How Do You Sort ??

[OldBob]

I thought this might be in the stickies, but couldn't find it and don't recall ever reading a thread on it so here goes........

How do you sort your castings and what standards do you sort to ?????? I give mine a visual inspection and chuck the obviously ugly ones out, then I weigh them on a digital scale. The scale is fairly fast to do, I set one on, wait a second for the weight, and then, using a slide-drop-pickup-remove motion I put the second on , and so forth, I usually find I sort into two piles after establishing a "light" and "heavy" standard. Anything over 1 grain variation gets chucked out, since I mostly shoot rifles above 40 cal. , I figure thats a pretty small deviation........ but maybe I am wrong and if someone else has already done some tests and has some input I would appreciate it.

[lwknight]

I have two piles. Those that are noticeably defective and those that I will shoot.

[Recluse]

I have two piles. Those that are noticeably defective and those that I will shoot.

+1 to my fellow Texan.

:coffee:

[mrbill2]

More than once I have loaded up my defective bullets and went to the range and shot groups just as good as if I had used my super duper good bullets. If someone thinks it makes a difference nothing anyone can do will change their mind. And so it goes!

[OldBob]

Ha ha... yep, I've done it that way too, maybe I'm gettin' to darn fussy, but its part of the game.

[Shiloh]

I sort into re-cast, deformed, and keepers. The deformed pistol boolits still work great for the falling plate range. They are slightly less accurate than the keepers at pistol ranges.

Rifle boolits get a bit more discretion.

Shiloh

[clodhopper]

I sort them when casting, If the base is square, they are good ones. As lubing and sizeing progress those with the uglyest defects go back to the pot.I used to weigh them with a balance beam scale, after weighing ten or more to get an average weight keepers were sorted into three piles.
+ were those that weighed more than one tenth of a grain of average but the arm did not touch top stop.
= were those that weighed within +.1 to -.1 grain of average.
- were those that weighed less than one tenth of a grain of average but the arm did not bottem out.

[HammerMTB]

I started out sorting to too high a standard. Coming from hi-power rifle and varmint shooting, I thought every boolit had to be perfect.
I sorted 200+ 40 cal pistol boolits this afternoon. I weighed a bunch, got 2 pretty distinct large groups, with just a few fliers. Looked 'em over for defects, and those in the "perfect" weight group had just as many small defects as those outside the "perfect" weight. I don't cast many, if any, that are very visually flawed. The first few out of the mould just go back in the pot 'til the mould warms. Then they mostly turn out all filled out. I pressure fill, so now and again I get a pocket or flaw in a base. Those get sorted on the casting table and go back for another pour.

All that to say, once I'd looked over the whole buncha boolits, I sized 'em all and put 'em in the bin. Every one of 'em will shoot, and those few that might be fliers, I'd have to cull far too many to get out of the batch for sure. :cbpour:

[fredj338]

I do pretty much the same thing; toss the obvious poorly formed bases or grooves, noses not that picky. I weigh the HP styles becuase sometiems there can be significant void, but otherwise, just sort by looks.

[Wayne Smith]

Depends on the purpose. If you are shooting long range competition you really do want perfect boolits, as Mike pointed out in his article on the myths of casting. If you are shooting piss-ant Cowboy loads at Cowboy ranges it don't matter, you can spit almost as hard and accurately! Those are probably the two extremes, where your needs are will likely lie somewhere in between.

When I started casting I was casting the 457125 and was weighing each one. I read on Shooters.com that a 2% variance was appropriate, then I sat down and figured out what 2% of 520 was! All of mine qualified after I tossed the obviously bad ones. I think any arbitrary standard is less than adequate as a rule. What works for you is what works for you. Mike can weigh and sort his BPCR boolits but I don't do that cause I don't shoot BPCR. When I start getting uncalled fliers in an accurate load I'll switch to a higher standard - for that rifle.

[pdawg_shooter]

I look at them and discard the ugly ones, then weigh them an discard any that are + or - 1%.

[Bill*]

Being a plinker primarily...If they look OK, (ie: flat base and filled out) they are!

[klutz347]

I have two piles. Those that are noticeably defective and those that I will shoot.

Same here.

Wrinkeled, winged and ones that didn't quite fill out right get thrown back into the pot.

[OldBob]

OK, did a quick test today with a fresh cast batch of 429215's . I sorted by eyeball and tossed out a few bad ones, then weighed a random sample of 14 boolits. I had a maximum variation of .9 grains, an average weight of 222.17 grains, so basically the boolits varied about .5 gr either side of average........... I guess the eyeball sort works fairly well except for internal voids.

[dragonrider]

My sorting is visual. If they look good I shoot em, if they are wrinkled I melt em.

[montana_charlie]

If I see a truly ugly one while casting, I'll toss that one back. Otherwise, I only look at them to keep an eye on 'temperature indications'.

In the house, and under magnification, if the bullets will be fired into groups that will get measured, they get a critical physical examination...and culling. After they pass the 'look test' I feel the base corner.
I have one paper patch mould which produces base corners that look real good, but they don't 'scrape' when pulled across your finger. They don't 'feel sharp'.

Since those will be paper patched, I'll keep them as long as they don't 'look' rounded. But, my grease groove bullets have to 'feel sharp' or they get dumped.

Those that pass the 'Gillette Test Series' (look sharp - feel sharp) get weighed and sorted into two, or sometimes three groups...with 2/10th's separation.

Bullets destined for gong impact, or unmeasured groups, get a lot less attention...but I don't use many of those.
CM

[mrbill2]

When I first spotted this bullet it had just a pin size hole. I used a lead pencil to poke around the hole and look what I found underneath. That's why I like to weigh my bullets.