300 yard plus.... you might find my observations usefull

Curious to know what the thoughts of the average shooter thinks on the topic, I know most are just happy when their gun goes bang.... but more interested in the thoughts of average shooters who are looking for a little more and maybe handloading and playing with these components

I have weights sorted and tested both primers ( by weight ) and bullets ( by weight and length of OG to base ) ( berger, sierra and hornady ) but not sorted brass either by weight or volume..... maybe later

Much to my surprise I have learnt a few what I think are important things about primers and bullets and how they preform when grouped together and how they can make or break a good load

I have not gone down the path of sorting brass.... yet

My conclusion .....

One thing I can say is my SD is now in the single digits and even my bad loads still form a group of reasonable perportion at distance

Weight sorting primers has had the biggest effect I think for me.... doing a traditional bell curve I was able to sort out the very light and the very heavy.... I then using the very light, average and the heavy and made up some test loads using a gun and known load for a gun that shoots consistently in the 0.300" ( 22 Br ) , I used an AND f120i for weighing powder, micrometer seater for seating bullets to 0.001", my set up I used my Farley front rest and rear bag on a cement top bench, set out wind flags, first I confirmed my gun/load accuracy level, I then fired these at random using a Labradar to track velocity spread, much to my surprise there was over 40 fps difference between shots, only thing that was different was the primer weights and well my group was not anywhere near the 0.300 " that it produced in the first 5 shots 10 mins earlier

Now based on that info I used weight sorted primers ( all weight the same in grns ) and tested bullets.... I found the berger target/hunting and sierra smk to all weigh with in 0.002 grns and OG to base to be +/- 0.002 also so guessed these would not likely to show noticeable difference on paper with my set up and ability.... which is what I determined in the end, also concluded weight sorting is not required if your using good quality bullets

As far as any Hornady bullets tested..... well you might want to sort them

Final thoughts... weight sorting primers seems to make a difference , in SD and bullet impact point, I call it extra quality control after the factory.... all the primers are good and usable, but I proved to myself if you are unfortunate enough to have a light and heavy primer mixed in with your test loads, hunting loads or worse yet in your string in a competition.... your probably not gonna be happy with the results at distance

My 2 cents worth of observation ..... G
Click to expand...

What brand primers were these? regular or match?
 
The particular primers used in the testing were CCI 450 , I found after weight sorting 1000 ( same brick ) of these I had 9 different weights

I also weight sorted a brick of Fed GM205M , these had only 5 different weights... which was not really surprising because I heard these got more QC at the factory, hence price
I did the same to the standard Fed 205 and got 7 different weights

I should add I repackage theses sorted primers back into their packages and marked the weight.... I did end up with less primers on both ends of the extreme, if there's enough to make a test load out of I use them like all the others, eventually I did not have enough of a certain weight to make a test load so those primers are then used in marked fouling rounds

I also confirmed that to get good results your primers do not need to weigh exactly the same, but I do think it is bad juju to have extreme variance's on not only primers but bullets as well .... depending on your own results your trying to achieve

ES and SD since I started this practice are pretty much single digit's ..... nothing higher than 16 on any caliber I tried, I use only Lapua brass and I size brass to fit chamber , I use a lot of Varget and Vihtavuori powders

Calibers that I tested are , 20-222, 222 , 223, 223 AI, 22 Br and a 6 Dasher, those are my gopher wacking calibers, shooting out to 600 yards
 
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Could be there is something to this. The basic squib load, you know, the one without any powder in the case, can and usually does push the bullet into the rifling a fair distance. This is by primer power alone. I have had it happen once on a pistol and it was a ##### of a job to get that bullet out of the barrel. Now, think about it. That teeny tiny primer did that. I have read that a primer is about the same charge as a grain of fast burning powder. Not sure if that is accurate but think about it - it kind of makes some sense. Take a look at what makes up a primer. Mainly a cup and an anvil, both of which stay put, and a very small amount of compound that burns fast and hot. Measure a primer weight before firing and then measure it after firing. The incredibly small weight difference is what manages to push a 158gr bullet in my case, about four inches down a 629 barrel. So, it goes without saying that variances in the amount of compound just might have a significant difference on the amount of 'power' produced by any one primer. I'm definitely going to have to take a good look at this. I do a lot of things to get the best out of my ammo and my thought exercise says that this just might have significant merit. YMMV
 
Once I got onto sorting I was quick to develop a process for speed.... set out several plastic trays, sticky note pad and a pencil, as I weighed a primer or bullet , wrote that number on a sticky note and stuck to plastic tray, every weight has its own tray and I was able to sort 100 primers in 15 mins.

I agree... if I can control a variable in my load... I do and some pay big dividends while others you cannot measure their effect, but I do it because I can
 
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