Best practice - Measure base to ogive, bullet length, or weight?

[HuntClub]

What have you found to be the best way to separate bullets for loading? For the most consistent accuracy?

I recently began weighing and then measuring base to ogive. Proving to work fairly well. But, I may just be making busy work for myself.

Love to hear your best practice and results.

Thanks.

 

[ronemus]

Get better bullets. I shoot Hornady and they uniform the bullet nose, weights vary <0.1 gr, and base to ogive is within 0.001"; those differences are too small to matter, so I don't bother to sort. An added benefit is that Hornady bullets are significantly less expensive than "better" brands.

 

[K22]

My best practices and results - I do not weight bullets or separate them by ogives. Whether this would produce some incremental improvement for me I don't know but the time involved, and the tedious nature of such practices far outweigh negatively any benefit I might obtain. In other words, I am able to achieve the results I need without such practices. For me, it all about results on target within the parameters I need to be successful in my shooting discipline (precision varmint hunting).

That's not to say that I do not pay attention to bullet seating depth, measuring base to ogive using the Frankfort Arsenal method but I accept that ogives will vary a few thousands thus seating depths even within a given lot of high-quality bullets such as Nosler's or Sierra's. Even where variances seem larger, such as with Hornady bullets, I can still obtain the results I need without restoring to such tedious practices.

However, if such practices (weighing bullet and measuring ogives) have proven by results on target to produce the results you need, then by all means continue to do so. After all, it's a hobby so if that "floats your boat" then so be it. However, it would sink my boat.

 

[jackieschmidt]

Diameter?
I have seen Hornady 6mm ELD Match vary as much as .0002 on diameter, out of the same box.

 

[David Christian]

I only shoot Berger bullets. My process is to shoot them straight out of the box unless I am competing at 1,000 yards. Then I will sort them by OAL and point them in batches.

 

[Old Navy]

Diameter?
I have seen Hornady 6mm ELD Match vary as much as .0002 on diameter, out of the same box.

How much better are Berger's?

 

[fisherman987]

Quit weighing your bullets and sort by overall length to get the most benefit with the least effort. Weight differences have very little impact on your consistency. Sorting by OAL makes a big difference. Accuracy One makes a nifty tool for sorting by OAL that is super fast, easy, and accurate. You can find it at bullettipping.com

 

[Kevin1990]

Get better bullets. I shoot Hornady and they uniform the bullet nose, weights vary <0.1 gr, and base to ogive is within 0.001"; those differences are too small to matter, so I don't bother to sort. An added benefit is that Hornady bullets are significantly less expensive than "better" brands.

I've had Hornady ELDs, vmax, and bthp bullets vary by 4gr out of the same box and massive differences in base to give. And OAL. You must have got the lot of the century for those kind of measures.

 

[1shot]

The following is my method for 1K shooting only. Shorter line loads I have found to not see the benefit from the time spent.
1. Find the shortest bullet in your lot of bullets. (I buy 500-1K at a time)
2. Trim to -.001 of the shortest bullet
3. Re-point
4. Sort by base to ogive +- .001
This procedure has proved beneficial in shrinking the waterline of the group for some time now.
I hope this helps,

Lloyd

 

[AlNyhus]

When measuring base to ogive, keep in mind that any variance doesn't change your seating depth provided the bullets were pointed in the same die.

In big box massed produced bullets, there's a lot of variables. Multiple dies are used when they make runs and dies all have subtle differences.

Good shootin' -Al

 

[JFrank]

Sorting non custom bullets is a pain in the ass, I qualify the nose geometry of base to seater stem contact point followed by base to ogive than sort the best of those by overall length. The customs I only sort by overall length. …less than a 1000 yard application I just load out of the box.
Jim

 

[fisherman987]

The following is my method for 1K shooting only. Shorter line loads I have found to not see the benefit from the time spent.
1. Find the shortest bullet in your lot of bullets. (I buy 500-1K at a time)
2. Trim to -.001 of the shortest bullet
3. Re-point
4. Sort by base to ogive +- .001
This procedure has proved beneficial in shrinking the waterline of the group for some time now.
I hope this helps,

Lloyd

Lloyd, try this method instead.

