Personal experiences with weighing brass.

[Bayourambler]

I have been reloading about a year now and yet to sort any brass by weight. I’m far from a bench rest shooter and would like to know if sorting this brass by weight is worth my time. I hunt and shoot steel out to 600 yds for fun. I’ve weighed them before loading a few times and found that most are around 1.5 grains of each other. Would I see any difference in sorting them to closer specs?

 

[SamT1]

Do you have a chronograph? If your having trouble getting your velocity to hone in that maybe an option. If your velocity is pretty tight I doubt it's worth messing with. You will cull (sell off) 75% of your brass probably.

But I've never had the patience for that level of loading personally.

 

[Archie]

Sounds like you're doing okay as it is. Doesn't sound to me like you really need to spend the time.

I do weigh brass for some - intended to be accurate - calibers. One such is a .22-250, the other is a .308 Winchester evil black plastic sniper (sort of) rifle.

I found and purchased several hundred once fired pieces of .308 W brass and consequently had enough to sort by weight and have at least several twenty round and at least two fifty round groups of brass which varied by one grain, heaviest to lightest. I like to think that helped, but maybe it didn't.

If, and only if, your rifle has been accurized (bedded properly, lugs lapped, action trued, trigger worked and all that sort of thing) segregating brass by weight could potentially help. For a standard hunting or surplus military arm, I doubt it.

I do not weigh and segregate handgun brass at all.

 

[Bayourambler]

Yes my chronograph says my sd runs around 20 most of the time. If I put a lot of time on case prep, checking neck tension etc I can get them 12 to 8 sd on a 5shot string. Looks like you would need a bunch of brass to sort by weight!

 

[Orcon]

Maybe it will help, maybe not. I've tried it with a few of my rifles and only saw a meaningful difference with one rifle and one particular batch of brass which had spreads of over 10% from the average. One thing that might be worthwhile is sorting your brass by zodiac sign and giving each piece a back story, though that can be heartbreaking explaining to the children why Mr. Bodingsworth of the third firing didn't make it back home from the range.

You try it. Tell us if you see a difference.

 

[FROGO207]

If you want to sort it for anything try for headstamp. The difference there might be significant in some calibers---usually military vs civilian. Then there is the firearm as Archie says, how accurate will yours even shoot accurate ammo? I tried weighing it a couple of times with 223, 308, 30-06, and found it not worth the time it took in the long run producing no tangible on target gain. The difference with military/NATO and commercial brass will make a noticeable difference though. Note that neither I nor any of my current firearms are capable of shooting good groups at 1000 YDS either.

 

[444]

If your brass is within a grain and a half of each other, that sounds pretty close to me.

One thing to keep in mind. We have threads on here all the time where someone asks about some aspect of case prep: turning necks, weighing cases, uniforming primer pockets, deburring flash holes, trimming.............. and in every thread, someone says that in a production rifle/barrel at such and such range, it won't make a difference. Which is probably true. However, doing all this stuff, combined, IMO will make a difference. Each one, done in isolation probably won't result in anything dramatic that instantly produces obvious results. But I do think that each one makes a small difference. And the whole process of making every case as good as you can get it will pay dividends. I can tell you for certain that if you pick up range brass with mixed headstamps and do nothing more than just run the cases through your dies: your results won't be nearly as good as if you took the time and effort to sort the cases at least by headstamp and do a careful, detailed case prep. to try your best to make sure each case is as close to identical as every other case.

 

[edwardware]

If you want to sort it for anything try for headstamp.

Bingo. Until you're sorting by headstamp and headstamp version (font, etc), forget weight.

 

[hdwhit]

I don't shoot farther than about 200 yards, so I can't say whether weight has a measurable effect on longer distances, but I do sort my brass first by headstamp. At 200 yards it has no real impact on accuracy, but I find brass from the same headstamp are more likely to "feel" the same way when loading. And when part of recognizing something is wrong is when it doesn't feel right, consistent feel is important to me.

