A 2 grain difference isn't a lot to worry about for shorter ranges. If you're going to shoot out past 300m though, it can account for flyers.
When I first got into hunter bench rest shooting, I didn't even worry about different weights, I relied on what the box said to be true as gospel, after all I was paying premium prices for J4 jacketed Berger bullets, what could be better.
I could never get into the winners circle. No matter what I did, no go.
I had a friend, Al Forslund, take the rifle for a couple of days and give me his opinion. He showed me some targets I would cry for, shot with my components and my load data.
I was promptly informed, it's the shooter!
Strange, with a normal hunting rifle, I could easily hold my own against him.
Finally, in a shooters magazine, I came accross an article on bullet weights. By this time I had turned to Randy Bibbs bullets, very good bullets by the way. The article mentioned the "one flyer" syndrome and listed some of its causes. A major factor was bullet weight.
I had checked everything for consistancy, from bullet length to runout to precise power charges (highly overplayed) and bench rest primers (highly underplayed) and of course different lots of powder.
The Berger bullets had 3 groups of consistant bullet weights in 10 boxes of the same lot, rangeing from .2 to .35 to 1.2 grains, with 4 bullets in the 500 round lot being 2.6 grains different and 60% of the bullets being at .2, 30% at .35 and 9+% at 1.2.
The Bibbs bullets were much more consistant. with 95% of the 1500 count being at .2 variation and 5% being at .5 variation.
Both used J4 jackets.
All of the weights shot consistant groups that would fit in the 10 ring up to 300yds if I did my part. I didn't vary powder type/weight or primers or OAL.
Each weight, did shoot to a different point of impact though. Enough to consistantly put a bullet into the 9 ring, even though being shot under exact conditions.
When I informed Al of my great discovery, he said " -UCK you mean you weren't -ucking doig that?" Al had a very colorful speech impediment.
Now if I were hunting at normal ranges, less than 300 yds, none of the variations in weights would make much difference. I don't measure hunting bullet weights so I can't say how much difference 2 grains would make. I do believe, that there would be some.
I think though that I would be more concerned about jacket thickness variation, out of round or worse yet, the dreaded runout problem from a poorly aligned set of dies or a crooked threaded hole in the press (yes it does happen).
My big worry now, even though I don't shoot HBR anymore, is that I'm going to have to weigh a bunch of hunting bullets for weight and OOR, just to satisfy my curiosity.
bearhunter
