Bulit weight variance question?

[natesguns]

I'm shooting a .338 lapua to 1000 yards and am looking to take this rifle out to around 1800. Doing pretty good with the stuff I've managed to scrape together and can usually keep my shots at or just under MOA. I've been experimenting with bullets and found that my new Hornaday 285g have a bit more weight variance than I think they should have. I've read several reports that tend to favor the Hornady over other bullets. I have weighed them severl times and over 3/4 of a box of 50 weighed in at or under 284.5. Lowest weighing 283.1 and going as high as 285.5. Now here's my question, how much diffrence in point of impact will the lightest built have next to the heaviest at extended range. I know there are several variables that will come into the picture, I do have some experiance with extended range, but I've never really weighed every bullet and this kinda shocked me. So lets say gun and shooter are cabable of shooting MOA at 1000 yards on perfect day with no winid. If I were to shot the lightest bullet, then the heaviest bullet. What's the diffrence in impact between the two shots. Anyone care to dive into this. Or am I asking a question that simply has endless results? Or does 2 grains of bullet weight not really change things all that much. Thanks for any imput.

Regards.

 

[Dogtown]

If you plug the numbers in, a variation of +/- 1 gr doesn't make a whole lot of difference on those 285s. I too was a bit dismayed to find that sorting by .5gr offsets I was culling easily 25% of each box. In the end, 1gr variation on a 285gr bullet accounts for only 0.035% mass variation. However, with a 55gr bullet, a 1gr variation equates to nearly 2% bullet mass variation, which likely has more of an effect. So the heavier the bullet, the more weight variation you can technically allow. That said, for ELR shooting uniformity is the name of the game and I don't mind removing as many variables within my control as possible, so I tend to sort brass and bullets.

 

[wilbur300wsm]

coming from the benchrest standpoint, sorting bullets by bearing surface, then by weight, and sorting brass by weight, all will factor in on you're quest for elr shooting. depending on the amount of brass you have, (say a 100 peices) fully prep ur brass then weigh and organize in ur ammo box from lightest to heaviest. on ur bullets, the more you have, the bigger the batches you will have once sorted. sort bullets by bearing surface first. keep the batches within .001 from each batch. (example, .692" to .693" one batch and .694" to .695" another batch). bearing surface on the bullets make more of a variance than weight does. ( bearing surface variance will give greater verticle in your group than weight will). then sort by weight. i like to keep it under 1/2 grain spread. but im sorting several thousand bullets. this is more towards the extreme on ur reloading regimine, but like all long range shooting, every little thing counts, just how anal are you willing to be? just my two cents