Hornady QC improving or did I just get lucky?

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ajandrs

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So I loaded up some .223 last night with Hornady 75gr HPBT for some 600 - 700 yard steel shooting. I recently started weighing and sorting these bullets and typically see 75gr +/- .7gr with a few here and there that may be even further out than the .7.

I opened up a new 100 round box last night and was shocked to find all 100 bullets were at 75.0gr +/- .1gr ... weighed on my RCBS Charge Master 1500. Here's what the breakdown was:

74.9 - 34
75.0 - 53
75.1 - 13

I've never seen anywhere near this consistency and was pretty impressed. Anyone else seeing this or did I just happen to pull a good box off the shelf? Now I'm wishing I had grabbed more boxes out of that lot.

This also leads me to another thought or question: for those of you that weigh and sort your bullets in an attempt to squeeze out a little more consistency and accuracy, how big of a window do you sort into? For instance, .2gr ... .5gr?
 
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I quit sorting V-MAX bullets years ago because they were always within .1gn so if they got worse I didn't see it. Pulled bullets I sort to the closest .5gn for 30 Cal & under. My 50 Cal I sort to the closest 1gn.
 
Hornady's the place To get answers.

I have never seen a need to weigh bullets. What causes greatest difference In down range drop: 1/10 grain in bullet weight, 1% drop in BC or 10 fps in muzzle velocity?
 
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Hornady's the place To get answers.

I wasn't looking for a Hornady rep to chime in, I'm sure they'd would claim nothing less than perfection. Was rather looking for users actual real world experience.

I have never seen a need to weigh bullets. What causes greatest difference In down range drop: 1/10 grain in bullet weight or 10 fps in muzzle velocity?
I completely agree with the premise of the comment, but I also understand many precision shooters take the time to weigh and sort their bullets and that's who the post was targeting. As I mentioned in my post I just recently started doing this, with my last box of 100 being the first time. With the results I saw last night with this 2nd box I doubt I will continue doing it since my shooting is just for fun rather than competition and therefore whatever I happen to get out of the box is probably perfectly acceptable. I'd likely be much better off perfecting my charge consistency as opposed to worrying about tenths of a grain in bullet variations but then again all aspects of it interest me, hence the post! :cool:
 
Sierra's match bullets' weight spec is +/- .3 grain.

Benchrest records through 300 yards have been set with measures throwing powder charges with a .2 grain spread.

Sierra meters powder into all their unprepped cases used to shoot 10-shot tests of their bullets. Their match ones have to put all groups inside 1 inch at 200 yards. Some made with exceptional quality jackets shoot half inch regularly.
 
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I completely agree with the premise of the comment, but I also understand many precision shooters take the time to weigh and sort their bullets and that's who the post was targeting.

Generally only the shooters at the very top of the heap benefits from bullet sorting, case sorting, bullet tipping and other trickery. It's all about diminishing returns, most peoples time is better spent practicing rather than fretting over loading minutia. Unless you're in danger of winning the nationals sorting is probably not worth it. The USAMU has some pretty good shooters and only sorts bullets for the most important matches.

Brian Litz doesn't recommend weight sorting but rather base to ogive sorting.

 
The best thing you can do with bullets for accuracy is ensure their diameter is larger than the barrel's groove diameter by at least .0002".
 
Generally only the shooters at the very top of the heap benefits from bullet sorting, case sorting, bullet tipping and other trickery. It's all about diminishing returns, most peoples time is better spent practicing rather than fretting over loading minutia. Unless you're in danger of winning the nationals sorting is probably not worth it.
That's about it. :)
 
I wasn't looking for a Hornady rep to chime in, I'm sure they'd would claim nothing less than perfection. Was rather looking for users actual real world experience.


