Weight Sorting Brass

[Hawk in WY]

I have approximately 200 pieces of Hornady headstamp 6.5 CM brass, all range pickups.

All appear to be once fired.

Weight sorted and got the following, approximately:

Under 151 grains 10%
151+ to 151.5 10
151.5+ to 152 15
152+ to 152.5 15
152.5+ to 155 40
155+ 10

Different lots obviously. The first handful measured 151 to 152 so I was expecting a tighter range.

How anal should I be?

Should I resort the 152.5 to 155 into smaller groups?

Then what? What is an acceptable range within lots?

Thank you for sharing your experience.

 

[Random_Scrub]

Curious about this as well. Think I might have gotten too anal cause it turned into a headache.

 

[Sheldon N]

My vote is sell that brass, buy yourself 200 new cases of Lapua or other high quality brass all same lot number, then don't worry about weight sorting. The extra $100-150 will pay off in brass life and reduced headaches from sizing issues, case capacity differences, etc.

 

[trob_205]

Depends on what you are expecting out of it. If your looking for super tight ES and SDs and are shooting 800 plus regularly then maybe get rid of it. If you don’t wanna spend the extra money find the closest 100 cases for load development and drive on. It’s still decent brass and is capable of shooting as good as or better than most humans can.

 

[ThePretzel]

I'd agree with the idea of using Lapua brass if you can swing the $1/piece price point (even if you only get 100 of them). The other advantage to the Lapua brass over using Hornady brass is that you'll get a LOT more longevity out of your brass.

My Hornady brass would have primer pockets that were too loose by the 5th or 6th firing. Lapua brass has been tested (check out 6.5 guys) with hot loads (and some stupid hot loads at the end) to 20+ firings without any annealing and there weren't issues with the brass. Over the course of 20 firings your $1/piece brass only costs you $0.05 per shot.

When you consider that Hornady brass goes for $0.54 cents a piece and lasts for only 5 rounds, you end up paying 2x more to use Hornady brass in the long run as compared to just using Lapua to begin with.

 

[Rootshot]

When you consider that Hornady brass goes for $0.54 cents a piece and lasts for only 5 rounds, you end up paying 2x more to use Hornady brass in the long run as compared to just using Lapua to begin with.

This cost doesn't even consider case prep time on the Hornady brass that you can skip on Lapua. I have a batch of Hornady 6.5 Creedmore that I've trimmed, chamfered, deburred, cleaned up flash hole, uniformed primer pocket, etc. I reminded me how much work this was for what little value it provides. I use this brass for "stuff that doesn't matter" and "stuff where I will probably lose my brass". For everything else, I use Lapua.

 

[Baron85]

i hate messing with different loads so I tend to buy atleast 300 pieces of brass for a rifle same lot. That way I'm not always loading for each weekend I can load once a month and be done. To me you don't have enough "consistent" brass to make it worth working a load up with that brass. Granted if you can work with the quantity you have it might be worth it to you. But I would sell and buy matching lot brass in the quantity that suits your uses

 

[morganlamprecht]

I have approximately 200 pieces of Hornady headstamp 6.5 CM brass, all range pickups.

All appear to be once fired.

Weight sorted and got the following, approximately:

Under 151 grains 10%
151+ to 151.5 10
151.5+ to 152 15
152+ to 152.5 15
152.5+ to 155 40
155+ 10

Different lots obviously. The first handful measured 151 to 152 so I was expecting a tighter range.

How anal should I be?

Should I resort the 152.5 to 155 into smaller groups?

Then what? What is an acceptable range within lots?

Thank you for sharing your experience.

i cycle 500 pc batches of same lot hornday brass in 6 and 6.5 creed with new barrels...ES 20-25 consistently every time i check it on strings of 5-10 rounds

ive also got 1k+ pcs of mixed lot hornday brass with various firings...ES 40-60 consistently

all loaded with 2 chargemasters...for club matches and inside 500 yds, i run whatever...for big matches, i stick to same lot

 

[Hawk in WY]

200 pieces Lapua brass inbound.

Thank you for the good advice.

 

[redneckbmxer24]

You may want to read the thread I posted about weighing and measure Starline.

Link

 

[Hawk in WY]

You may want to read the thread I posted about weighing and measure Starline.

Link

Impressive indeed.

I plan to order 200 pieces Starline and see if there is any difference.

 

[goosed]

Not the question asked, but might be time to quit weight sorting... Majority of weight is in the case head anyways so a little extra there can skew things quite a bit while having very little impact in my experience.

I get it... weighing is easy, but if you're going to make the effort to be anal case capacity, concentricity or wall thickness would all seem more prudent things to measure, no?

 

[Hawk in WY]

I agree with your point.

My vote would be to sort based on water capacity.

QuickLOAD shows significant velocity changes with changes in case H2O capacity.

Weighing is a lot easier.

Or just buy good brass from the same lot in the first place.

 

[Rob01]

Did you fully prep and deprime them before weighing? If not then the weights are irrelevant as some factory brass, even the brass handed down by the Gods themselves Lapua, have different OALs which can add or subtract weight or primer variations if the brass wasn't deprimed. Also as you know weighing isn't really a good way to find internal capacity which is what it is supposed to do.

I have used Hornady 6.5 Creedmoor brass since 2008 and never weighed a piece. Prep and load and works great.

 

[Ledzep]

Simple enough to load 20 of similar weight and 20 of varied weight and see for yourself if it's worth the work or money to sort or order new. Shoot 2 10 shot strings each for accuracy and/or velocity.

 

[Ledzep]

I'm with Rob, personally. I have used lapua historically but loaded some Hornady brass recently (no prep) and had 6.7fps SD over 20 rounds and 10 shots inside .640" at 100yd. Good 'nuff for me.