Bell Curve 100 rnd lot

[Kevin1990]

Hate to be that guy, but this histogram actually skews right it's not a bell shape. Other than that I have nothing to contribute.

Wether sorting does anything or not I have no idea, but as I see on here ALL the time, a lot of the shooting game is mental. If you feel it helps, and gives you confidence then do it up!

@Bill Norris thanks for posting that video!

 

[Bill Norris]

Hate to be that guy, but this histogram actually skews right it's not a bell shape. Other than that I have nothing to contribute.

Wether sorting does anything or not I have no idea, but as I see on here ALL the time, a lot of the shooting game is mentaeel. If you feel it helps, and gives you confidence then do it up!

@Bill Norris thanks for posting that video!

Welcome

 

[jelenko]

I asked a hall of fame shooter that everyone here knows how he sorted brass.
Said he sorts by how it shoots..
He knows his load and when one doesn't do what it should he'll sort it out
and gives it another try. If it fails then gets cut from the competition loads.
You can't tell by looking at it. But you can tell by how it actually shoots.
That's what matters.
Makes a lot of sense.

Along with several studies showing no correlation between case weight and case volume.

 

[fkimble@charter.net]

Couple things to "think" about! Was any brass prep done before or after weighing? If done before, then weight was removed but not counted. Also, "where" was the extra brass located on the heaviest or where was it missing from on the lightest? Brass present or missing in the rim and groove area has no effect on the internal capacity! Brass from neck diameter affects weight but not internal capacity.

Frank

 

[mgunderson]

Be careful as all this information is used loosely across shooting disciplines. Reloading 50 pieces of brass is different than 2000. The data can change from lot to lot and caliber to caliber.

Go back and read post from 10 years ago. The knowledge and focus is always shifting as does the components we use.

Weight sorted brass the other day. The squirrels in my head are much happier.

 

[K22]

In my pea brain, I would think the only way to accurately separate cases would be to use water in each case and weigh the water that comes out of each case.

However, I don't know nothin' about nothin' ... I'm a hunting rifle shooter

Me too, I know nothin' about nothin' other than what the target tells me.

But as Hondo Lane once said, "A man has to do what a man thinks best." So if you think weighing cases is best for you, weigh away. "I just thought Leary's rational kind of made sense when he explained why the weight issue is not reliable for predicting accuracy gains. But what do I know, I too am just a hunting rifle shooter although my game of choice has a relatively small vital area.

 

[CharlieNC]

Numerous times it has been shown that there is a good (not perfect) correlation between brass weight and water capacity, which I have also observed. This becomes more important at longer distances vs short range, just like obsessive minor charge differences. Free and fast, it is especially important to check to cull major outliers.

 

[Rick Ratzlaff]

Sorry guys. Thanks for your help. I went AWOL up here in Canada. Still celebrating a hockey game in Boston last night.
I'm using an Excel addon called Kutools Plus to build the graph. This is COAL from the Shell Head Holder to the mouth. Now I can see how many cases for each column.

If one is sorting anything, I'd expects Bill Gates to tell me at the moment on data entry into a spreadsheet which group the case should be placed into. Over expectation, I'm sure.

I am or was NOT happy with the variability in trim length. I was using Hornady's trimmer sitting on the bench top. I was very OCD in being careful. A machinist smarter than me instructed me that the tool would flex enough with very little pressure and perform poorly. So I bolted it down on the table (tight). What a difference.

So to say again. My goal is a way to have my Bell Curve (or what ever) to give me the sort decision based on the variable I enter. Some Radio Shack kid should know how to do that.

Here is the results from Kutools. It's probably not helpful.

Thanks again. Get your kids to the skating rink for the next 4 Country match.

 

[KMW 1954]

I asked a hall of fame shooter that everyone here knows how he sorted brass.

And there-in lays the caveat, the "hall of fame shooter". Where-in us poor everyday shooters would soon be out of brass or at least nearly out after sorting out every errant shot.

Myself, I am not good enough to warrant this.

 

[Chilly807]

Adding to the mix is a video from Keith Glasscock where he talks about 4 or maybe 5 cartridge variables that can affect velocity from shot to shot.

I haven't watched the whole video again, but working from memory, some were neck tension, powder charge, primer strength, pretty sure brass volume was in there too.
What I got from it was that there are tolerances in each of the variables that can either cancel each other out to give very consistent results, or add together to create larger variances in velocity.

