bullet sorting

[delixe]

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.

 

[mdmp5]

I don't believe that sorting brass or bullets leads to any noticeable change in accuracy.

 

[mdmp5]

Let's put it this way: the best consistent groupings I have ever seen, and continue to see are Rescigno's test targets that he ships with his rifles. He uses factory FGMM, nothing else. I have yet to see one of his test targets that is over 0.1", and they have been improving over the years, as low as almost 0.02", and that is at 110 yds. If you pick quality components, about 90% of your job is done well, as far as loading is concerned. We all tend to be on an endless quest to squeeze out that last 10% of performance. It will take many hours and many dollars to get just a little more performance. Truth is, our shooting technique is usually taken for granted as being on top of its game. Good shooting with marginal equipment will outperform marginal shooting with good equipment every time.

 

[delixe]

Let's put it this way: the best consistent groupings I have ever seen, and continue to see are Rescigno's test targets that he ships with his rifles. He uses factory FGMM, nothing else. I have yet to see one of his test targets that is over 0.1", and they have been improving over the years, as low as almost 0.02", and that is at 110 yds. If you pick quality components, about 90% of your job is done well, as far as loading is concerned. We all tend to be on an endless quest to squeeze out that last 10% of performance. It will take many hours and many dollars to get just a little more performance. Truth is, our shooting technique is usually taken for granted as being on top of its game. Good shooting with marginal equipment will outperform marginal shooting with good equipment every time.

Uh huh, and I bet that Federal does not use blem SMKs with huge variations in dimensions when they make FGMM. You just reinforced what I'm doing.

 

[mdmp5]

Go pull a box of FGMM and tell me there is no variance between bullets, case capacity or powder charge

 

[M40_A1]

delixe, are you planning on shooting these at long range, or at a measly 100 yards off a machine rest?

 

[DocB]

delixe,

I use 0.005" as the criteria for sorting by ogive length. It does matter; if you have QL, run a test with the same load and one seated 0.050" deeper. It will also matter if you meplat trim or point. Consistency pays off when reloading.

You can demonstrate whether or not it will make a difference if you load a test set of 20 with the same charge, ect. and an equal number of the shortest and longest length bullets. If you get two groups, it matters.

HTH,
DocB

 

[delixe]

delixe, are you planning on shooting these at long range, or at a measly 100 yards off a machine rest?

Long range off a bipod.
Currently limited to 640 yards but I'm hoping to join a 1000 yard range this year.
It's a 2 hour drive so I want to tighten up my results at 600 yards before I make the drive.

 

[delixe]

Go pull a box of FGMM and tell me there is no variance between bullets, case capacity or powder charge

I measured 100 each of several different 500 count boxes of SMKs.
All within .003"
I doubt Federal would accept any less.

As for your assertion that eliminating little differences don't yield results, I guess you've never shot bench rest.

 

[delixe]

delixe,

I use 0.005" as the criteria for sorting by ogive length. It does matter; if you have QL, run a test with the same load and one seated 0.050" deeper. It will also matter if you meplat trim or point. Consistency pays off when reloading.

You can demonstrate whether or not it will make a difference if you load a test set of 20 with the same charge, ect. and an equal number of the shortest and longest length bullets. If you get two groups, it matters.

HTH,
DocB

Thanks Doc.

 

[hlee]

I measured 100 each of several different 500 count boxes of SMKs.
All within .003"
I doubt Federal would accept any less.

As for your assertion that eliminating little differences don't yield results, I guess you've never shot bench rest.

The only correct response to this- in this forum- is "shoot a benchrest gun off of a wobbly barricade or from an otherwise improvised position under a time constraint and you might find that some of the things we stress about at the reloading bench don't pay off in the field."

A 2moa shooter/position/circumstance combination + 0.1moa gun/ammunition will only produce a 2moa (at best) result.

 

[Joe Fogg]

I had a very accurate 308w that started shooting 2 distinct groups in a string. Finally found my box of bullets had 2 base to ojive lengths and they could be seperated into 2 groups .015 apart. Either group of bullets shot fine, together they were crap, with berger I no longer measure because it would be a waste.
Joe

 

[bigjohn451]

The only correct response to this- in this forum- is "shoot a benchrest gun off of a wobbly barricade or from an otherwise improvised position under a time constraint and you might find that some of the things we stress about at the reloading bench don't pay off in the field."

A 2moa shooter/position/circumstance combination + 0.1moa gun/ammunition will only produce a 2moa (at best) result.

Of course the reverse of this is also true... a 2 moa gun/ammo + with a .1 moa shooter will also yield at best a 2 moa result.

I believe in loading for the shooting your doing I don't load my tactical gun the same way I do my bench gun, but there is something to be said about having confidence in making the best possible ammo when your shooting at long ranges. (If nothing else its one less excuse when you miss)

 

[mdmp5]

The only correct response to this- in this forum- is "shoot a benchrest gun off of a wobbly barricade or from an otherwise improvised position under a time constraint and you might find that some of the things we stress about at the reloading bench don't pay off in the field."

A 2moa shooter/position/circumstance combination + 0.1moa gun/ammunition will only produce a 2moa (at best) result.

That is pretty much what I was getting at, although I wasn't too articulate with my point. I don't shoot benchrest; I shoot steel at distance. That is why I refuse to sort components.

 

[hlee]

Of course the reverse of this is also true... a 2 moa gun/ammo + with a .1 moa shooter will also yield at best a 2 moa result.

I believe in loading for the shooting your doing I don't load my tactical gun the same way I do my bench gun, but there is something to be said about having confidence in making the best possible ammo when your shooting at long ranges. (If nothing else its one less excuse when you miss)

I'm with you on both accounts. For me, the confidence in all of the parts is worth all of the time and effort. But, you have to be able to determine when the law of diminishing marginal utility says that your efforts are better spent elsewhere.

