Sorting 223 brass based on weight

[ballman6711]

I got my .223 brass today, and hopefully my dies show up next week and I can start loading it.

This is what I got.



Since I had some time today I started looking at and checking a few pieces, and so far it looks good. But upon weighing it I noticed some differences...





Just a quick check with a cheap scale, but the weights were repeatable. Should I sort by headstamp or by weight? All twenty or so cases I checked fit in my (new to me) Sheridan slotted guage and looked right. I'm thinking the heavier cases have less internal voume and should be separated from the lighter cases. Just going to be target/plinking ammo for an AR. What do you all think?

chris

 

[LiveLife]

I used to sort .308 military/commercial brass by weight then moved onto sorting by headstamp (year for LC) and water volume.

For .223/5.56, especially for plinking, I don't sort brass either by headstamp or weight. I do swage crimped primer pockets.

 

[Blue68f100]

You will see that difference between commercial and military brass. May want to sort by mfg first, then check the weight lots. I don't like more than 1 gr difference but I'm shooting for accuracy. If you want to use mix, use the heavier brass for load workup. This will make the lighter brass run at a lower pressure.

 

[twarr1]

Water volume will tell you more than weight. I’ve measured water volume and dry weight for a lot of cases and plotted them in a spreadsheet. The results were what one would expect; weight doesn’t definitively tell you case volume. There’s a general trend; lighter cases tend to have more volume, but the trend doesn’t hold for every case, which indicates to me dry weighing isnt worth the effort. YMMV.
I wouldn’t do either for practice ammo.

 

[jmorris]

Should I sort by headstamp or by weight?

Depends, sometimes I do nether, sometimes I do both.

What do you intend to do with them, component, firearm and accuracy goal wise?

 

[Boomholzer]

Water volume will tell you more than weight. I wouldn’t do either for practice ammo.

I agree with the quote above. All of this is pre-process for a undefined AR/chamber with the exhibited brass. The hardness of the brass will be a bigger factor overall for that component assuming a clean loading process. FL resize, length trim, de-burr, and for fun you can sort outliers on weight for volume. It's not going to make much difference against load dev, other components, charge, seating etc, Plenty of work ahead of you. No offense, I do appreciate the enthusiasm. Have fun, be careful.

 

[AJC1]

Sort by headstamp and then by weight. If your just plinking look for the outliers and remove them. A 223 case of the same headstamp that is 3 grains different is a big difference and gets culled. Your criteria is your standard. If your shooting off hand blamo load and have fun. If your keeping score make and load lots by headstamp after culls.

 

[Jerry M]

IMHO unless you're shooting F-Class or some other type of precision shooting, your time would be better spend dry firing in position than weighing cases. Sort the cases by head stamp, either before or after you load, then shoot. I've killed hundreds of prairie rats out past 500 yards with mixed head stamped bulk reloaded ammunition.

 

[243winxb]

Rifle chambers have a volume. Bolt face to where the bullet seals the bore. The weight of the mass in the chamber has an effect on pressure.

Sorting brass by weight, after benchrest prep is worth doing, if using good bullets like Sierras 69 gr. If loading FMJ , i would not bother.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?media/223-69-sierra-imr-4166.3940/ See 2nd test target.

Mixed headstamp LC brass. The lot number i gave to the 51 pcs of brass , for testing.

 

[kmw1954]

My recent observation with 223 range brass. Samples were with LC, PMC, GFL and Norma. All brass was sorted by headstamp and the includes the 2 different PMC and 3 different GFL I found. Water weight I didn't find any that would exclude any from the groups I had, at least nothing that would make me say WOW What was that. Though believe it or not the GFL was most consistent only I did not have the Norma when I did this. The PMC was next and the LC was last. Dry weight in order was PMC, GFL then LC. But even the LC was relatively close. All falling between 92.4 to 93.8 over 100pcs. with the largest % in the 92.7 to 93.4 range... Again nothing alarming.

Next came a shooting test all four brands loaded exactly the same and the most consistent in FPS and group size was the Norma followed by the PMC, GFL and LC. The last 3 all shot about the same results over the chrono but again the LC had the widest fliers, Each load was a count of 20 and were shot over two days.

My thoughts were that this was much more a case of neck tension and brass hardness than it was of weight or volume. Over the chrono I was getting 2 of 3 that would be very close and then one extremely high or extremely low and it was never in the same position.

So as a few members mentioned during my testing that the quality of the brass makes a big difference and I believe the Norma brass is a step above the other 3 tested.

 

[Klaatu Barada Nikto]

Reconditioned brass will be all over the map. Multiple firings means it's stretched everytime it's resized, then trimmed for length.
The same mass that's stretched and trimmed means that it looses mass (wall thickness) everytime it's resized and trimmed.
The lighter stuff has obviously rates more than a 1 time prior use.
If it were me I'd load these light then not reload them again.

 

[kmw1954]

The lighter stuff has obviously rates more than a 1 time prior use.

I would strongly disagree as the 100pcs of LC that I weighted all still had the factory crimped primers in them.

 

[Klaatu Barada Nikto]

I would strongly disagree as the 100pcs of LC that I weighted all still had the factory crimped primers in them.

Yeah, I was responding to the OP.
I'd never bother weighing anything that still had spent primers in them and hadn't been tumbled.
BTW, if it was LC and had crimped primers then it was probably 5.56 which we all know has thicker walls. So it's going to weigh more.
I only use LC 5.56 for 300BO because of the thicker walls.

