Bullet Sorting

[Terry]

My apologies. I'm not interested in a pissing contest.

 

[Dos XX]

@BartsBullets

When you say overall length, do you mean base to tip? If so, what do you use to sort with? Caliper?

I've thought about having an attachment made for my granite stand sorting tool to measure base to tip.

 

[BartsBullets]

@BartsBullets

When you say overall length, do you mean base to tip? If so, what do you use to sort with? Caliper?

I've thought about having an attachment made for my granite stand sorting tool to measure base to tip.

A decent set of calipers is all you need. Yes just base to tip! The overall length of the Bullet.

 

[Terry]

The 26 caliber unit holds the 24 caliber bullets upright for full length comparison.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Like this?

 

[Terry]

View attachment 1136164

Like this?

Bottom up.

 

[KenOath]

View attachment 1136164

Like this?

Surely there not the same bullet/weight??

 

[johara1]

Sort until the cows come home! Guess what it’s not going to hurt a thing! Like @ridgeway said if it makes you feel better, it will probably help.

For the record I shoot a lot of 600 Benchrest and a little 1000 yard Benchrest. It goes without saying these are my custom bullets.

For myself all I do is sort bullets in piles by overall length say within .003. I may shoot them like that or I may trim the meplats back to the shortest overall length in the batch. No sorting by ogive, no pointing bullets and no weighing of bullets.

Ogive sorting
I don’t sort by ogive because typically my bullet are +|- .001 either way. Regardless of differences in bearing surface the seater stem WILL seat all of them to the same spot. Had to test some bullets the other day and they were slightly shorter than usual. Seated some that I had on the loading table and seated some of the test batch. The difference between the two was .009 on bearing surface. Measured the loaded rounds, One from each batch on my ogive checker, and they were seated to the same .001.

Pointing
I did a lot of experimenting with pointing. MY conclusion was the risk and possibly screwing up a bullet far exceeded the benefit of a slightly higher BC. I’m more concerned with the BC being the same from bullet to bullet and not worried about increasing it.

Weighing bullets in my opinion is not necessary. I see no loss in accuracy with bullets that vary by 3 tenths. But then again it won’t hurt anything either.

Now we are down to the prove it part! One target is nice but what about for the year?

My agg for 17 matches (136 targets) 2.270.
Shot the smallest group of the year .566
Shoot the smallest 2 Gun of the year 1.633 (8 Target). Potential record.
Shot the highest LG score 199 with 1.523 agg(Potential record).
Shot two Smallest LG aggs of the year.
Shot the 2 highest 2 Gun score Aggs of the year.

Won
5 LG Score matches
6 LG Group matches
7 LG overalls
2 HG Score
5 HG Group
3 HG overall
8 2 Gun Aggs
4 2 Gun Overall score
8 Overall 2 Guns. (The most in the IBS)
48 Wins

Now the 1000 yard guys will say that’s ok for 600 but not 1000. As far as 1000 yards Shot 1 match, the 1000 yard Nationals this year. Came in second in HG group. Would have been 4th in 2 Gun overall group (if they calculated it) so groups weren’t the problem.

That’s my take on sorting and those are my results.

Bart

Bart that sounds good except but we need to find the ones that close.Bearing surface and base to ogive not being that close, overall length I can fixed yes you can sort them for overall length as I see you use .002 that will work.
Trimming and point does work if done properly plus you pick up BC. and less wind drift. .... We all make mistakes and sorting finds them........ jim

 

[rwj]

Perhaps someday my shooting skills, and equipment, will rise to the level that small differences in bullet BTO and/or bearing surface length show on paper...

 

[JFrank]

^^^ that And be able to recognize on paper the ones that where different, I would be like a supernatural person.

 

[jimmymac]

I’m glad I shoot 100/200 yard matches.

 

[johara1]

Perhaps someday my shooting skills, and equipment, will rise to the level that small differences in bullet BTO and/or bearing surface length show on paper...

Small difference maybe hard to see, but by sorting you will find the ones that make a lot of difference. If you have well tuned equipment and you figure out how to shoot in the same condition you will win..... jim

 

[dogdude]

I was told by another custom bullet maker after telling him about all the sorting tools I have and he said ''that's great but all you need is a good set of calipers too measure OAL''.

 

[WIB3]

I have a serious question for those bullet manufacturers out there. I’m in no way being smart here just curious. If the weights and lengths of the jackets purchased are all the same and the cores purchased or made in house all are identical, than why are there variations in the final product.

 

[geo.ulrich]

there are tolerances on everything

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Surely there not the same bullet/weight??

Same box actually

 

[KenOath]

Same box actually

Wow that’s not good!!

 

[David Christian]

@BartsBullets, I believe 100% in your process. Overall length of the bullet is all that matters if you plan to tip. Else, no need to sort by weight or ogive.

 

[Ccrider]

@BartsBullets, what is your method for trimming the meplat?

 

[Dusty Stevens]

If you just want to trim meplats quick dave tooley makes or made a meplat uniformer that worked good