I completely agree with the premise of the comment, but I also understand many precision shooters take the time to weigh and sort their bullets and that's who the post was targeting. As I mentioned in my post I just recently started doing this, with my last box of 100 being the first time. With the results I saw last night with this 2nd box I doubt I will continue doing it since my shooting is just for fun rather than competition and therefore whatever I happen to get out of the box is probably perfectly acceptable. I'd likely be much better off perfecting my charge consistency as opposed to worrying about tenths of a grain in bullet variations but then again all aspects of it interest me, hence the post! :cool:
I've only ever weighed 5 bullets, total of 5, not brands, not types, 5 out of one box. My chronograph tells me my extreme velocity spread is 10fps. I run flat based hunting bullets on this load. If I am dealing with a semi cooperative wind, I can put all my bullets inside of 5.5" at 500 yds shooting prone, and sometimes they're even better. I put more effort and time into doing MY part at the trigger than I do weighing bullets, I don't compete with anyone other than myself. I don't plan on competitions. If bullet weighing makes a difference, I haven't noticed yet.
 
Dang I never knew there was a issue with Hornady bullets. Now I have about 10 gazillion (well a boat load at least) of them to weigh!:what:
 
I wasn't looking for a Hornady rep to chime in, I'm sure they'd would claim nothing less than perfection. Was rather looking for users actual real world experience.
I have been there and done that. While with Sierra bullets I never noticed much difference if at all. I would empty for example two or three boxes of bullets, for example 168 grain .308 Match Kings or 80 grain .224 Match Kings and sort into lots. I never saw any difference with the same powder and weighed powder charges. That was a long time ago but I simply had to try it. I weighed each powder charge and found I could get the same results just throwing charges carefully with my RCBS Uniflow and constant even strokes and a baffle.

My own experiences are really here nor there. I suggest you try it. Weigh bullets and sort them and see what it does for you. Weigh powder charges if you think it is worth a try. There was a time I was downright OCD about uniformity in every cartridge. Some of my endeavors helped and some not so much but I am glad I tried all for myself. For me shooting and experimenting is about the sheer pleasure of it. :)

Ron
 
Funny you should bring this up. Two days ago I weighed 500 Hornady 115 grains bullets. Low weight of 114.7 and a high weight of 115.8. The overwhelming average was 115.2 to 115.5.

Not complaining but surprised at the variation.
 
A few tenths grain spread in bullet weight is nothing to lose sleep or peace of mind over. The normal imbalance bullets have from jacket thickness and lead core homogenous metal spread causes enough variance in BC to mask that tiny spread in bullet weight. The famous Vern Juenke Machine can be used to measure bullets enabling the unbalanced ones to be sorted out:

http://www.bulletinspector.com/products.htm
 
As Bart and Walkalong mention, that's time better spent doing dry-fire practice, gun cleaning, and browsing THR. Not many of us can shoot at the AMU level. But if you have the free time and it floats your boat... o_O
 
As a newbie to the bullet manufacturing world, I don't know how useful this information is, but I can tell you a little bit about what we have found out when it comes to weight variances. The first thing to know is that the more weight you are dealing with the more variation should be expected. For example, our 69 grain core is 45 grains. We typically find that we can keep variances within +/- .1 grain. In fact, we don't accept any more than that. There isn't enough room in the jacket to deal with that much extra and if you don't have enough, it won't form everything correctly. However, with 9mm 115 grain bullets our core is 95.4 grains. However, the diameter is almost triple. Lead is a material that is almost like working with a liquid when running it as fast as we run it. A punch pushes a desired amount of lead into a die and any excess lead is pushed out through a weep hole. If you don't have the perfect cut off or maybe your press doesn't apply perfect pressure every time because the clutch slips or engages at a different spot, you will see variances in the core weight. Lead quality is also a big deal. The lead we were buying originally was making all our 9mm cores within +/- .03 of a grain. However, that lead was very expensive and at that price we would not have been able to continue making stuff at the lower prices we were selling them at. So, we accepted a slightly higher variance of +/- .5 grains and we were able to drop the cost of our lead considerably. We haven't been able to tell a difference in accuracy and the vast majority of them are +/- .1 of a grain.
 
As Bart and Walkalong mention, that's time better spent doing dry-fire practice, gun cleaning, and browsing THR.
I'll modify my part of that by saying time is better spent earning the money to buy a top quality barrel and having it installed correctly. That's crucial to improve ones marksmanship skills. It's hard to tell what caused a "flier" when using ordinary commercial rifle's factory barrels.
 
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