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Nosler RDF weight consistency issues

devldogs55

devldogs55

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
Feb 11, 2014
314
8
N. Idaho
I followed the numerous threads on Scout about the RDF and they convinced me to give the RDF a shot.. a big shot. Now, first thing I'd like to point out is that I have the factory seconds, but I have a LOT of them.

I decided to pick them up in .308 around the same time I sold my old .308 and ordered a new one from RBros, so I haven't actually loaded any up yet. The rifle should be ready very soon, so today I was just messing around at the bench and decided to weigh these RDFs. I've never sorted by weight before, but I'm seeing some pretty large spreads and inconsistencies here.

I've got weights from 174.4gr to 175.3gr.

My two questions are:

1. Is this because they are the factory seconds? The description when I bought them said it was 100% cosmetics that made them blems.. maybe they're full of it.

2. Since I've never cared to sort by weight or check the effects of my previous loads with the 178 AMAX, I don't know how this will affect vertical stringing. I feel like a half a day of searching for topics on sorting bullets by weighs has yielded a number of threads on various forums saying that bullet weight consistency isn't actually that big of a deal, but this is a large inconsistency IMO. Will this be a huge problem?
 
Well, I posted this thread out of a little bit of a panic. I was starting to worry pretty bad that I had 2k useless bullets.. but a quick data entry on JBM shows that there is essentially a maximum of 2" of difference at 1000 yards with all other things being equal. Maybe it's not as big of a deal as I feared. Still I've never seen or heard of that much variation in such a large percentage of bullets in one box. I have heard of boxes of Bergers having a single bullet off by .6 in a box every once in a great while.. but 60% of this box was greater than .3 off of 175gr.
 
I hope you let us know how they shoot. You might consider sorting them and loading them in lots with the same tip weight. If your just banging steel I'd doubt that you'll notice much difference.
 
That's primarily what I'm doing.. banging steel. Gonna start shooting the local practical rifle match once a month and it's 600yd max. I'll definitely let everyone know what I find.
 
I'm surprised at such big differences. I just bought some for my 6.5 to try I've been shooting eld-ms and the weights were much more consistent than my eld-m I only weighed 20 of each just like you did being bored and curious. The rdf were all either 139.9-140.1 where the eld-m were anywhere from 140-140.5 I wouldn't worry though like you said it should be hardly any variance even at distance


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I was hoping that mine were that far out so I would have something to blame the poor performance on so far. I weighted a bag of 100 70rdf blems and got the following weighed on the charge master with periodic recalculating and zeroing and then rechecking some at random and those second results came up with the same answer as the first run so Im reasonably confident in the results. [IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","height":"765","width":"430","src":"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/wnGaxyr.jpg"}[/IMG2]
 
I've seen scales fluctuate (+\-) before to be unuseful for sorting .Bearing surface and bullet dia. Is where I would check for inconsistency that's if you've got accurate repeatable measuring tools and techniques....
 
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I started to do some load development with the 140's and my initial impression is that they shoot really well out of my .260. That said, I'm seeing some serious weight and overall length variations. In the first 25 I've looked at, I've seen weights from 139.3 up to 140.3. These are all seconds as well. I spoke to Nosler about it and they said they really should keep within +/- .6 so I'm well outside that. He was ready to replace the 500 I'm sitting on but they don't have anything in stock and not scheduled for another production run any time soon. So i'll just run them for now and see how they shake out.
 
+/- .6, eh? Even then (and I know this is blasphemy to some), that would also explain why weighed charges (versus dropped, volumetric charges) often show no difference on the target at nominal ranges. i.e. there's so much variation every where else (case volume, bullet weight variance, primer brissance variance), that the difference of a couple tenth's of powder (via dropped powder, versus weighed) is lost in the noise....

Just something to chew on...
 
I weighed another box this morning. I weighed each bullet on two different scales and got exactly the same number on every one of them. I know there can still be variation in the scales.. but this has me a little frustrated. If nothing else... it takes some confidence away on the performance of my ammunition.
 

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MarinePMI said:
+/- .6, eh? Even then (and I know this is blasphemy to some), that would also explain why weighed charges (versus dropped, volumetric charges) often show no difference on the target at nominal ranges. i.e. there's so much variation every where else (case volume, bullet weight variance, primer brissance variance), that the difference of a couple tenth's of powder (via dropped powder, versus weighed) is lost in the noise....

Just something to chew on...
Click to expand...

I don't know for sure, but my guess is that their tolerance specs and allowed variation is not due to the tolerance of scales, but rather the manufacturing process. I measure my precision rifle charges to the tenth of a grain. that's "good enough" for me - but not everyone. I don't think the difference in a couple tenths of a grain of powder is lost in the noise.. but that's a different argument for a different thread.
 
