Sorting brass by weight

[Jimbeaux82-2]

I occassionally play a bit with sorting my brass by weight. All my applications are for hunting rifles that shoot 3/4 - 1" 3 shot groups.

1) is it worth weight sorting your brass in this application or is it really a waste of time?

2) assuming it is worth it, how tight a spread do you shoot for in you brass to make it significant? 10g, 5g, 2 gr??

Thanks

Jimbeaux

 

[6.5_sWv]

In my opinion and its only my opinion the answer is NO, it's not worth your time to weight sort brass.

Weight sorted or not your group sizes likely won't change much.

 

[JD338]

I typically don’t weight sort my brass. The last few years I’ve been using Nosler, Norma and most recently Peterson brass and weights are within a grain or two.

JD338

 

[RL338]

I buy my brass in lots that stay together. There is no need to weight sort lotted brass unless you’re serious in benchrest competition.

 

[Dr. Vette]

Weight sorting is a waste of time if you're going for small differences in weight. If there are large differences (grams), and you have mixed lots of the same headstamp, you might see a bit of improvement from one to the next. However, to verify you should then verify the volume of them after firing in your rifle to see if there is an actual capacity difference. In other words, does a case that weighs a lot different than another have the same capacity after firing?

You could volume sort them, which would be much more accurate. However, that really takes a lot of time, and to do it properly they should have all been fired in your rifle.

In my experience, sorting by manufacturer is much more useful.

I essentially never check weights or capacities unless something in my reloading REALLY is begging for answers.

 

[TackDriver284]

Not worth the time, if buying brass, I would buy a few boxes of the same lot. I just buy quality brass like Lapua, Nosler and Norma. I don't sort them. Once I find a nice tune for hunting, and whilst shooting them, if I see rounds stray far away from my groups, I would keep those brass separate from the batch of brass. I would redo those rounds that I separated again at a later time to confirm if it strays again, if they do, then I use those brass for practice rounds. As for competition, I'll weigh each piece and keep it sorted by a grain. You may find a few pieces that are off by 2 grains or more which I'll mark with a Sharpie for reference and try them to see if they'll shoot just fine. Sometimes the extra weight is coming from fluctuations of case web thickness or wall thickness, but may not affect case volume which is important for accuracy.

 

[jimbires]

the correct way of sorting brass is by water volume . I'll look to see if I still have my notes . I weighed a bunch of brass , then I checked volume on this same brass . I have it all wrote down , "IF" I kept my note .

 

[TackDriver284]

the correct way of sorting brass is by water volume . I'll look to see if I still have my notes . I weighed a bunch of brass , then I checked volume on this same brass . I have it all wrote down , "IF" I kept my note .

I agree. It's time consuming to fill each case with water if you have 200 pieces.

 

[JD338]

And a lot of water if it’s 338 RUM cases.

JD338

 

[jimbires]

And a lot of water if it’s 338 RUM cases.

JD338

my big quantity test was with my 338 Lapua

 

[JD338]

Like you Jim, about a gallon of distilled water.

JD338

 

[jimbires]

guys I can't find this test I did . it was Lapua Brass for my 338 Lapua . if my rememberer is working properly ; I took the lightest piece of brass . I took the heaviest piece of brass . I took 8 or 10 , maybe 20 pieces in the middle weight of this batch of brass . I numbered the cases to keep track of them . when I checked the water weight capacity there was nothing to sort out , they all checked out within a reasonable amount . If I was sorting by case weight , I'd have tossed a few of the outliers . my best advice is buy high quality brass , and this will pay off greatly in the long run . I looked high and low here at home , and I did a search on the Nosler forum , I can't find this test . I'll keep looking . I might have saved a pic of my results . the problem being I lost a bunch of pics when an old computer failed .

here is one thread that has a little of my info .

Brass Weight And H2O cap

I weighed some once fired cases to get the H2O cap and picked out three cases that were close to being the same dry weight give or take a few tenths of a grain. Today I fired 23 rounds and cleaned them after which I decided to weigh them. I had three groups of brass with the weight being 1-2...

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