Also that some cases were more susceptible to large swings than others due to their design. In particular, small cases such as the 223 were more affected than large ones by tolerance stacking.

I'm posting this because that's what I got out of the video, it's what I was looking for. Another viewer might have a different take on what was covered, depending on their interests.

I stopped weighing my brass a while ago, most of what I shoot is 223 and 6.5 CM.

The 6.5 doesn't have a problem with velocity swings from shot to shot, so there's nothing there for me to fix in that respect.
The 223 does have that problem, but I've found better, more reliable solutions than weighing my brass to correct it.

The testing I did with weighed 223 brass showed me that it wasn't a reliable enough metric to use as a sorting criteria. Keith's video reinforced that finding, so I went looking for solutions in another direction.

 

[KMW 1954]

Adding to the mix is a video from Keith Glasscock where he talks about 4 or maybe 5 cartridge variables that can affect velocity from shot to shot.

Also that some cases were more susceptible to large swings than others due to their design. In particular, small cases such as the 223 were more affected than large ones by tolerance stacking.

I stopped weighing my brass a while ago, most of what I shoot is 223 and 6.5 CM.

The 6.5 doesn't have a problem with velocity swings from shot to shot, so there's nothing there for me to fix in that respect.
The 223 does have that problem, but I've found better, more reliable solutions than weighing my brass to correct it.

The testing I did with weighed 223 brass showed me that it wasn't a reliable enough metric to use as a sorting criteria. Keith's video reinforced that finding, so I went looking for solutions in another direction.

This is where I got to today with my shooting and loading. I started with rifles just 4+ years ago after I started working as an RO on a 300yd range. My first rifle was a Savage Model 10 22" Sporter barrel 223 and that winter I started in their league. Yeup, jumped in with both feet. Started improving as I learned the ins'n - outs. Didn't take long to learn of the struggles of trying to get it to shoot teen SD's,

I then came upon a member of another forum that shoots competitive ELR now but also shoot PRS. Though all our talks he enlightened me to start with the Big Knobs and work your way down to the small knobs. After I did that things improved in bigger ways. Never did get that 223 into a consistent lower teens.

This year I ditched the 223 and am now shooting a 6ARC bolt gun. Incorporated what I gained with the 223 loading and now both the gun and the shooter are showing vast improvements over what I've shot the previous 3 seasons.

At 71 years old I doubt that I will be getting into sorting brass as fired, neck turning, concentricity checks and such. Those knobs are just too small for my needs.

 

[Webster]

In my pea brain, I would think the only way to accurately separate cases would be to use water in each case and weigh the water that comes out of each case.

However, I don't know nothin' about nothin' ... I'm a hunting rifle shooter

These kind of evaluation has been done and published a hundred times. Everyone has a different opinion. Many of the top long range shooters don't sort. Thats good enough for me. Charts have been put up on this website plotting case wt. VS volume. Zero correlation. It looks like a scatter plot.

Before the bullet reaches the rifling the case expands to the chamber dimensions (volume). Does this negate case volume measurements? As soon as the bullet moves forward the volume behind the bullet is in a sense an ever changing case volume. The increasing volume has a much greater affect than the initial volume. More realistic things to do.

 

[Bc'z]

I asked a hall of fame shooter that everyone here knows how he sorted brass.
Said he sorts by how it shoots..
He knows his load and when one doesn't do what it should he'll sort it out
and gives it another try. If it fails then gets cut from the competition loads.
You can't tell by looking at it. But you can tell by how it actually shoots.
That's what matters.
Makes a lot of sense.

I'm guessing we talked to the same shooter....
All shots are recorded with chronograph if velocity is lower than normal, case capacity is higher, if velocity is higher, case capacity is lower. These pieces of brass are loaded and shot again to confirm thier discrepancies to the norm and culled if it repeated.

 

[Rick Ratzlaff]

Reading through all this pertinent wisdom and continuing on my mental grinding there is one concept that is related but I have never seen accounted for. I'm guessing that brass manufacturing equipment has changed over my short life time (77+). One component that is probably a recipient to that is wall thickness. We all know that 1 box of 20 rounds will have a flier or 3. I'm sure that box came out of the same tote lot. But we know in that box we will find discrepancies in case wall thickness.

I am sure the older manufactures Quality Control of this process is ni-unto impossible to control , and likely not a priority over volume per hour. Those high end OCD shooters buy brass from newer manufactures (relatively speaking) in large volume. Probably from newer (better) equipment.

