brass lots

[balloonpilot9513]

For those of you who separate their brass by lot, how many pieces do you have per lot.

How do you maintain your lot quantities. Such as, if you do not use all of your loaded rounds at say a competition, do you shoot them later to keep your lot quantity consistent?

Any other tips and tricks you use?

 

[dstoenner]

I do a full brass prep on new cases and then weigh the group out. In the case of Lapua i get anywhere from 92 to 97 that are within 1 grain of each other. The rejects are used to make dummy rounds. I then load all of these in one batch and segregate them by runout for matches or practice/velocity/zero confirmations. I do fully shoot everything up of a given group even if I have to just blow them off after my rounds for record are done.

For other types of brass, I weight sort and then group them. I always have a N and N+1 bin going for each weight.

HTH

David

 

[mikecr]

Everything depends on the changes to brass that you choose to cause.
So the 'right answer' will never be the same for everyone.

 

[balloonpilot9513]

Thanks, I don't expect everyone to have the same process, that is why I am asking, to see what some of you are doing.
Always looking for ideas for making my own process better.

Since I started reloading, my process has changed dramatically as I have learned and gained experience.

Right now I am keeping all 100 out of a box as a lot, but to shoot all of that extra just to keep a lot together is putting a lot of ware and tare on my barrel life. I think 100 is too big for a lot, but am undecided on what is a good lot size. That is why I am asking what some of you are doing.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

I keep mine in 100rd boxes. If theres any left over i use them for foulers/practice. On local matches i may have 4 boxes to shoot from. I dont touch the fired brass in the box til its all fired

 

[Homerange]

Right now I am keeping all 100 out of a box as a lot, but to shoot all of that extra just to keep a lot together is putting a lot of ware and tare on my barrel life. I think 100 is too big for a lot, but am undecided on what is a good lot size. That is why I am asking what some of you are doing.

Depends entirely on what you're shooting (caliber and game/target) and how much you're prepared to outlay for brass with a new rifle or tube.
Say you want consistent precision accuracy for varmint shooting for the best part of the life of the barrel.
Right, so a hot caliber stoked hard might only offer 1500-2k rnds barrel life and brass might only be good for 5 reloads. You do the maths. But hang on......just one varmint trip might use a few hundred rounds so you need to have enough to cover that.
One rabbit trip I went on we used the best part of 300 rnds each.
My buddy took 500 and it was all of just one lot that he bought when he set up the rifle.

For a deer rifle and once past load development stage a single lot of 50 brass would likely see you out......as there's only so much venison one can carry/trip.

 

[fguffey]

Any other tips and tricks you use?

It is too bad all shooters and reloaders missed the article; it all started before the Internet. A shooter, reloader and author/writer about everything gun related purchases 500 cases from one manufacturer. The shooter/reloader sorted the 500 cases with a criteria. After he sorted the cases into categories that were out of the perimeters of being a perfect case. Meaning if the powder column inside the case was not straight the case went into that categories

After sorting, loading and firing he sorted again; when finished he settled on 47 cases that, in his opinion, were the 'perfect' cases. And then he started over; he loaded the cases that were different. He indexed cases when fired and then reloaded again, chambered/indexed and fired the culls. He was surprised the culls had good groups when indexed.

Today we have reloaders that believe the only thing that counts is 'volume'; I suggested the length of the column matters and I suggested the diameter of the column matters. The writer/shooter/reloader had a workout sorting and shooting and sorting and shooting again and again; I mention him because I appreciated his effort.

I have purchases cases in lots of 1,000, 500 and 100; I have purchased ammo in boxes of 20, after firing I sort the cases and return the cases to the box they came in. When I have purchased large lots of cases I have never fired all of the cases; I am the fan of being able to compare cases that have been fired multiple times with cases that have never been fired. Nothing like having a case that will chamber when comparing it with a with a case that has resistance to sizing.

F. Guffey

 

[pirate ammo]

I am the fan of being able to compare cases that have been fired multiple times with cases that have never been fired

kind of like before and after,,you still have your original starting point,,