22 LR Bullet Sorting

[holstil]

Outrider, I'm curious, do you know what your head space is?

 

[Tony K Harper]

Back in the day I use to weigh, measure, and spin match grade ammo. I bought some really good scales and tools and would spend hours sorting.

I sorted into 5 groups. the first group was bullets that were small/light.The last group was ammo long /heavy.

The three middle groups were the closest in size/ weigh/straightness. they were labeled 1, 2 and 3. the first and last groups were used for warmers or shot in my pistols. They were really culls.

One day before a match another shooter came by my bench and saw my assortment. He asked what all this and I explained my system. He said great lets shoot a target or two and I'll shoot your culls.

Long story short he beat me on two target back to back. Being hard headed that did not deter me. I just kept on doing what I was doing. I was winning more than I was losing so I kept at it.

Then one day at a match another shooter asked me about my system and again I explained. Then he said Tony when you have time take some of your sorted ammo and resort it. See if it comes out the same as the first time you sorted it.

Well, I did, and that was when I quit sorting match grade ammo.

TKH

 

[Outrider27]

Outrider, I'm curious, do you know what your head space is?

I have a match grade Win 52 that is just a couple of ten thousandths over 0.043, measured by a 'smith. The rest are an assortment that seem to be in the 0.044 range, based on my crude measurements.

 

[The stowaway]

Hello,
if you want to measure and weigh, go ahead. I had the same experience as TKH a long time ago.
Today I prefer to take a look and consider the rotational symmetry. (But it takes experience).

There are no rimthicknes with airgun pellets.
There, too, it is measured and weighed. A placebo, without recognising other errors.

Sorting Pellets for precision

This post is about sorting pellets. I’m sure if someone wanted to start a new post to discuss BC and their opinions of which method works best it would get lots of attention...

www.airgunnation.com

Page 4 below and next.

Think outside the box.

I'm here: "The Stowaway" there "NoLimits"

Thanks

 

[Jennb]

What great information!

 

[4Bowhunter]

I recently started shooting rimfire. Seems I get a lot of flyers in most brands of ammo I have tried. Last week I took the time to measure rim thickness. I had three bricks of different brands of ammo and sorted each brick. I sorted them at .005. Each brand came in at three different thicknesses with maybe 20 or so that were widely different. Those that didn't fall into one of the groups will be used to dirty the barrel before each session.

Went to the range and shot them as sorted. What I discovered is that my groups tightened considerably and very few 5 shot groups that were beyond 3/8 inch. Of course point of impact varied between different brands but that was to be expected. the process is tedious and time consuming, but well worth it.

Test was conducted using a Anschutz Mod 54 Super Match rifle at 25 yards.

 

[4Bowhunter]

It’s the new 21st Century shooting .22 bullet sorting tool. Very Accurate w/positive feel.

 

[Ranger007]

Interesting, thank you for posting.

 

[The stowaway]

And now we're back to the beginning.


As an example: 10 rounds CCI standard at 50m

Where do you think the high and low flyers come from?
From the rim thickness? I do not know.
More or less powder? Possible, maybe.
Longer or shorter cartridge? I do not know.
More or less lubrication? Possible, maybe.
More or less primer? Possible, maybe.


Where do the right and left flyers come from?





Maybe because of the asymmetry imbalance of the bullet?

Maybe all of the flyers come from the bullet‘s imbalance?
The Stowaway

 

[HuskerP7M8]

An offset Cg (Center of Gravity) causes the projectile to be imbalanced and it's forced to rotate about the geometric axis while in the bore of a barrel and this is an unnatural condition.

A spinning projectile will always spin about its principal axis and the principal axis always passes through the projectile Cg if it’s free to do so.

Due to the Cg offset, a tangential velocity component is produced while the bullet is in the bore.

Consequently, the bullet will start spinning about its principal axis and its Cg the instant it exits the muzzle.

This tangential velocity component creates a lateral drift velocity when the bullet exits the bore.

The direction of this lateral drift velocity will be perpendicular to the plane containing both the geometric and principal axes at the instant of muzzle exit.

With the Cg offset located below the geometric axis in the chamber, the bullet will be deflected 90 deg's to the left and impact at the outer edge of a circle defined by the calculated "Radius of Dispersion.”

