17 Hornet Brass Weight Results and Sorting Suggestions

[RabbitSlayer]

With 17 Hornet brass being unobtanium for the last few years, I purchased once fired factory brass from a forum member. It came in factory boxes with several lot numbers. There are 3 headstamps. FC, Hornady with a dot on each side of the word, Hornady with no dots. Looking at some recently purchased loaded ammo I have on hand, the word Hornady with no dots is the same as the current production in 2023.

I weighed all the brass sorted by headstamp on a Chargemaster Link. I am wondering if or how I should sort this brass? At the moment, I am inclined to sort it only by headstamp. I have never weighed or sorted brass, so I don't even know what good numbers would look like. I have attached the data as an Excel file.

The gun is CZ 527 Varmint glass and pillar bedded with a Timney. My goal is consistent .5 moa, but I would be happy with consistent .75 moa.

Results:

 

[JSH]

When I had mine I weigh sorted it. It did fall into specific head stamps most of the time. When I weigh sorted and loaded into specific lots my groups came together and had some great groups.
Between the spread of weight/capacity of cases and me being pissy about the way it fed, I developed a dislike early on. I liked the performance though.
Picked up a 17WSM against the advice of several. It shot as good as the 17HH for the distance I chose to use it at. Bought ammo when it was cheap.
A 17FB appeared and that took the place of the 17HH for me. I have since made 221 FB brass for my needs and do t have to worry about supply.

 

[B23]

Rabbitslayer, you'll find that the 17 Hornet brass is consistently inconsistent when it comes to overall case weight and neck wall thickness, but, of all the different Lot #'s of 17 Hornet brass I have and I've measured, for the most part, regardless of its overall case weight the internal case capacity for all of it is very close to the same and that's the important part.

Also, regardless of if the box says Hornady or American Eagle aka Federal it's all Hornady and loaded the same. Although, the Federal/American Eagle 17 Hornet ammo often seems to shoot a little better then the Hornady stuff. I've talked to Federal on numerous occasions about this and they assured me it's all the same ammo and the only thing different between the two was one comes in a 25cnt box with a Hornady head stamped on the brass and Hornady on the label and the other comes in a 50cnt box with American Eagle head stamp and AE on the box. When I've pushed further about the differences between the two and how the AE stuff tends to shoot better they do admit there were some issues with early production Hornady 17HH ammo and that the newer stuff tended to consistently shoot better.

 

[ronemus]

If you're only interested in shooting at or under 300 yards or are not aspiring to benchrest accuracy, the case weights you've measured indicate sorting won't have any benefits. If you do want to push the limits of performance, then you might consider weight-sorting into 0.25 grain lots. The 2 dots brass is very good as received, and you could just stick with that for critical applications. The effect of weight sorting is small, so unless you're doing close control of other factors (single headstamp, neck turning, primer pocket uniforming, VLD chamfer, etc.) weight won't be an issue.

 

[JSH]

I forget the load, it was a book load of IMR4198 as I recall. Some cases it was at the neck body junction, other cases it was way over full and no way it would fit. That was what brought my attention to weight/capacity. Accuracy was stellar, but those long sticks were a royal PITA.

B23 and I have exchanged some info on various rigs. As mentioned the consistency to the little darling, is the inconsistency.

Forget what ball powder I went too, but that made life easier.

 

[RegionRat]

I would suggest you keep them segregated for the time being.
You may get into prep processing and find there is a need to anneal them differently just due to the weight difference, or you may find that weight causes a difference in sizing, but that is just one reason to keep them sorted.
Another would be to run your load development with the biggest batch, and then test that load in a different one to see if you get away with it before you batch them together.
I would be surprised if you got away with a 6 grain difference in mean brass weights, but either way with the headstamp markings you can always sort them if they got mixed. I don't think the MIN MAX difference within your headstamps is bad at all, but if you batch them all their is about an 8 grain difference that begs for a test.
Good Luck and in for the range report.

 

[Ned Ludd]

I would never mix the headstamps, so sort by headstamp first. Next, weigh a sufficient number of cases that you can obtain at least five representing the lightest and heaviest case weights from each headstamp group. From what I can tell, you have already done this. Next, load up 5 rounds each of the lightest/heaviest brass from each headstamp with an otherwise identical load. This will be only thirty loaded rounds total plus a few sighters/foulers, so it's really not that much of an effort. Determine velocity for each of these 5-case groups and you'll have your answer. If you cannot tell the difference in average velocity between the lightest and heaviest cases in each headstamp group (and you may not, your case weight spreads within a single headstamp group aren't that bad, and it is mixed Lot# brass), then further weight sorting will be unproductive. If there is a detectable difference in average velocity, the relative difference should tell you whether sorting into two weight groups such as light/heavy would work, or perhaps sorting into light/medium/heavy would be better.

 

[RabbitSlayer]

I would never mix the headstamps, so sort by headstamp first. Next, weigh a sufficient number of cases that you can obtain at least five representing the lightest and heaviest case weights from each headstamp group. From what I can tell, you have already done this. Next, load up 5 rounds each of the lightest/heaviest brass from each headstamp with an otherwise identical load. This will be only thirty loaded rounds total plus a few sighters/foulers, so it's really not that much of an effort. Determine velocity for each of these 5-case groups and you'll have your answer. If you cannot tell the difference in average velocity between the lightest and heaviest cases in each headstamp group (and you may not, your case weight spreads within a single headstamp group aren't that bad, and it is mixed Lo#t brass), then further weight sorting will be unproductive. If there is a detectable difference in average velocity, the relative difference should tell you whether sorting into two weight groups such as light/heavy would work, or perhaps sorting into light/medium/heavy would be better.

Ahhhh this makes sense! That is an easy test.

 

[RabbitSlayer]

Thought I would follow up. The primers backed out of 70% of 15 rounds of the FC headstamp, even the min load fowlers. I trashed em all. Try the other headstamps this weekend.

 

[Zero333]

My shoulder starts hurting when I see brass that big.

Your barrel might only last a few hundred rounds because it's so overbore, but it's worth sorting it.

Check H2O capacity with the same headstamp... Take the heaviest and the lightest pieces of brass and compare the H2O internal capacity. If it's the same, that means the rim thickness is affecting the weight more than internal Volume.
Then sort by headstamp in 0.5 gr spread. Shoot and compare.

My shoulder still hurts after writing this.

Just trying to insert some humor into the thread

If it was a 22 Hornet you would benefit reaming the chamber to a K-Hornet. But there is very little gain with the 17 hornet and making it a k-hornet. Difference between the 17 Hornet and 17 K-Hornet is a mere 3% more internal volume. Very much NOT worth it.