Bullet sorting…

[21PHX]

For those of you sorting bullets, which measurement is more important-base to ogive or base to point? How much variation do you allow within a group when sorting?

 

[boltfluter]

For those of you sorting bullets, which measurement is more important-base to ogive or base to point? How much variation do you allow within a group when sorting?

Base to ogive. .002 variation or less works for me.

 

[Straightshooter1]

For those of you sorting bullets, which measurement is more important-base to ogive or base to point? How much variation do you allow within a group when sorting?

Since for me it's important to get consistent seating depth (how far the base of the bullet is into the case effecting case volume/capacity, as well as blowby), I sort bullets by BTO. . . but I use a comparator insert that matches the contact point of the seating stem I use. I sort in groups +/- .001.

I'm not into pointing for ELR shooting, since I don't do much of that. But if one is doing a lot of that, sorting by OAL and pointing them to get the same OAL would be something to do. IMHO

 

[JFrank]

For those of you sorting bullets, which measurement is more important-base to ogive or base to point? How much variation do you allow within a group when sorting?

Even custom bullets can vary as much as .010 in oal, so for long range I sort them into groups of .002 max variance.
Sorting non custom bullets for long range use can be time consuming starting with base to seater stem into .002 groups followed by base to ogive at .002 and finally the best get sorted by OAL , a bit of work but free accuracy.

My preference is to buy the customs.

 

[Timon]

I first sort the bullets by weight, then sort them after that, by base to ogive. I have had very good results doing it this way. For what it’s worth, I also sort primers by weight.

 

[DocBII]

21PHX,

Sort by ogive first, then trim or point, and sort into OAL groups. 0.002 works well for either sort. In large lots >/= 300, only check about 50 bullets for weight, +/- 1% usually works.

HTH,
DocBII

 

[Bryan Blake]

Pull them out of the box, MTAP process them, then load. Sorting is becoming a thing of the past soon...

 

[tom]

Kind of all of it if you really need the possible flyers out of there. THINGS do tend to follow other THINGS though, so if I had to pick one I would do base to tip. Making bullets I've learned some of what we're seeing with lengths, and I would do at least that much before any modifications, if mods happened to group better when tested.

Tom

 

[Retired shooter]

When sorting by weight , in what order is a keeper, and what do you with the others.??

Just say 109 grain. 109.0 / 109.5. Good. 109.6 / 109.9 not good. 108.0 / 108.5 not good

108.6 / 108.9 not good. Out of a box of 100 I may get 50 good.

All this before checking O give. Let alone pointing as per post 7

Thank you.

 

[Dave M.]

For those of you sorting bullets, which measurement is more important-base to ogive or base to point? How much variation do you allow within a group when sorting?

Overall length and sort into .002” groups.

 

[Jim Ziegler]

Overall length, trim the meplat, then run through the pointing die.

 

[DocBII]

RS,

For 109s, 1 grain is less than 1%, so 108 to 111s, load them up and shoot them. I doubt you would see a difference even at distance. I don't.

HTH,
DocBII

 

[Retired shooter]

Thank you Sir

I know I overthink a lot of things, ang get more involved in the minor things trying to create the best load.
I also know I most likely can not shoot the difference.

Have a great evening.!

 

[Dimner]

I first sort the bullets by weight, then sort them after that, by base to ogive. I have had very good results doing it this way. For what it’s worth, I also sort primers by weight.

With the bullets I tend to use, sorting by base to ogive seems to kind of initially weight sort them too.

Once I find a bullet my rifle likes, or more often than not, are on sale deep discount, I will buy a thousand or more. I'll sort those into groups of 2 or 3 based on BtO variance. Then I further sort by weight. I've found that the 2 or 3 groups of BtO batches will have only a narrow overlap in weight.

To be honest, other than elimination of the far outliers in weight and ogive, I bet the only other thing I gain is confidence in my hand loads

 

[searcher]

Even custom bullets can vary as much as .010 in oal, so for long range I sort them into groups of .002 max variance.
Sorting non custom bullets for long range use can be time consuming starting with base to seater stem into .002 groups followed by base to ogive at .002 and finally the best get sorted by OAL , a bit of work but free accuracy.

My preference is to buy the customs.

True words there.... I tend to stick to brands of bullets that don't have extreme weight differentials or one ends up with so many small "lots" of bullets, that one needs to sort 1,000 or so at a time to end up with reasonable counts in each lot. Some of the factory bullets are pretty bad - but some (like the Lapua Scenar L bullets) are pretty good in that respect. Same with the custom bullets - to some degree - and lots among them. I sort into lots by weight, trying to not get more than three or four lots - then measure base to ogive to weed out the "weird" ones which, despite weight similarity - are still way off from where they should be based on weight alone.

 

[JFrank]

True words there.... I tend to stick to brands of bullets that don't have extreme weight differentials or one ends up with so many small "lots" of bullets, that one needs to sort 1,000 or so at a time to end up with reasonable counts in each lot. Some of the factory bullets are pretty bad - but some (like the Lapua Scenar L bullets) are pretty good in that respect. Same with the custom bullets - to some degree - and lots among them. I sort into lots by weight, trying to not get more than three or four lots - then measure base to ogive to weed out the "weird" ones which, despite weight similarity - are still way off from where they should be based on weight alone.

I feel that keeping a tight tolerance between seater contact point and ogive gives me confidence that when I adjust the seater the ogive to lands relationship moves the equal amount.
I’ve no scientific proof, just a common sense evaluation.
Jim