1. Sort all your bullets into lots based on OAL by .002 increments (i.e. .458-.460, .461-.463, etc)
2. Try pointing without trimming and adjust your pointing die as needed according to the OAL of the lot your working on.
3. If you want to trim, trim to the shortest length in each lot

Your method would take a long time to find the single shortest bullet which could be .050 to .060 thousands off or more from the longest bullet. This is a ton to trim off and it would really change the profile of the tips of your bullets and actually introduce quite a bit of variance even though the final OAL would be the same.

 

[jelenko]

+1 to K22's point about what the bullet will be used for. For some applications it would be a complete waste of time; for other applications, an essential step.

 

[Chaotik]

Over the years I have sorted non-custom bullets by the following methods:
-weight
-base to ogive
-bearing surface length
-overall length
-ogive radius/nose profile
-meplat diameter

I have not sorted using any method to look at the lead core concentricity.

I may do 20 different steps in my reloading sequence to help improve accuracy, but only 5 or 6 may actually make a difference.
Unfortunately, I don't know which.

 

[misser]

What have you found to be the best way to separate bullets for loading? For the most consistent accuracy?

I recently began weighing and then measuring base to ogive. Proving to work fairly well. But, I may just be making busy work for myself.

Love to hear your best practice and results.

Thanks.

it comes down to what works for you. test ,test,test. i have used factory loaded ammo that amazed me as to how well it worked . how careful was the manufacturer ?

 

[mikecr]

I compare ogive radius with a Bob Green Comparator to qualify ogives for CBTO.

 

[gpoldblue]

What have you found to be the best way to separate bullets for loading? For the most consistent accuracy?

I recently began weighing and then measuring base to ogive. Proving to work fairly well. But, I may just be making busy work for myself.

Love to hear your best practice and results.

Thanks.

One thing you very,rarely ever hear anyone say anything about is bullet diameter. I run into this some years ago with my 6PPC. I was using a certain supplier's bullets with very good results....ran out...ordered more.
I could not get the 2nd lot to shoot........started measuring....found the diameter much smaller.....everything else measured good and consistant.......even diameters were consistant,but I reasoned that diameter didn't fit the bore and groove of my barrel. I shot many other suppliers bullets....no problems.

 

[1shot]

Lloyd, try this method instead.

1. Sort all your bullets into lots based on OAL by .002 increments (i.e. .458-.460, .461-.463, etc)
2. Try pointing without trimming and adjust your pointing die as needed according to the OAL of the lot your working on.
3. If you want to trim, trim to the shortest length in each lot

Your method would take a long time to find the single shortest bullet which could be .050 to .060 thousands off or more from the longest bullet. This is a ton to trim off and it would really change the profile of the tips of your bullets and actually introduce quite a bit of variance even though the final OAL would be the same.

I should have stated in my first post that I shoot either custom bullets, Sierra or Berger. I've never found a bullet to be longer than .005-.006 shorter than the rest, so I just measure a handful before beginning my process.
Thanks,

Lloyd

 

[mgunderson]

Depends on your game and the bullet. Shooters have seen improvements with almost every method to sort. You are trying to improve the factory tolerances and they change. There isn't just one good way to get good results. A long 7mm bullet may favor oal length sorting for one lot and want something different on the next. Shorter bullets may want base to ogive. Ragged meplats complicate things.

Sorting doesn't hurt you but it does take time.

Many aren't able to shoot the difference at 600 yards. At 1000yards it is clearly more important.

 

[mikecr]

Sorting doesn't hurt you but it does take time.

Sorting on poor information absolutely can hurt.
If it's suggested that sorting would matter more at 1kyd, then some of this could be due to BC variance.
Well, a bullet's drag is the summation of each drag attribute, and no single measure (like BTO, or OAL) helps in this regard. In reality, acting on any single measure could actually concentrate BC variance.

If you separated 500 bullets based on having the same OAL, what did that do to the BC you're going forward with?
Let's say some of them have same OAL because a shorter bearing length is combining with a longer nose or base length. Or the same OAL resulted from a different size meplat.
Then BC is different with those same OAL bullets.
On the flip side, some of the OAL culled bullets, in reality, may have fallen right in-line with the mean BC of the full batch.
You may have been better, overall, to just leave them alone instead of fiddling with bad information.

Matching BC would be a very difficult endeavor.
I have not found a way to do it that I or most reloaders could afford.