There is probably a 2moa or better difference between a confident shooter and one that is less than sold on his/her preparation or equipment.

Then again, I need all of the excuses I can get...

 

[delixe]

The only correct response to this- in this forum- is "shoot a benchrest gun off of a wobbly barricade or from an otherwise improvised position under a time constraint and you might find that some of the things we stress about at the reloading bench don't pay off in the field."

A 2moa shooter/position/circumstance combination + 0.1moa gun/ammunition will only produce a 2moa (at best) result.

True, but a 2 MOA rifle/cartridge combo can never shoot better than 2 MOA.
I always try to set myself up for success, it's a character flaw, I know.

I only embarked on this mission because there was a marked difference in group size between ammo loaded with non-blem SMKs and the blems, and I wanted to see if I could identify a difference between "factory firsts" and "factory seconds". The variation in bullet weight is the same between the firsts and the seconds, but there is a variation of .030" or more from shortest to longest in the seconds, TEN TIMES the variation of the firsts.

 

[delixe]

You know, when I asked for relevant experience, I didn't mean "you're wasting your time sorting bullets".

If you have no experience with sorting bullets, nothing to see here.
If you believe there's no value in it, move along, go crap on someone else's thread.

 

[hlee]

You sorted them but didn't shoot them. You then came here to complain about variability that MIGHT cause larger than expected grouping. You measured some "genuine" smks but never took up the challenge of pulling loaded FGMM to measure the variance in that loading. I think what you meant was "first run." Even the blemished SMKs are genuine... You ASSUMED that Federal would not use anything less than what Sierra is selling to us anal-retentive OCD hand loaders but have no data to back up that assertion. Talk about crapping in a thread. Bring some data to the table!!! Load up a series of rounds from each of your sorted bins and SHOOT them. Pull the bullets from 5 boxes of FGMM (equivalent to 1x100 count box of SMKs) and report your measurements. You have brought precisely "dick" to the discussion and are complaining that we are not being constructive??? At least in the runout thread that I started I sorted the cartridges by runout, shot them, and recorded the results. I think there was a lot of good constructive discussion there- and someone brought out a very old article validating pretty much everything that I was showing (down to how x amount of runout resulted in y amount of dispersion at the target). If you want good discussion you need to bring more to the table. Until you show that ogive measurement variability leads to a meaningful amount of dispersion at the target you will be stuck with "shoot more, worry less" responses. This is a precision tactical rifle forum, not a benchrest forum. I'm not tactical by any means, but I do feel that field expedient positions play a much larger role in precision (or lack thereof) than meplat uniformity and base to ogive measurements. Please, do some experiments and prove me wrong. Until then, please stop crapping in this thread- it offends the OP.

 

[M40_A1]

Talk about crapping in a thread....You have brought precisely "dick" to the discussion...Until then, please stop crapping in this thread- it offends the OP.

Are you SERIOUS?!! It's his own thread!

 

[hlee]

Are you SERIOUS?!! It's his own thread!

This is not lost upon me...

Internet threads are a bit like high school graduates. You hope you did what you can to prepare them, but once you send them off into the world they really are not yours to control. You can try to keep them on track, but if you aren't bringing anything of substance to the table they easily get off track, they drift, and morph into something you didn't intend.

It takes a village to raise a forum thread...

 

[delixe]

You sorted them but didn't shoot them. You then came here to complain about variability that MIGHT cause larger than expected grouping. You measured some "genuine" smks but never took up the challenge of pulling loaded FGMM to measure the variance in that loading. I think what you meant was "first run." Even the blemished SMKs are genuine... You ASSUMED that Federal would not use anything less than what Sierra is selling to us anal-retentive OCD hand loaders but have no data to back up that assertion. Talk about crapping in a thread. Bring some data to the table!!! Load up a series of rounds from each of your sorted bins and SHOOT them. Pull the bullets from 5 boxes of FGMM (equivalent to 1x100 count box of SMKs) and report your measurements. You have brought precisely "dick" to the discussion and are complaining that we are not being constructive??? At least in the runout thread that I started I sorted the cartridges by runout, shot them, and recorded the results. I think there was a lot of good constructive discussion there- and someone brought out a very old article validating pretty much everything that I was showing (down to how x amount of runout resulted in y amount of dispersion at the target). If you want good discussion you need to bring more to the table. Until you show that ogive measurement variability leads to a meaningful amount of dispersion at the target you will be stuck with "shoot more, worry less" responses. This is a precision tactical rifle forum, not a benchrest forum. I'm not tactical by any means, but I do feel that field expedient positions play a much larger role in precision (or lack thereof) than meplat uniformity and base to ogive measurements. Please, do some experiments and prove me wrong. Until then, please stop crapping in this thread- it offends the OP.

I didn't complain, I asked for experience RELEVANT to sorting bullets that vastly differ in profile, and clearly you have none.

This is the RELOADING forum. If I wanted your opinion on shooting dynamics, I wouldn't have posted in the RELOADING forum.

Nowhere have I called into question the importance of proper technique, and this is not the venue for that, since this is... that's right... the RELOADING forum.

Go troll on someone else's thread.

*edit* problem solved, I just added you to my ignore list.

 

[mdmp5]

You know, when I asked for relevant experience, I didn't mean "you're wasting your time sorting bullets".

If you have no experience with sorting bullets, nothing to see here.
If you believe there's no value in it, move along, go crap on someone else's thread.

I apologize delixe; I didn't mean to crap on your thread. I misunderstood what you were really asking, and I thought you were looking for advice more along the lines of "should I be doing this?". I tried sorting before but didn't fund it helped me, that is all I meant.