Weighing Cast Boolits

[CTBC]

Any of you handgunners sort your cast boolits by weight? I sat down with a scale last night and a tub of casts from my RCBS 44-250-K and finished with more questions than answers. Maybe some of you can help.

My 250gr mold drops boolits weighing from 260gr to 264gr with most between 262 and 264. All from the same wheel weight alloy. Is this normal?

I’m seeing about 1% variance from this measured lot of 44 cal. From a caster’s perspective, what is an acceptable tolerance for the weight of cast boolits.

In your handgunning experience, at what point does boolit weight variance begin to show on the target at 25 yds, 50 yds?

[ultramag]

I'm a big 'ol greenhorn, but I'm gonna act like I know something anyway. :mrgreen:

I bought a few homecast bullets and they shot much more accurately than any commercial cast I'd bought. I bought the same molds to make the bullets I'd bought from the individual. His and mine both dropped right at 10-12 grains over the listed weight claim from the mold manufacturer. Means nothing other than we're using a softer lead with higher lead content than the manufacturer did when spec'ing the mold. As for the weight differences in individual bullets I think what you're seeing is common. A grain or 2 spread over your batch is absolutely nothing in my experience so far and you or your gun either one probably can't outshoot those bullets. I would think the same for the extreme 3-4 grain edges of your weight spread. I would say if it makes you feel better throw back the extreme light and heavies....remelt and recast, no harm, no foul but it isn't necesasary.

I am really eyeing that mold for my Ruger SBHBH in .44M. How does it usually shoot for you?

[Raven_Darkcloud]

Yup cast it start at bottom of load data then work up.

[captaint]

CTBC - I would load them and shoot them. 1% weight diff is no big deal. Let us know how
they shoot.. Mike

[Lizard333]

Handgun boolits with that small of a difference I doubt you will notice anything. How far are you shooting? 1% will be very small of a change even put to 50 yards. I shoot my Winchester 94 in 44 mag out past 125 yards and I still don't sort my boolits by weight. If have a consistent cadence while casting, your boolits will be very consistent.

Rifle boolits you might be more picky. Your looking at a larger spread of velocities and further distance.

[fredj338]

The larger the bullet the greater the variation in wt. I only weigh hunting bullets or long distance bullet, looking for any wild swings that would show an internal void. Anything more than 1% gets tossed back. A 5gr diff in a 250gr bullet tells me something isn't right. Most of my casts are within +/- 1.5gr in 44 & 45. I just usulaly sort by the base appearance. If the base looks good, then it's usually shootable.

[stubshaft]

The only boolits that I weigh are the itty bitty .22 ones, and I sort them into .2gr piles. When I was serious about sillywett I used to segregate them into two piles. Those that were within 5% and those that weren't. The weren't pile went back into the pot...

[PhantomF4E]

I only weigh targets or something I tweak for long range. Shooting range fodder at a hundred yards or less , You are a bigger factor than a couple grains of boolit weight .

[williamwaco]

Weighing handgun bullets is a waste of time.

Check the bases with 2x glasses. Perfect bases are critical to accuracy, weight is not.

[eastwa]

For noobs like us, I don't think it hurts at all to weigh them when first starting out.
I say that because I just got done doing the same thing with my 45-270-SAA results.
The majority of mine dropped at 283-285 grains. The lighter ones had bad bases, which were culled.
But it did give me confidence in what I am doing.
Heck, I weighed 20 of them after sizing/lubing to see how much Carnauba Red is being applied (.7-.9 grains).

[CTBC]

Thank you all for your replies.

Before I weighed boolits and asked y’all the question, I loaded three lots of 20 rounds each with progressive charges of 2400, 19, 19.5, and 20 grains. I fired them yesterday from 25 yards and 19 gr performed the best, averaging 1249 fps and 2.6 inches.

I confess, I got a bit twitchy by the 5th or 6th target, which I suspect has much to do with my groups opening up. What I didn’t flinch out of the groups held pretty consistent with the first lot.

In other words, the pistol didn’t seem to notice the 70 fps difference between 19 gr and 20 gr of 2400. Leaves me agreeing that it won’t bother itself over 1% in boolit weight. At 25 yards mind you.

Being the mule-head I am, I’ve sorted 40 boolits to the nearest ½ grain for testing.

Again, I really appreciate your comments.

[Tbird]

I weigh all mine..check for defects

[1Shirt]

Close visual inspection, with emphasis on sharp bases and no visable flaws in the nose is a good start. The smaller the blt, the more the need for weighing. I.E. a tenth of a grain variance in a 45 grain bullet could mean a group buster, but 1-2 grain variance in a 500 grain blt is hardly noticable except for the most percise shooters. Good luck!
1Shirt

[Irascible]

On an electric scale it takes no time at all (be sure the scale has been on at least 10 min first). I weigh them all and on revolver bullets, I throw back those that are excessively light. You can tell which ones to throw back if you pile them in stacks according to weight such as pile 1 - 260 - 260.9 / pile 2 - 261 - 261.9 you'll soon figure out which oes are way lighter than average. They're either not filled out or have voids.