 

[Bayourambler]

I don't shoot farther than about 200 yards, so I can't say whether weight has a measurable effect on longer distances, but I do sort my brass first by headstamp. At 200 yards it has no real impact on accuracy, but I find brass from the same headstamp are more likely to "feel" the same way when loading. And when part of recognizing something is wrong is when it doesn't feel right, consistent feel is important to me.[/QUOI

 

[Bayourambler]

I agree! I hate it when I am seating bullets and one requires much more pressure on the handle to seat the bullet! It doesn't seem right, and I need to look into why this happens

 

[Orcon]

Here's the way I look at it:

If I buy 100 pieces of Winchester brass for $40 and weight sort them to +/- 2% I might get 50 pieces that fit that requirement. After culling 50% of my brass I effectively bought 50 pieces of Win brass for $40. For that price I could have bought Lapua, Norma or for a bit less Hornady Match (which I've found to be very good brass).

I think if you were looking to shave a half of a tenth of an inch off of your 200yard Light Varmint aggregate, it probably wouldn't hurt to try it. Or in my case, the internal dimensions of the brass were so different that some cases would produce compressed loads and others could have fit at least 2-3gr more powder.

 

[Bayourambler]

Here's the way I look at it:

If I buy 100 pieces of Winchester brass for $40 and weight sort them to +/- 2% I might get 50 pieces that fit that requirement. After culling 50% of my brass I effectively bought 50 pieces of Win brass for $40. For that price I could have bought Lapua, Norma or for a bit less Hornady Match (which I've found to be very good brass).

I think if you were looking to shave a half of a tenth of an inch off of your 200yard Light Varmint aggregate, it probably wouldn't hurt to try it. Or in my case, the internal dimensions of the brass were so different that some cases would produce compressed loads and others could have fit at least 2-3gr more powder.

I use Nosler brass mostly. I fine them to be very high quality.

 

[444]

I agree! I hate it when I am seating bullets and one requires much more pressure on the handle to seat the bullet! It doesn't seem right, and I need to look into why this happens

Different neck tension

Which is another reason why you want to use brass that has the same number of firings. It is also the biggest reason for annealing.

 

[Orcon]

I use Nosler brass mostly. I fine them to be very high quality.

There ya go.

I agree! I hate it when I am seating bullets and one requires much more pressure on the handle to seat the bullet! It doesn't seem right, and I need to look into why this happens

As for why this happens, I would posit that either you have variable neck tension due to work hardened brass or your bullets aren't concentric to the case mouth when they are being seated...or a combination of the two. Fear not, friend, both are relatively easy fixes.

For the neck hardening, do a bit of googling on brass annealing. Torch, saltbath, induction, I prefer a candle but they all seem to work equally well.

Also look into optimal neck tension. Some people like using bushing dies, I prefer custom honed Forster dies but I have a few of both. I took my expander balls to Mordor, tossed 'em into Mount Doom and never looked back.

For good seating, look into the Forster or Redding Benchrest Seater or Competition Seater dies. They have a pretty nifty way of lining everything up during seating rather than just swaging a cockeyed bullet into the case.

Hope this helps!

 

[Slamfire]

I have been reloading about a year now and yet to sort any brass by weight. I’m far from a bench rest shooter and would like to know if sorting this brass by weight is worth my time. I hunt and shoot steel out to 600 yds for fun. I’ve weighed them before loading a few times and found that most are around 1.5 grains of each other. Would I see any difference in sorting them to closer specs?

Not out to 300 yards. I have shot mix master brass and it will all hold the 2 MOA ten ring on a NRA target. The further you go out, the more little things make a difference. I had a bunch of WW2 30-06 brass, the stuff varied by as much as 15 grains between manufacturers . I cannot prove it made much of a difference out to 100 yards. Now my F Class buds, at 1000 yards, everything affects everything.