This equation for the Radius of Dispersion = 24 * Pi * (MV / Twist Rate in Inches) * TOF * Cg Offset in Inches.

Every shot in the charts below was fired with the POA being the x,y coordinates of 0",0" and the 5-shot group in the center was fired without any induced imbalance on my part.

Landy

 

[pfiori]

Landy, what is the length and twist of the barrel that this test was shot with?

 

[HuskerP7M8]

24.84" Muller 4MI 16" twist. Shot in my ballistic tunnel with one of my rail-guns similar to the image below.

Landy

https://flic.kr/p/Grc6n9

 

[Jdne5b]

Wonder if you could spin a 22lr on a Bullet Genie and produce results measurable on a target?

 

[HuskerP7M8]

Wonder if you could spin a 22lr on a Bullet Genie and produce results measurable on a target?

No...been there, done that.

In my case I used a Nielsen Concentricity gauge some 10 years ago and sorted the test ammo into a Gaussian Distribution and shot the +/-1 sigma range of the distribution against the statistical outliers in the 3 sigma range. The data generated didn't produce any statistically significant results and I abandoned further testing of the hypotheses. However, I do think there is the possibility concentricity may play a factor in barrels chambered closer to "saami" specs rather than the BR chambers I exclusively use.

Besides, in the context of my post we're discussing Cg Offset, and concentricity devices would be more appropriate for investigating "In-bore Cant"....a whole other subject with a host of other problems that would need to be dealt with.

BTW, I think "The Stowaway" has done an awesome job of making you guys think and his visuals are almost mesmerizing as well as very informative.

Landy

 

[howe0002]

I am reading where a lot of experienced shooters that are shooting expensive, match grade ammo (Eley, Wolf, etc) have stopped sorting. That makes sense to me considering you are paying for the sorting in the expensive ammo (in a way). But, does it make sense to sort bulk federal or remington golden ? Does sorting in these cases/situations help or is it a waste of time there too?

Thanks

 

[PWNolan]

...But, does it make sense to sort bulk federal or remington golden ? Does sorting in these cases/situations help or is it a waste of time there too?

Thanks

It's still a waste of time IMO. Even if it helped a little bit, why would you bother to sort bulk ammo like RGBs? It'll never magically turn into match ammo. It'll remain plinking ammo no matter what you do to it

 

[TRSR8]

I am reading where a lot of experienced shooters that are shooting expensive, match grade ammo (Eley, Wolf, etc) have stopped sorting. That makes sense to me considering you are paying for the sorting in the expensive ammo (in a way). But, does it make sense to sort bulk federal or remington golden ? Does sorting in these cases/situations help or is it a waste of time there too?

Thanks

For the competitive shooter it has been shown time and time again there is, unfortunately, no substitute for top grade match ammo. It is simply made to a much higher standard and you will never approach it by sorting.

 

[Luisyamaha]

I recently re-visited this issue. Having some spare time last Sunday with not much to do I decided to sort some cheap ammo (Aguila Super Extra) to see if there was any improvement in the groups. Included some ELEY Benchrest Precision because it was there. This was not a ton of ammo and the 5-shot groups were only 4 groups per sample. ALL rim thickneses (?) were between .043" and .044". There was ONE .045" Aguila, which was not used in the experiment.

ELEY: .043" groups were .46". .044" groups were .42". One additional group of .044" opened up the average to .46"
Aguila: .043" groups were .67" .044" groups were .99".

Seems like sorting may be worthwhile for the Aguila, no? Unfortunately, (or luckily really) I had some Aguila un-sorted ammo, and THOSE groups were .64"!

So, basically, as most have said, it isn't worth the time to sort neither the cheap nor the expensive stuff. Just buy better ammo.

BTW, found a very old post of mine on another website where I did a much more comprehensive test with various brands of ammo and many more groups and came to the same conclusion.

Luisyamaha

 

[searcher]

I understand what and why you are doing this but I haven't read anything about what is the optimum thickness. Do thicker rim measurements work better or is it the opposite? Thanks,

Depends on your rifle. In essence, you are either getting bullet closer to the lands or further away.

 

[searcher]

For the competitive shooter it has been shown time and time again there is, unfortunately, no substitute for top grade match ammo. It is simply made to a much higher standard and you will never approach it by sorting.

Even the high-quality stuff varies more than most would think....