I picked up several boxes of blem bullets from Powder Valley, 1000 each .308 155 gr Palmas and 175 gr HPBTs.
Yesterday I sorted the 155s by base to ogive distance and found distinct ranges.
For instance, more than half measured 1.06" (approx. .55" from base to ogive) plus/minus .001" using a gage I spun up on my lathe.
Several hundred each measured 1.05", 1.045", and 1.02" plus/minus .001", as if they were run in distinct batches that yielded uniform but out of spec bullets..
For my purposes I set aside the 500+ .55" bullets for use in my bolt gun and the rest I will load up for my gas gun and I am happy with the "yield".
Today I started sorting the 175s and in the first box of 500 I found 4 separate length ranges at 1.147", 1.152", 1.157", and 1.162" along with a few that are really long or really short.
Then I started on the 2nd box and nearly half of them (so far) are 1.133" (all plus/minus .001") so now I'm up to 5 length ranges.
First off, is base to ogive the dimension by which I should be sorting them?
2nd, how much deviation within a range is acceptable? In other words, if I combine the 1.157s with the 1.152s, the total variation within the lot is only .007".
Clearly the 1.133s are in a class of their own, but there are a lot of them and they are very uniform, all within 1.133"-1.135". I will have no problem loading and shooting them separately.
I have a few boxes of "genuine" 175 SMKs to compare them with and after examining 2 complete boxes, I only find .003" variation (1.155"-1.158", roughly right in the middle of the overall range of the blems) base to ogive in 200 bullets.
Anybody have any relevant experience?
Thanks in advance.
Yesterday I sorted the 155s by base to ogive distance and found distinct ranges.
For instance, more than half measured 1.06" (approx. .55" from base to ogive) plus/minus .001" using a gage I spun up on my lathe.
Several hundred each measured 1.05", 1.045", and 1.02" plus/minus .001", as if they were run in distinct batches that yielded uniform but out of spec bullets..
For my purposes I set aside the 500+ .55" bullets for use in my bolt gun and the rest I will load up for my gas gun and I am happy with the "yield".
Today I started sorting the 175s and in the first box of 500 I found 4 separate length ranges at 1.147", 1.152", 1.157", and 1.162" along with a few that are really long or really short.
Then I started on the 2nd box and nearly half of them (so far) are 1.133" (all plus/minus .001") so now I'm up to 5 length ranges.
First off, is base to ogive the dimension by which I should be sorting them?
2nd, how much deviation within a range is acceptable? In other words, if I combine the 1.157s with the 1.152s, the total variation within the lot is only .007".
Clearly the 1.133s are in a class of their own, but there are a lot of them and they are very uniform, all within 1.133"-1.135". I will have no problem loading and shooting them separately.
I have a few boxes of "genuine" 175 SMKs to compare them with and after examining 2 complete boxes, I only find .003" variation (1.155"-1.158", roughly right in the middle of the overall range of the blems) base to ogive in 200 bullets.
Anybody have any relevant experience?
Thanks in advance.