[Neo]

I use a lee mould to cast 30 cal rifle bullets the mould says 170 grain but most of mine are 178 - 180 grain.ive use soft lead and then wheel weights but they still come out the same however they shoot fine in my 30/30 I use 15 grains of adi 2207 powder.

[Area Man]

On an electric scale it takes no time at all (be sure the scale has been on at least 10 min first).

Why? As long as its calibrated what difference does it make

[bobthenailer]

If the bullet is filled out well with all edges sharp & well formed there is no reason to weigh bullets , Been there & done that.

[leadman]

Area Man, a digital scale does need a warm-up period per the manufacturers of the 2 scales I have.

I weigh all of my boolits and group them into + or - .5grs for the ones over 100grs. The 22 caliber it is + or - .1gr.

[Lizard333]

My Lyman 1200 requires a 30 minute warm up. If you don't believe it weigh something prior to warming up and you'll see the difference.

[Irascible]

Area man if the question is why warm it the answers are above. If your question is why it's faster, it's because there is no settling time for a balance beam. Put the bullet on, read the weight swap it for a new one. Really quick.

[milrifle]

I have a question about warming up a digital scale. How do you keep the dang thing on? Mine (Hornady) times out after several seconds. You'd either have to keep hitting the 'Tare' button or else continuously place something on it, then take it off, etc, to keep it turned on. Rather labor intensive!

[David2011]

CTBC,

The same mold casts heavy for me. I made a batch of straight Linotype 44-250-KTs for a Contender Super 14 barrel and they came out at 255 grains but I probably have less lead in the alloy than your mix so they're a little lighter. They shoot well. I didn't bother to weigh enough to establish a spread range. They shoot inside 2" at 50 yards using a 2x scope. The more even your casting pace, the more consistent your weight will be as the mold temp remains more steady. Establish a pace that gives consistent looking boolits whether shiny or slightly frosty and keep that pace. Leave the sprues to collect and add them all back when you have to rather than as you cast. That will help keep the melt at an even temperature. I don't plan on making any more straight Lino boolits. I'll add some WW or soft lead to improve ductility in the future. I had just gotten the Lino and the .44 barrel so I was experimenting.

After some of the posts I had read here regarding straight Linotype I had concerns about the durability of the boolits so shot a hog that I had killed earlier that day with a Lino boolit so see what happened. The boolit was shot through the carcass diagonally, entering the right shoulder and exiting just ahead of the left ham. The hog weighed about 175 lb. so the path was about 18". The exit hole showed no expansion but it did show that the boolit came out intact even after penetrating the shoulder so it wasn't as brittle as I had been lead to believe it might be. This is a Ruger/Contender only load zinging the boolit out at a chronographed 1600 fps using a load of 2400 that's in the Lyman manual. The load seemed to be somewhat temperature sensitive. At "normal" daytime 50-60 degree temperatures it runs 1600 fps but at freezing it dropped off to about 1550 fps as the sun started to set. That boolit at that speed is enough gun for most problems. At that recoil level the 125 cartridges I made up will last a while.


David

[rintinglen]

One of the things you may find is that your boolits will vary in weight a little depending to when in a sequence they were cast. Those glossy, pretty boolits that first jumped out of the mold will tend to be a little lighter on average than their confreres that are cast a little while later. Then as time goes by and the pile grows, two things happen that tend to drive the spread apart. First, your grip gets tired and starts to occasionally allow the mold to spread open a tiny bit, resulting in bigger heavier boolits. Second, the pot level decreases, and the temperature of the melt increases (at least, my LEE pot pots do and have done that--I'm on my third). These boolits will tend to weigh a titch less, as they contract a bit more while freezing. The ones in the middle tend to be more consistent.
I always throw my first 5 or 6 casts back in the pot, even if they look good. But you know, for all but the most demanding purposes, it doesn't seem to matter much. I once fired 10 5 shot groups each of carefully weighed 311-291 170 grainers, carefully assembled in new brass, with an extreme spread .6 grains. From my 06, they averaged just under 2 inches. I loaded the other 50 cases with carefully inspected boolits, but did not weigh them. Those 10 groups averaged just over 2 inches. I ran a Chi Square analysis and discovered there was no statistically signifocant difference. May be a better barrel, on a better gun with a better shooter might tell the difference, but I don't weigh my boolits anymore.

[CTBC]

My earlier average group size over 12 targets was 2.6”. Today, with boolits sorted by weight, I averaged 2.03”. Hmm. I shot a few pretty groups, but overall, no conclusions about the effects of bullet weights. The dang monkey on the trigger tells me that while a variance in boolit weight may indeed matter, I won’t know the difference!

…and yes, I use a digital scale. If I don’t allow it a good 30-minute warm up, it creeps south. You’ll just trickle, and trickle, and trickle, and never get anywhere.

[Irascible]

I don't know about battery powered scales. We that are warming scales have plug in scales. I suggest that you call/Email the manufacturer. You could write down the weight of the first few, weigh other bullets for 10-15 minutes, then re-weigh the first couple and see if the weights are the same. If they are not, start over, the scale should be warmed up by then. Sounds like a hugh waste of time, but I don't know how else you'll find out.

[timberhawk]

I only sort hunting bullets by weight. You won't notice the small weight difference unless you are shooting a scoped handgun

out to 100-150 yards.