223 lapua brass
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Interesting co-incidence as I just did the same thing. However, I sorted 4 boxes and my weight range is 93.6 to 96.5 so only about 2.9 grain spread, a little less than you 4 grain spread but not significantly different. Mine are all from the same lot and the reason I buy 4 boxes and sort is so that I can have 4 batches that if used individually would be only about 1 grain or less within the batch.
fredhorace77
Banned
Keep the stuff on the far right of the pic. Mail me the rest and ill dispose of it.
Brass weighing
Shoot the ones at the top of the bell curve against the outliers, Compare the targets.
Then, start over and velocity sort the whole box, doing another bell based on velocity. Compare against the outliers.
Then, load them all up and shoot. Compare all the targets.
While you are shooting all these, forget about the test and focus on wind.
Then, start over and velocity sort the whole box, doing another bell based on velocity. Compare against the outliers.
Then, load them all up and shoot. Compare all the targets.
While you are shooting all these, forget about the test and focus on wind.
Shynloco
You can lead a horse to water, but ........
Personally, I'd select the ones/grps that are the closest together, which apparently are the ones to the right in your picture. It also depends on your purposes (i.e. competition or general shooting) and the number of casings you need for whatever you bought them for. In a .223, that Lapua brass should last you quite a long time so long as you don't shoot hot loads.
Alex
Alex
Just finished the same process for 500 Lapua Palma brass . The 5 boxes only varied from 172.5 - 174.0 gr with only 15 -20 pieces outside of 172.8 - 173.8. By the time I put together 5 100 rd batches they had very narrow spreads.From Bullets .com lot number ending in 16.
Brians356
Silver $$ Contributor
Personally, if I had that much interest in case variability, I'd be looking at internal water capacity. It's not unlikely most of the case weight variance is in the solid head portion, where it has little effect. Combustion chamber volume is what I would be matching. It's why good race engine builders spend so much time "CC-ing" and grinding the heads to equalize cylinder "squish" and compression.
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I would load the lightest 10 and the heaviest 10, and shoot them round-robin. I bet the velocity difference isn't as much as you think.
uld
jepp2
Gold $$ Contributor
The most logical advice I ever received on sorting brass came from Unclenick on TFL forum. His advice was "Cartridge brass density is 8.53 gm/cc, according to Matweb. That means 0.853 grains, in identically trimmed and primer pocket uniformed cases, will represent 0.1 grains difference in powder space. Since pressure goes up exponentially with increase in powder charge, this is about like a 0.05 grain charge difference. Not usually a significant error. If you charge cases ±0.1 grains, then figure cases ±1.7 grains are roughly equivalent to that."
Since I charge my cases +/- 0.1 grains, that means about 2 grains of case weight. How I divide them up, is based on how I intend to use them. In your case, I would take the lightest 50, and call them a batch. Then the heaviest 50 and call them another batch. I would continue separating into 50 round batches (or lots), until everything was accounted for. How I select which batch to use, depends on what I want to do.
Since I charge my cases +/- 0.1 grains, that means about 2 grains of case weight. How I divide them up, is based on how I intend to use them. In your case, I would take the lightest 50, and call them a batch. Then the heaviest 50 and call them another batch. I would continue separating into 50 round batches (or lots), until everything was accounted for. How I select which batch to use, depends on what I want to do.
fredhorace77
Banned
Ding, ding, ding....this is spot on.
fredhorace77
Banned
Again.....dead on
Keep them all. Load them with the most precise powder charges you are capable of, sort the loaded rounds by weight and shoot them in order. Your choice. Lowest to highest or the reverse. For .223 at 600 yds. I see little difference in vertical displacement I ALMOST ignore it. But not fully. I shoot from lightest to heaviest in order.
The way i have been doing it for years is, weigh the brass, sorting them from the heaviest (ie 93.98) to the lightest (91.00) for example. I load them and shoot them in this order, from the heaviest to the lightest. I sort my bullets by weight and also load them in order.. from the heaviest to the lightest. Charges are weighed to .02 of a grain, my tolerance is .00 - .02 and that is it.. So the charge weight is the only thing that is pretty much consistent in the loading process.. not only are they loaded in sequence, they are shot in the same sequence as they have been loaded. Doing it this way has yielded less then 1/2 moa vertical dispersion at 1K and less then 1/3 moa at 600 yards..
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Yes, that's a good way of doing it USMCDOC. I'm truly amazed at how many people on this thread say they're batching every case on water capacity. Good Lord - life is far too short to do that and/or anybody suggesting it, buys and loads a lot less brass than I do. I have maybe 300 or 350 Lapua 223 cases on the go at any one time, and it's one of maybe six cartridges / calibres I use in a typical year's competition shooting over three or four disciplines.
Weight batching, neck thickness measuring / batching and (sometimes) a bit of clean-up neck turning is quite enough (probably too much for the good of my lifestyle) case preparation with 223.
