berettaprofessor
Member
So far, since I have no long range to shoot at, I've been content to reload rifle cartridges by relying on headstamp for cartridge consistency, not weighing individual cases or measuring volume.
Today, I had a few leftover Hornady 168 Match bullets and, while loading a larger group of another projectile in FC brass, decided first to just put the remaining Match bullets into a few Hornady cases I had sitting around. At the end, I weighed the completed cartridges, something I don't normally do (thought I might have missed filling a case but I hadn't..one dropped on the floor when I wasn't looking), and found, to my surprise, two groups that were clustered 20 grains apart in overall weight. Sorting them, I found that although all were Hornady headstamps, the heavier ones had a distinctly different font/look to the headstamp, obviously different lots or sources of brass, but the different looks sorted perfectly by weight. The 8 on the left and the 7 on the right in the photo below are the two groups.
Got pretty nervous about the FC brass, but in weighing randomly about 20 of the 100 brass I intended to load, they all fell within about 2 grains of each other.
Bottom line, it was a good lesson in lack of brass consistency. I had used the Hornady brass to do a previous ladder for Varget and the ultimate load I chose was precise at 100 yards (0.5" groups), but had a fairly large SD (>30 fps). I wonder now if the headstamps were throwing off the SD? I'm going to chrony these rounds and see if the two groups change position or velocity.
Just a good lesson. If I ever get into long range; at least weigh cases, maybe measure case volume!
Today, I had a few leftover Hornady 168 Match bullets and, while loading a larger group of another projectile in FC brass, decided first to just put the remaining Match bullets into a few Hornady cases I had sitting around. At the end, I weighed the completed cartridges, something I don't normally do (thought I might have missed filling a case but I hadn't..one dropped on the floor when I wasn't looking), and found, to my surprise, two groups that were clustered 20 grains apart in overall weight. Sorting them, I found that although all were Hornady headstamps, the heavier ones had a distinctly different font/look to the headstamp, obviously different lots or sources of brass, but the different looks sorted perfectly by weight. The 8 on the left and the 7 on the right in the photo below are the two groups.
Got pretty nervous about the FC brass, but in weighing randomly about 20 of the 100 brass I intended to load, they all fell within about 2 grains of each other.
Bottom line, it was a good lesson in lack of brass consistency. I had used the Hornady brass to do a previous ladder for Varget and the ultimate load I chose was precise at 100 yards (0.5" groups), but had a fairly large SD (>30 fps). I wonder now if the headstamps were throwing off the SD? I'm going to chrony these rounds and see if the two groups change position or velocity.
Just a good lesson. If I ever get into long range; at least weigh cases, maybe measure case volume!
