Bullet Weight

[[email protected]]

I am getting into long range precision shooting and reloading.
Last night I weighed my Hornady 338 Lapua 285 grain bullets to check variation in the box of 50.
The lows were 284.5, majority were 284.8, and .7 and a few at 285.8.
My question is: How much variance in bullet weight is acceptable ?

 

[MTRecon]

Interesting question.

My scales are only accurate within 0.1 grains so there is a variation from the1 start.

In my experience, and assuming all the proper techniques and tools, the bullet design, powder choice, charge weight and distance from the lands make the most difference. I guess one could take an established combination then sort the bullets by weight and shoot them in order and look for any variance. I would guess there are those who sort the bullets by weight I just can't recall reading about the results of doing so.

I'll have to try sorting them on my proven long range loads and look for a difference.

 

[whiskeysierra762]

It depends on how far you are shooting and what your accuracy expectation is. If you are really worried about it you can use the odd weights as sighters and practice rounds.
If you really want to drive yourself crazy get two comparator sets and sort them by bearing length too.

 

[Snuby642]

Unless my math is wrong that is 0.005%
I dont think it will show up in testing.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Manufacturers' QC standards are more stringent than what's necessary to see issues in performance.

Aside from an occasional goof, weighing, measuring, and segregating components is not needed unless you like doing extra, unnecessary work. This is a sport, not a job; shooters are human, not machines.

At the crucial distances, human error and environmental variances far, far outweigh any component deviations that are not already screened out by manufacturer QC.

If someone can demonstrate this is not so, I wish them luck; I'll be out shooting.

Greg

 

[[email protected]]

Thanks for the feedback. I had spoken to a long range guru who is very detailed and this is one area where he sorted to reduce variation in results at 1000 yards.

 

[Fig]

You may as well point your meplats if you're gona sort by weight. The guys I know who point their bullets before sorting have more consistency and fewer aberrations than sorting alone.

And, it's not MEE-PLAT. If you're gona be super anal and point/sort your bullets I'm going to pronounce meplat correctly, and nasalize the second syllable like a Frog...meh-plah. Why, because I know it'll drive you nuts, and you deserve to be messed with if you're going to point and sort.

 

[McCrazy]

I would venture to guess that as a new shooter, you would get more benefit from shooting the projectiles than you would from weighing them.

By the time you need to worry about weight-sorting, you will have a good idea what kind of variations you need to worry about.