Case Uniformity...

[IdahoSharpshooter]

there is much discussion these days about the necessity of weighing cases, and segregating them by weight. Heaven forbid, even different years of LC brass in 223 or 308 be mixed.

Many years ago, Hunter Class Benchrest was big. The need to eliminate recoil as much as possible killed it in the late 1990's imho. I went to the Firewalker Match in Colorado one year, John Ambler (sp?) won it with a full length 308 Win. Guys were discussing the need to segregate brass, based on a dozen or so criteria. John was telling me with the size of the HBR (3/4" @ 100yds) most of the fuss was just a way to kill time. He picked up seven pieces of 308 brass on the firing line the afternoon before the match at random. Two different years of LC, one Rem, two Win,, and two Federal. One of the Federal was nickel plated. He shot the first 250 I had seen.
He FL sizes all of them, turns the case necks to fit his tight neck 308 and shot them that weekend. Won the 100, and was second or third on the 200 and 300.

Just a story from the old days...

 

[jimmymac]

Good story. Thanks.

 

[mikecr]

It's 100yds

 

[Dusty Stevens]

It's 100yds

Its just that easy, right?

 

[K22]

When I first started reloading in the late 60's there was very little reliable information available. The Lyman Manual was a great help but still it was limited. I probably made every mistake possible until I was ran into an experience and sensible bench rest shooter who set me on the right path to producing better reloads.

Fast forward to the present and shooters have vast array of good resources to aid them via the internet. This is a good thing but one must be careful not to take everything you read on the internet as Gospel. My favorite myth is the "cold weld" one; i.e. rounds loaded and allowed to set for a period of time will degrade in accuracy due to cold welding of the neck to the bullet. My other favorite is that full length resizing will reduce case life and degrade accuracy. I can say after loading and shooting thousands of rounds that I have not experienced these two phenomenons.

I don't know if weighing cases makes any difference in shot consistency. I will never personally know because I have no desire or intention of ever doing it. Maybe weight cases is a benefit for the top shooters in the world shooting off a bench with highly precision rifles. But for most of us I would be willing to venture that the most significant source of shot inconsistency is shooter skill / error. Don't turn your hobby into drudgery.

 

[sdean]

Case sorting for me is very easy. I started marking the ones out of the group when fine tuning the load. Second time it's out Gone.

 

[Ccrider]

When I first started reloading in the late 60's there was very little reliable information available. The Lyman Manual was a great help but still it was limited. I probably made every mistake possible until I was ran into an experience and sensible bench rest shooter who set me on the right path to producing better reloads.

Fast forward to the present and shooters have vast array of good resources to aid them via the internet. This is a good thing but one must be careful not to take everything you read on the internet as Gospel. My favorite myth is the "cold weld" one; i.e. rounds loaded and allowed to set for a period of time will degrade in accuracy due to cold welding of the neck to the bullet. My other favorite is that full length resizing will reduce case life and degrade accuracy. I can say after loading and shooting thousands of rounds that I have not experienced these two phenomenons.

I don't know if weighing cases makes any difference in shot consistency. I will never personally know because I have no desire or intention of ever doing it. Maybe weight cases is a benefit for the top shooters in the world shooting off a bench with highly precision rifles. But for most of us I would be willing to venture that the most significant source of shot inconsistency is shooter skill / error. Don't turn your hobby into drudgery.

There is something to this case welding thing. I seated some 6ppc ammo a week ago and dark came befor I fired the last 5 rounds. Yesterday I decided to seat the bullets .005 deeper. The first round would not move so I kept moving my micrometer seater. It finally broke lose. Guess what; it was seated.01 deaper. So I proceeded to seat the other 4 rounds .01 deeper. All but one “snapped” lose.

I can’t say they welded but they definitely did something that caused them to seat differently. I can’t say that reseating them hurt their accuracy as the 5 shot group was respectable. I don’t know how they would have shot if I had not reseated them.

This brass had been tumbled, sonic cleaned, annealed and had no carbon in the neck.

 

[K22]

There is something to this case welding thing. I seated some 6ppc ammo a week ago and dark came befor I fired the last 5 rounds. Yesterday I decided to seat the bullets .005 deeper. The first round would not move so I kept moving my micrometer seater. It finally broke lose. Guess what; it was seated.01 deaper. So I proceeded to seat the other 4 rounds .01 deeper. All but one “snapped” lose.

I can’t say they welded but they definitely did something that caused them to seat differently. I can’t say that reseating them hurt their accuracy as the 5 shot group was respectable. I don’t know how they would have shot if I had not reseated them.

This brass had been tumbled, sonic cleaned, annealed and had no carbon in the neck.

Understood but let me say this - a few years ago I read about this "cold weld" issue and why it's a bad idea to load rounds and let them set for an "extended period of time." This intrigued me, not because I've ever noticed any changes in performance in these loads but because I usually load up a bunch in the winter for the spring and summer varmint seasons. So I decided to run a test but let me say from the start I know it wasn't scientific or even statistically significant but I just was curious to see the results I would get.

I took 20 Winchester, 223 cases, fired 3 times. Loaded 10 and left 10 cases unloaded. Let them set for about 12 months. After 12 months I loaded the 10 remaining cases. Shot two five shot groups, one with the previous and one with the current loaded cases. Repeated the process a few days later. All the groups were about the same, actually one of the previously loaded cases grouped slightly smaller than all the others. Powder: H4895, Primers: Federal 205M: bullet: Nosler 55 BT, all components from the same lot. Rifle: Weatherby Mark V, Supervarmint Master (one of my most accurate rifles) - all groups fired from a slightly fouled barrel.

I know this test is not the definitive answer to the question of cold welding but this test along with my experience of never seeing any significant changes in performance with loaded rounds allow to sit when compared to rounds loaded during the seasons seems to indicate that this is not a issue or that I'm just lucky.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

The testing ive done, and is very easy to do is seat some, write on the side of the case the force to seat them, then after 6-12mo seat the bullet further in. 99% of the time youll peg out your press then put it in a regular arbor press on a bathroom scale and get 150#+ when it took 20 to seat when fresh. Then pull that bullet and look at the corrosion on it. Have no idea what that does on target but it cant be good for target work

 

[Ccrider]

That’s what I saw in just a weeks period of time Dusty.

If they are all prepped the same and sit for the same time period they may all “weld” the same and shoot the same.

K22, did both groups shoot in the same area. Was the velocity the same for both groups?