 

[kmw1954]

Yeup, I wasn't weighting to compare against the rest just to compare against itself. Just to see what deviation there would be from high to low.

Also had to have primers in to plug the holes for the water test.

 

[ballman6711]

What do you intend to do with them, component, firearm and accuracy goal wise?

Safe and functional target ammo, mostly 100yds or less in an AR. No competition shooting.

Reconditioned brass will be all over the map. Multiple firings means it's stretched everytime it's resized, then trimmed for length.
The same mass that's stretched and trimmed means that it looses mass (wall thickness) everytime it's resized and trimmed.

It's supposed to be once fired military brass, cleaned, sized, trimmed, and reamed. I'm checking it to make sure it's ok since I didn't fire it.

It's not going to make much difference against load dev, other components, charge, seating etc, Plenty of work ahead of you. No offense, I do appreciate the enthusiasm. Have fun, be careful.

Unfortunately I think you're right. Powder choice and charge weight will probably be much more important in making a good load.

Thanks everyone, appreciate all the responses!

chris

 

[jmorris]

Safe and functional target ammo, mostly 100yds or less in an AR. No competition shooting.

Depending on what target, just trimming mixed brass might be fine. If that meets your accuracy goal any additional extra work, is just that.

I have shot a lot of 3 gun matches (mostly 100 yard or less shots) with mixed brass, FMJ reloads and if I didn’t win, it wasn’t because I didn’t sort cases by internal volume, weight or even headstamp.

 

[Nature Boy]

I would never talk anyone out of weight sorting brass but I never do it. Same for bullets.

Time is a commodity I never have enough of so I invest my efforts into load development, rifle mechanics and wind reading. When I sit down to bang out some competition loads I focus on charge weight (+/- 1 kernel) and seating depth. I also use good components (Berger bullets and Lapua brass)

For reference, here’s a couple of my targets from some 600 yard matches. No brass sorting. Both scored 200 - 14X (10 ring is 6” or 1MOA)

 

[243winxb]

I also use good components (Berger bullets and Lapua brass)

Nice shooting.. Great components do make a difference.

 

[film495]

I only sort by headstamp, then - I cull out ones that look to be older or seen multiple firings (you can kind of tell looking at the factory marks and the cases just seem to have more scratches or dings etc.), and put them in the may load some day as mixed brass bucket. Prep and trim everything consistently in batches by headstamp, and load it consistently, for what I do for practice, it is fine and more accurate than I am to shoot soda jugs and the like.

I don't do any of the advanced checks that some do, but from my experience - just culling out by eye, and micrometer, anything that doesn't look the same or measure the same, provides results good enough for me. Of course, anything that is split neck or damaged gets put in the reject/recycle bin, but since once fired brass is what I usually work with, and I have plenty of it, I just take the inspection one step further, worked OK for me so far.

 

[Nature Boy]

Nice shooting.. Great components do make a difference.

Thanks. And good dies too

 

[Jim Watson]

When I was shooting F class, I started with new brass and weight sorted into two main batches, the light lot and the heavy lot, with a few outliers high and low I did not think worth fooling with. Prepped and carefully loaded.

When I was shooting 3 gun, I made sure that each case was the same caliber and that it was resized and contained powder, primer, and bullet.

 

[AK Hunter]

For plinking ammo I just clean, size, check length, clean primer pockets then load. It's not going to make that much difference.
But if you start loading for extreme accuracy checking the internal volume of the case is much more important than the weight of the case.

 

[Skeptic13]

To me the answer to your question depends on how you are planning to use this ammo. If you are just practicing or plinking then no don't sort your brass. When I am loading hunting rounds I tend to load with the same brand of brass to hopefully get more consistency but still don't weigh the brass. The only time that I would check internal volumns is if I were going to load for accuracy or competition. Then I would buy the best brass I could find, like Lapua, and water volumn test each case.

 

[Bfh_auto]

My recent observation with 223 range brass. Samples were with LC, PMC, GFL and Norma. All brass was sorted by headstamp and the includes the 2 different PMC and 3 different GFL I found. Water weight I didn't find any that would exclude any from the groups I had, at least nothing that would make me say WOW What was that. Though believe it or not the GFL was most consistent only I did not have the Norma when I did this. The PMC was next and the LC was last. Dry weight in order was PMC, GFL then LC. But even the LC was relatively close. All falling between 92.4 to 93.8 over 100pcs. with the largest % in the 92.7 to 93.4 range... Again nothing alarming.

Next came a shooting test all four brands loaded exactly the same and the most consistent in FPS and group size was the Norma followed by the PMC, GFL and LC. The last 3 all shot about the same results over the chrono but again the LC had the widest fliers, Each load was a count of 20 and were shot over two days.

My thoughts were that this was much more a case of neck tension and brass hardness than it was of weight or volume. Over the chrono I was getting 2 of 3 that would be very close and then one extremely high or extremely low and it was never in the same position.

So as a few members mentioned during my testing that the quality of the brass makes a big difference and I believe the Norma brass is a step above the other 3 tested.

My results mirrored yours. But I went a step further. I neck turned and annealed. After that, I could grab a handful of brass and get the same consistency.

 

[Shaggy357]

I recently purchased 400 7.62x39 brass because Grendel was not available. I annealed, sized, trimmed, deburred, and neck turned every piece. As I primed each case I sorted them by headstamp. I have loaded and started shooting them. Difference in group size by headstamp is negligible, but I am keeping them sorted. No visible difference in case volume by looking. About 3” groups at 200 with light fire form loads in my AR.