SS109 tolerances

[Pripyat]

I ordered some "new" projectiles recently only to find that the seller was selling what they described as "sweep bin" bullets - bullets that fell on the production factory floor and could not be used in their sellable product.

There are a lot of projectiles that look questionable. I want to throw a mic on all of them on to ensure they are all within spec but I can't find any data on the allowable tolerances.

Anyone have this data?

 

[Swampman]

I'm assuming that you're worried about bullet diameter and bullets being out-of-round from being stepped on or otherwise mashed?

Just buy one of the Lee .224" bullet sizing dies, lube your bullets with a little Imperial, shove 'em through the die, clean, load and shoot.

 

[Pripyat]

Well some projectiles were meant for the scrap bin. Some have cannelures, some don't. Some have crimped boat tails, others have boat tails that fan out.

You do make an important point, though. All that really matters is the diameter and roundness which is likely fairly standard across all 5.56/223rem. If no one comes up with the ss109 tolerances I can resort to a more general tolerance spec.

 

[rcmodel]

Just lay each one on a flat surface, like a mirror, or old window pain.

If they freely roll, they are round.

If they don't, they are not.

rc

 

[Jim K]

You bought them as "blasting" bullets and presumably paid accordingly. Any bullet in an ammo factory being out of spec in diameter is so remote as to be about impossible, and any of some other caliber that got mixed in would be immediately detectable in your own loading process.

Your main concern would be bullets that are scratched, dented or bent, and those should be obvious in any casual inspection. I would simply sort them by type (cannelured or not, for example), and weight (or length if a scale is too tedious), load the appropriate charge and fire away. You probably won't get 1/4 MOA but you didn't pay for top quality match bullets.

Jim

 

[Swampman]

Pripyat,
You might be able to find some reasonably "standard" specs for US made M855, but "SS109" seems to take in a bunch of manufacturers, a lot of them with no NATO affiliation whatsoever.

I've seen 7.62mm NATO "M80" bullets that varied between 140 and 150 grains in weight depending on where they were made.

 

[Pripyat]

I've weighed about 100 right now and my upper and lower limits are between 61.90 and 63.10 - Not too bad.

You guys are correct in that I am getting what I paid for. This company had a sale on these "factory new" projectiles and sold out pretty much instantly. I saw the deal on slickguns. I jumped on it immediately at 9 cents per round shipped. The normal price was 18cents/round so I assumed they were factory new and had actually passed some sort of QC. Very misleading and crooked, IMO.

I called pretty upset about the ordeal and the company said the unsorted projectiles were sent out by mistake and they are sending me some more (actually sorted this time) good projectiles to make up for the bad ones.

Going to prove Jim wrong about the no 1/4MOA claim. Just wait. Really hoping my 1/9 will stabilize these things accordingly.