Measuring bullets? Your opinion

[600-60x]

I sort bullets base to ojive to batch by bering surface and then by weight instead of making my own
What is the advantage of making over sorting
some people sort base to tip

 

[Alex Wheeler]

Longer bullets have a smaller meplat that shorter ones of the same lot. Sorting oal is the best if your only going to sort one thing in my opinion. Even if you make your own they wont be exact. Just better. The base to ogive will be almost exact though.

 

[DaveTooley]

Diameter and shape play a major role in BC variations. Some bullets have what I call fish mouths. One side of the jacket flows further into the ejection pin hole in the point up die. That does not allow the bullet to fly free of yaw. There by reducing the BC. Those that had a uniform meplat flew with less to no yaw. The variations in BC don't show on the target until you to 600 yds and beyond.

 

[Laurie]

Some bullets have what I call fish mouths. One side of the jacket flows further into the ejection pin hole in the point up die. That does not allow the bullet to fly free of yaw. There by reducing the BC.

Just so. I acquired several thousand 7mm Sierra 180gn MKs over ten years ago at a bargain price. They suffered from this really badly, and their 1,000 yard elevations struggled to stay within two thirds-MOA. (That's why I got them cheap - several top UK F-Open Team shooters had given up on them! To be fair, today's factory-pointed SMKs are probably now fine or even excellent in this regard.)

My regime is to trim them to the shortest OAL in a batch, then lightly point them (Wheeler tools for both, the first on an L E Wilson trimmer). In addition to BTO sorting, this made a noticeable difference, 1K elevations reduced to around, or even under, 1/4-MOA, long-distance groups presumably smaller too. Likely current Bergers are better still straight out of the box, not to mention higher BC, but in the UK they cost around five times what I paid for the SMKs.

 

[209jones]

Even with not being a competitor, it is still good for folks to check the dims on bullet batches to see what they have, it may partially explain some of the odd things that occur, even though they've "done everything right". It is a bit of an eye opener at times on a batch as to the inconsistencies you can run across. Never hurts to be aware of it as a variable.