I'm surprised (and disappointed) to see a 4gn spread in 100 Lapua 223 cases though. A couple of well to the sides of the bell curve examples aside, I'd expect 1.5gn or less and most of those within 1gn.
I have 300 Hornady 6.5mm Creedmoor cases bought as one purchase in 50-ct boxes in the very early days of the cartridge and Hornady's production. They cover a near 8gn range, but segregate into two easily split lots suggesting two or more production lots with poor lot to lot QC. Measuring a sample of one or two fireformed examples from each lot's water capacity gave a 0.3gn difference, more than enough to induce some nice (actually not nice) variability into the total purchase for mid to long-range F-Class if used straight out of the boxes and mixed. It's why this was the first and last purchase I made of Hornady brass in the calibre and why I paid a small fortune for 200 Norma cases as soon as they appeared in the UK last year. They are good in this and every other respect.
My experience as an 'early adopter' of new cases brought into production by Lapua and to a lesser extent Norma is that they get it right from day one (or more likely scrap any early not up to scratch production) and that if you buy something right away on launch, it is really good, later lots not being quite as good. I've found this with initial lot Lapua 22-250, 260 and 7mm-08 brass. I'll be at the head of the UK queue for its forthcoming Creedmoor brass for that reason. I've been a little disappointed with recent 308 Palma out of the box consistency, and from the above posts it looks like 223 has suffered too as drawing dies etc wear. Much of my 223 brass goes back to the early days of Lapua producing the '.223 Rem Match' after switching from its very heavy military type earlier model. I bought a couple of hundred current 223s a few weeks ago, so am fearful of looking at them now!
Weight batching, neck thickness measuring / batching and (sometimes) a bit of clean-up neck turning is quite enough (probably too much for the good of my lifestyle) case preparation with 223.
I'm surprised (and disappointed) to see a 4gn spread in 100 Lapua 223 cases though. A couple of well to the sides of the bell curve examples aside, I'd expect 1.5gn or less and most of those within 1gn.
I have 300 Hornady 6.5mm Creedmoor cases bought as one purchase in 50-ct boxes in the very early days of the cartridge and Hornady's production. They cover a near 8gn range, but segregate into two easily split lots suggesting two or more production lots with poor lot to lot QC. Measuring a sample of one or two fireformed examples from each lot's water capacity gave a 0.3gn difference, more than enough to induce some nice (actually not nice) variability into the total purchase for mid to long-range F-Class if used straight out of the boxes and mixed. It's why this was the first and last purchase I made of Hornady brass in the calibre and why I paid a small fortune for 200 Norma cases as soon as they appeared in the UK last year. They are good in this and every other respect.
My experience as an 'early adopter' of new cases brought into production by Lapua and to a lesser extent Norma is that they get it right from day one (or more likely scrap any early not up to scratch production) and that if you buy something right away on launch, it is really good, later lots not being quite as good. I've found this with initial lot Lapua 22-250, 260 and 7mm-08 brass. I'll be at the head of the UK queue for its forthcoming Creedmoor brass for that reason. I've been a little disappointed with recent 308 Palma out of the box consistency, and from the above posts it looks like 223 has suffered too as drawing dies etc wear. Much of my 223 brass goes back to the early days of Lapua producing the '.223 Rem Match' after switching from its very heavy military type earlier model. I bought a couple of hundred current 223s a few weeks ago, so am fearful of looking at them now!
First, let me say thank your sir! Second. I have a batch of 401 pcs for sale in the classifieds. Weight dispersment of the brass is:
94 gr range (94.98 - 94.00) 172 pcs
95 gr range (95.98 - 95.00) 170 pcs
96 gr range (96.98 - 96.00) 38 pcs
And the once fired brass i didn't double check, but if i remember correctly, those 21 pcs are in the 92 and 91 gr range.
So at least the fear of the consistency in weight, should be a moot point.. that is my feeling at least.
Cartridge weight is proportional to interior volume if and only if the brass is fire formed and the same length. If all exterior dimensions are the same then the interior volume will determine the case weight. Having said that the relationship between case weight and powder charge weight is about 7:1 which is the difference in the specific gravity between powder and brass (average). If a case is 7 grains heavier then one grain less of powder will keep the pressures close. The velocity will not be the same but the pressures will. If you want to keep velocities the same (as close as possible) then you need the same amount of powder in each case but the heavier cases will have more pressure and may not hit the same place in the pressure node.
I weigh my brass (remember I am a hunter) and group them into lots of 3.5 grains of each other. That half grain difference won't make enough difference since I use the OCW method to get the most consistent accuracy.
I weigh my brass (remember I am a hunter) and group them into lots of 3.5 grains of each other. That half grain difference won't make enough difference since I use the OCW method to get the most consistent accuracy.
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