I will say, the further you go out, the more wind conditions factor in. And the greatest errors are human errors with sight alignment and trigger control. Shooters ignore this, but shooting is a skill.

 

[Bayourambler]

Not out to 300 yards. I have shot mix master brass and it will all hold the 2 MOA ten ring on a NRA target. The further you go out, the more little things make a difference. I had a bunch of WW2 30-06 brass, the stuff varied by as much as 15 grains between manufacturers . I cannot prove it made much of a difference out to 100 yards. Now my F Class buds, at 1000 yards, everything affects everything.

I will say, the further you go out, the more wind conditions factor in. And the greatest errors are human errors with sight alignment and trigger control. Shooters ignore this, but shooting is a skill.

No doubt when you get beyond 600 it's a different ballgame on the shooters part! Everything better be right or it's not gonna work out!

 

[joneb]

If I'm working on developing load I will use brass that is consistent by weight, headstamp, times fired and has same wall thickness at the neck.
https://www.amazon.com/Anytime-Tool...191&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=tubing+micrometer
I like Nosler's prepped brass it is sorted for weight variation.

 

[Demi-human]

@Orcon is hilariously correct. With how long they will last and how precise they are Lapua, Norma, Starline and their ilk are actually cheaper in the long run. Less will be thrown out in the beginning and less lost to abnormalities found during use. Indeed, when I last bought two boxes I separated them into two lots, three grains total spread. They all shot the same and I decided that I needed more practice for it to make a difference. But really three grains is a great and very close number.
Of course even Lapua can make mistakes, checking and weighing is the only way to find out.

Conversely, cases can weigh the same and have different volumes, causing a different chamber pressure for each round. Measuring internal water volume is how many bench rest shooters do it. It also helps if the rifle is capable of distinguishing the differences. If the barrel came with the rifle from the same factory and cost less than a nice used mini van, odds are you are practicing for time when your technique will make a difference.

So I say keep it up! All the little things add up! While racing fuel won't make every car a race car, any car runs better on premium.

 

[RentaCop]

I have been reloading about a year now and yet to sort any brass by weight. I’m far from a bench rest shooter and would like to know if sorting this brass by weight is worth my time. I hunt and shoot steel out to 600 yds for fun. I’ve weighed them before loading a few times and found that most are around 1.5 grains of each other. Would I see any difference in sorting them to closer specs?

I only sort by head stamp and work loads in that particular head stamp. That can vary considerably. Example, the eight different brands of 8x57 brass I have range in weight from 157 grains (Hornady) to 187 grains (PMC).

 

[Ru4real]

I've found sorting brass for accuracy reasons is a wasted effort. I sorted brass for years to try and "help" a Win Model 70 shoot up to 600 yards. I could make no correlations. Just too many darn variables to pin it on brass.

Now that rifle has a Krieger barrel. And it shoots everything well, including mixed brass.

 

[oldfortyfiveauto]

On a 223 of mine I went the full route of Lapula brass, annealing, Redding bushing dies, trimming, neck turning, etc. to work up the best load I could......Then shot that load with stray range brass with no significant difference at 200yds

 

[Swampman]

I'm currently away from my notes, but IIRC I've weighed .308 Winchester cases that were as light as 146 grains and as heavy as 188 grains.

In my opinion, that's enough variation to cause serious accuracy problems at 600 yards and even more serious safety problems for your face at six inches.

But if you can avoid using Montgomery Ward and PMP brass and segregate your cases by manufacturer/headstamp, you'll avoid 95% of the weight variation I just described.

 

[ATLDave]

I don't sort by weight per se, but I do usually sort by headstamp, largely because that seems to narrow the weight variations to a much smaller range/band.

 

[murf]

here's a little test i did a bit ago:

i meant .3 and .4 grains, not .003 and .004. and it is the fifteenth today!

test details:

water tension keeps the water in the case when tipped over.

for what it's worth, i don't think a .7 grain variance is going to hurt anything unless you are benchresting, or long range shooting.

murf