- Thread starter Blake940
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I don’t understand. You should be controlling the headspace by sizing and the length by trimming. Are you talking about with virgin brass? There will be some variation until fireforming. (If you don’t shoot F class or benchrest then none of this matters and you should forget all about it. And if you do, there are other forums that may be more useful.)
I’m talking about fired brass that has been fl sized with a 2 thou should bump. When I measure cases they never all exactly 2 thou bump. And after trimming all cases are not exactly the same length they deviate a few thou. I don’t shoot benchrest or Fclass I’m just and everyday guy trying to improve 1/4 moa groups. I love shooting small groups the smaller the better. This is all just for fun I have plenty of time to waste trying new things
You could try annealing or getting better brass, although I doubt that such inconsistencies would affect group size at short range. You could always try sorting and see if it shows up on the target. Let us know your results.
Waste of time sorting. Work on getting the shoulders closer to .001 or so of one another. Look into your lubing methods and other such things.
1/4 moa groups aren’t all that easy. Especially with a bipod and rear bag. Also you can get things pretty damn tight by adjusting seating depth.
Then there is the simple fact that not all barrels and not all shooters can shoot 1/4moa. So there’s a lot to that puzzle that need to line up.
1/4 moa groups aren’t all that easy. Especially with a bipod and rear bag. Also you can get things pretty damn tight by adjusting seating depth.
Then there is the simple fact that not all barrels and not all shooters can shoot 1/4moa. So there’s a lot to that puzzle that need to line up.
I sort my brass by lots.
1 lot of 223 brass
1 lot of 260 brass
1 lot of 7 saum brass.
1 lot of 223 brass
1 lot of 260 brass
1 lot of 7 saum brass.
My shoulder bump consistency drastically improved when I started using the Redding Competition shell holder sets. I set up for a somewhat firm bump of the die with the shell holder when sizing, eliminates issues with press linkage tolerances.
Trimming is trimming, done after sizing, and +/- .001 don't mean crap.
Trimming is trimming, done after sizing, and +/- .001 don't mean crap.
IMHO - sorting brass by weight and by make is about the only area that is going to make any difference. There are big variations in brass weight from maker to maker and that will definitely affect velocities as that difference in weight translates into a difference in case volume. Will that show up significantly at 100 yds? Probably not measurable. But at 1000yds, I think it most certainly will.
In my .260, I shoot only Lapua - so am not seeing much weight deviation and therefore don't bother sorting. However, with other commercial brass in something like a. 223 or .308 - there are huge variations between makes and even within a particular headstamp. For instance, I just went through a sorting exercise on about 650 pieces of my various LC .223 brass. It was not uncommon to see up to a 2-3 grain difference just within a single year LC headstamp. And if you add in all the other makes like Hornady, Win, Aguilla, PMC, Privi, etc. there can easily be a 6-7 gr difference from top to bottom. If accuracy and precision is the goal, sorting the brass by weight most likely will make a difference at 200-300 and beyond. And probably even at 100 if there is a big variation.
Now if you REALLY want to get nutty, sort your bullets by weight.
And no, I've never been bored enough to try that yet.
In my .260, I shoot only Lapua - so am not seeing much weight deviation and therefore don't bother sorting. However, with other commercial brass in something like a. 223 or .308 - there are huge variations between makes and even within a particular headstamp. For instance, I just went through a sorting exercise on about 650 pieces of my various LC .223 brass. It was not uncommon to see up to a 2-3 grain difference just within a single year LC headstamp. And if you add in all the other makes like Hornady, Win, Aguilla, PMC, Privi, etc. there can easily be a 6-7 gr difference from top to bottom. If accuracy and precision is the goal, sorting the brass by weight most likely will make a difference at 200-300 and beyond. And probably even at 100 if there is a big variation.
Now if you REALLY want to get nutty, sort your bullets by weight.
And no, I've never been bored enough to try that yet. IMHO - sorting brass by weight and by make is about the only area that is going to make any difference. There are big variations in brass weight from maker to maker and that will definitely affect velocities as that difference in weight translates into a difference in case volume. Will that show up significantly at 100 yds? Probably not measurable. But at 1000yds, I think it most certainly will.
In my .260, I shoot only Lapua - so am not seeing much weight deviation and therefore don't bother sorting. However, with other commercial brass in something like a. 223 or .308 - there are huge variations between makes and even within a particular headstamp. For instance, I just went through a sorting exercise on about 650 pieces of my various LC .223 brass. It was not uncommon to see up to a 2-3 grain difference just within a single year LC headstamp. And if you add in all the other makes like Hornady, Win, Aguilla, PMC, Privi, etc. there can easily be a 6-7 gr difference from top to bottom. If accuracy and precision is the goal, sorting the brass by weight most likely will make a difference at 200-300 and beyond. And probably even at 100 if there is a big variation.
Now if you REALLY want to get nutty, sort your bullets by weight.
Sorting by weight is almost pointless as most of the variation is in the case head/rim and many times doesn’t affect the capacity.
Volume would be the only sorting that would really do anything and it hardly does anything at distance and you only see large variations in lower quality brass.
There is a compensatory effect where slightly heavier bullets generate higher chamber pressures, increasing velocity, so the variation in bullet weight does little. Sorting by weight is a waste of time. Bryan Litz talks about this frequently. If you want to sort them, sort by BC (you will need to measure each one in a supersonic wind tunnel) and sort by concentricity of density (just get a small, high resolution CT scanner for this one).
Fair enough.
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