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Sorting blem bullets

Agent Entropy

It takes energy to be this disorganized
Supporter
Minuteman
Jun 1, 2021
73
42
Reno, NV
I've got a bunch of blem bullets from Midway for 6.5cr. Consensus seems to be they're Hornady 143gr ELD-Xs. Thinking of sorting them, something I wouldn't do if they weren't blems. I have an analytical balance accurate to 0.001gr and my calipers go down to half of one-thousand of an inch. What criteria and ranges should I use to sort?

Apologies if there's another thread for this out there, I couldn't find it.
 
I appreciate it, and I may well opt to just send 'em. I just have this gross compulsion to know whether it's me missing the shot or something else (yes, I know that 99.99% of the time, it's going to be me).

So, irrespective of their use--let's say I'm just some sort of data geek wierdo that enjoys measuring and tabulating numbers that may ultimately be meaningless save for personal enjoyment--what criteria and ranges of said criteria would you consider significant?
 
I appreciate it, and I may well opt to just send 'em. I just have this gross compulsion to know whether it's me missing the shot or something else (yes, I know that 99.99% of the time, it's going to be me).

So, irrespective of their use--let's say I'm just some sort of data geek wierdo that enjoys measuring and tabulating numbers that may ultimately be meaningless save for personal enjoyment--what criteria and ranges of said criteria would you consider significant?
 
Bought several thousand 140ELDM's and just cleaned them up. They shoot no different from the standard box versions.
 
If there are accuracy issues, no amount of sorting by weight or external measurements will fix them. If it's an aesthetic/cosmetic blem/flaw the sorting won't get you any more than with a standard lot of the same bullets.

YMMV. I'd shoot them first unsorted and see how they perform.
 
Just send them. They shoot just fine. I’ve got a ton of them over the years and never had an issue. No reason to sort at all. You’re perfectly good they are only blems because your eyes see them as blems
Maybe I like sorting?
Then by all means!!!

Sort away.

BTW... K-Mart sucks. Beenie weenies. We have pepperoni pizza for dinner Monday Nights... ;-)

Cheers,

Sirhr

PS. Sort them into 0.2 grain increments. Then by color. ;-)
 
If you must sort them. Measure the tolerances of some factory first bullets of the same type and then sort them into groups based on the allowable tolerances of non-blem bullets.
 
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Here’s my attempt at sorting midway hornady blems, it was a waste of time.
But then again they did shoot shitty for me across the board so...
56D49006-811F-4BE2-AC78-CB73F4EBDC34.jpeg
 
I have always had pretty good luck with the blems that appear to be Hornady. Have you shot them in multiple barrels?
 
I got some plastic treys for a tackle box and used that to sort Hornady bullets once. Then I just started buying bergers.... you can do it forever but if you must sort I'd just take a bunch and see what your max and min weight are, then divide that into 3 equalish groups. Then you will have one that's just "less than min" and one that's "more than max". That gives you 5 total weight groups. Very similar to what spife has above, but looks like he did 6 groups to start, then a under and over group giving him 8 total. I would just do 5 total as I said. That will give you plenty of weight groups and you will have more bullets per group.

It takes a lot of bullets to sort em and then have enough in each group to load up and have a decent amount of rounds in each to shoot, since the whole point of sorting is to get more consistent rounds, it's not all that helpful to have 20 or 30 of each group, at least for me it isn't. I would want several hundred of each group so I could actually use the bullets, which is why I gave up on sorting and just bought more consistent bullets.
 
If you sort, do it by length base to ogive.

I'd jump them at least 20 thou and not bother sorting.