Just spoke to a supervisor at Nosler and he told me that those numbers are completely normal for factory seconds - which was my concern when I bought them - which is why I called them before I bought them, and they told me that seconds/blems were only that way because of minor cosmetic defects such as a tarnish or smudge on the bullet. I was also told that no "defect" on the blems would have any effect on accuracy or ballistics. That was also what Shooters Pro Shop had in their product description.

I habe a hard hard time with these numbers being acceptable for blend and a variation of 0.6 being acceptable for "firsts" according to Nosler. Is that acceptable to other precision bullet makers? I've never called to ask what Berger's acceptable tolerance is - but that's because the one one I cared to weigh those out it was within 0.3 or less. Typically much less.

Anyhow - I know that it will most likely not make any noticeable difference in my loads, but I kinda have a bad taste in my mouth over this whole ordeal - and I really really want to like these. I guess I'll just have to wait and see how well they shoot before I worry any more. My knee jerk reaction tells me to sell the blems and go back to Berger.
 
My 105 RDF seconds had 2-5x more weight variation than any of the other bullets I checked from Hornady, Berger, or Lapua. Still lower than you're seeing though, I think +/- .4 grains.
 
I used to shoot hornady factory seconds, there were big variations in the weights. Once I got match bullets they were all .1+-, i'm convinced that most brands blemished are the ones that do not meet the grain requirements of the bullet.
 
I think what shocked me more than my blems being acceptable was that they told me their "firsts" were only held to 0.6 tolerances. I'm really starting to convince myself to sell off all 1800 of these just to ease my OCD.
 
I would at least try them out if I were you. That bc is hard to discard. Honestly I'm thinking of a remage rebarrel just to make them work. I have 300 more to try and find something to work. Then I wait for the next batch of affordable blems
 
My rifle should be ready any day now.. so I'll probably at least give some of them a try. Every day my rifle isn't here will likely be another day I toy with the idea of offloading all the blems.

Whats funny is that ive never been the reloader to sort bullets, or throw charges that are .02 consistency.. I don't turn necks and I don't check concentricity often... but having this much variation just because kinda bugs me.
 
Even if it's just moa plinking ammo at best they are the cheapest bullets I've ever bought. I've had four shots be pretty impressive to me with the fifth ruining it. But at .14 a piece... I can shoot three more to make up for that one. I know the 308 stuff is more expensive but I feel the proportions will remain true. (This was my first time weight bullets too, though I've thought of weight sorting my eley match stuff too. Just never really seen the actual need before.)
 
Can anyone here tell me what a 139.6 rdf will do at 736 yards going 2756 FPS vs a 140.1 RDF at the same speed and distance?
 
GhengisAhn175 said:
Can anyone here tell me what a 139.6 rdf will do at 736 yards going 2756 FPS vs a 140.1 RDF at the same speed and distance?
Click to expand...

It is 3 lbs at 1k... something to consider heavily...

[IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/9kjhVGo.jpg?1"}[/IMG2]
[IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/h8k5y3I.jpg?1"}[/IMG2]
 
And I've known that for so long.. I don't know what got to me and made me think this was a large enough difference in weight to cause me to have issues.
 
You sure you shot them in the right barrel(s)? There's a whole lot of professionals that disagree.
 
I meant the right caliber. Looks like you've joined SH last week and have no less than 4 Nosler troll posts.

You may not give a shit what anyone else shoots/thinks/does.. but you seem awful concerned with what other people think you shoot/think/do.

Is is this your first time on a forum?
 
Ha! That's almost exactly the response I imagined you'd type. You're a funny guy.. but I'm still going to have to put you on the ol ignore list. I'll admit my mistake in feeding the troll this long already.

You must have have a lot of friends.

"Sweetheart,I shoot on an order of magnitude,that you could not begin to fathom and you'd do well to fill out a Hurt Feelers Report. I speak matter of factly,mainly because facts fucking matter. Hint."

That's straight gold!
 
OP, I have nothing to contribute as far as the latest flavor of the month projectiles. However being somewhat cheap I have shot quite a few "seconds" from Hornady and Berger with zero issues. Some time ago I ran into a screaming deal on some 285 Hornady's. There were some amazing fluctuations weight wise, as in 5-6 grains.
Rather than chuck the works I decided to weight sort. + or - .5gr good to go. + or- 1gr. practice only. further out = scrap or fouler. With a digital scale I figured it worth my time considering the price.
 
Thanks, and that's something I had considered. I think most of my anxiety will be eased once I find out what my actual ballistics look like with these fluctuations. I'm only shooting steel afterall.
 
What I noticed when seating my 175 RDF blems yesterday was that in cases with identical base to ogive dimensions, the extreme spread for COAL (base to tip) was 0.036"! I've grown accustomed to variations in total length with HPBTs and polymer tipped bullets but never quite that much. I guess I'll see what happens when I shoot my OCW...
 
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