I like the comment on the case expanding to your chamber size. Fits my logic. But still the inside volume will be different as per wall thickness. Can't be avoided. Nor can we do anything about it.

So some take a holiday and check volume of 1000 cases with water or alcoholic. Way to tedious and somewhat subjective too.

The only 2 pasts to a case that are not governed by SAMMI is wall thickness and (oops) thickness of the Web. My measurements show large variance there.

That I can measure and sort to.

 

[Webster]

Reading through all this pertinent wisdom and continuing on my mental grinding there is one concept that is related but I have never seen accounted for. I'm guessing that brass manufacturing equipment has changed over my short life time (77+). One component that is probably a recipient to that is wall thickness. We all know that 1 box of 20 rounds will have a flier or 3. I'm sure that box came out of the same tote lot. But we know in that box we will find discrepancies in case wall thickness.

I am sure the older manufactures Quality Control of this process is ni-unto impossible to control , and likely not a priority over volume per hour. Those high end OCD shooters buy brass from newer manufactures (relatively speaking) in large volume. Probably from newer (better) equipment.

I like the comment on the case expanding to your chamber size. Fits my logic. But still the inside volume will be different as per wall thickness. Can't be avoided. Nor can we do anything about it.

So some take a holiday and check volume of 1000 cases with water or alcoholic. Way to tedious and somewhat subjective too.

The only 2 pasts to a case that are not governed by SAMMI is wall thickness and (oops) thickness of the Web. My measurements show large variance there.

That I can measure and sort to.

I would follow case prep that's done by short range bench rest shooters that have rifles that shoot in the 1's. Do what they do and forget the endless discussions.

 

[Mg73]

I would follow case prep that's done by short range bench rest shooters that have rifles that shoot in the 1's. Do what they do and forget the endless discussions.

Very reasonable approach. I would add to it: this works best when you replicate their equipment as well as their process. Note I said “works best when” not “only works when”. My reasoning is that every single different piece of equipment in the chain adds a variable to the process. Some variances may be small, some may be great but they all will add up. The more differences, the more your end results may vary from the expert you are trying to copy. Note this includes not only the reloading equipment, but also the firearm and rests.
Now I’m not saying you can’t get better results than you have been getting if you copy an expert’s process. I’m just saying that if you can’t afford to use the same equipment as your expert, then you might want to temper your expectations. With that said, it is still seems an efficient way to move you in the right direction. And that’s what we’re all trying to do.

 

[ISS]

I may be a bit anal sorting cases. I have a means to segregate cases as I weigh them. Piece of thin cardboard about 18" square with lines running about 1" apart full length. I just sit at the kitchen table with my electronic scale and weigh about ten of them at random from the box/bag. I will write that on a piece of paper. Once I have that I just restart weighing them and placing in rows.
I bought 600 new Federal 300 Win Mag cases. I spent about three hours weighing them while listening to a baseball game on the radio. Nearly 480 of them were in a median 2gr range. About 30 were light of that, about 90 were heavy. The heavies were less than 3.4gr out. I "sharpy blacked" the lights, red the heavies. They made great foulers once I got my load work done. I am still on the original 480's first firing. I also have two OM 70's in 300 H&H I sorted.
Sorting bullets is even more tiresome.

The cure is about 150 years old. Schuetzen shooters used just one case in their matches. They would deprime, reprime, powder charge, and either breech seat the cast bullet, or use a false muzzle and push the bullet down the barrel onto the case (or a plugged case they had fired in that barrel). The advantage muzzle loading was that all the powder/lead fouling from the previous shot was pushed back down the barrel to the case mouth.

ISS

 

[Leeinmichigan]

I would follow case prep that's done by short range bench rest shooters that have rifles that shoot in the 1's. Do what they do and forget the endless discussion

Many short range competition shooters are shooting 6mmPPC derived from 220 Russian cases produced by Lapua. They drive their 65-68 grain bullets in tight neck chambers to speeds in excess of 3200 fps by generating excessive pressure in their cases. It is believed by many that at these extreme pressures, volumetric variability can impact velocity and thus accuracy. Therefore, many use some form of sorting of brass, typically by weight, to minimize the variability.

As a US Benchrest Hall of Fame member, and current world record holder, I can only say sorting new brass by weight appears to work for me. Why do some shooters sort and others don’t? I can’t answer that, other than to say Lapua 220 Russian brass has historically been manufactured with great consistency.