What % of weight is within spect. for cast BOOLITS?

[340six]

say 250gr mould that toss's out 251 with a certian alloy I know is ok but betwen them selves?
Say 251.0 and 251.5 or even 251.9?

[Bass Ackward]

say 250gr mould that toss's out 251 with a certian alloy I know is ok but betwen them selves?
Say 251.0 and 251.5 or even 251.9?


Not sure what you are asking. If you are asking if perfect bullets make a difference, then two conditions have to be met. First is that you need to be able to shoot well enough to notice and the second is to what range?

In 35 caliber I shoot 250s that weight between 245 and 251 if the bases are still good and still hold 1" at 100 yards but they will open at 200 more than bullets within .5 grain.

Does that help?

[340six]

Not sure what you are asking
Realy asking what is ok enough I weighed some factory cast and J bullets and they varied half to 1 grain apart.
So wonder what standard should I put on my own cast bullets?
251-252grains being 1 grain apart for plinking/paper shooting?
{ie} 1-2 grains ok within 250grains ect....

[Marlin Hunter]

I guess you mean standard deviation.

I don't weigh my boolits, but 1% sounds OK for plinking.

1% of 250 grains is 2.5 grains.

for target shooting I might want it closer.

How close is your powder weight?

Are you using mixed brass with different internal volume?

everything makes a difference.

[Slow Elk 45/70]

340six, Hullo, For most informal shooting...plinking/attack beer cans/ etc . most never weigh their boolits, unless they are changing their alloy.... Once you know what your mold is dropping with said alloy , most shoot them up...There are those that weigh every boolit they shoot, and many in between

I would also say to work up accuracy loads, your boolits should be weighed...the silhouette folks and long range match shooters demand boolits within a very narrow range... 1 gr can vary a lot depending on overall boolit weight...to some. Not me, so it depends on what YOU are looking for from your boolits...[smilie=1::cbpour ::redneck: :Fire: :Fire:

[Rocky Raab]

Cast 'em. Lube 'em. Load 'em. Shoot 'em.

But weigh 'em? WEIGH THEM?

You are joking.

[kelbro]

I use 1% for my cast bullets. If 200gr is 'the weight', I re-melt everything except those from 199-201gr. But I'm not using cast for my 600yd and 1000yd shooting :)

[geargnasher]

Cast 'em. Lube 'em. Load 'em. Shoot 'em.

But weigh 'em? WEIGH THEM?

You are joking.

You don't do much benchrest or HV shooting, do you? Either that, or you're a lot better at casting without voids than I am.

For general plinking, if the bases are decent and I can cram it in the case, it gets fired. Sometimes I get cranky and see just how bad a deformation will still shoot. Often I'm surprised by how little it matters, but at any range past 50 with a rifle anything over 2% plays havoc with my groups. Pistol stuff only gets weighed for sil shooting or hunting, then even the practice/sight in ammo is as close to perfect as my skills and equipment allow.

Gear

[lwknight]

When I get a new mold I weigh the first few good looking boolits and never look back.
Just load em and shoot em unless they need sized down.

[HeavyMetal]

If your casting within plus or minus 1 grain with the alloy your using, not the advertized boolit weight, your doing darn good!

Most J bullets are not within that weight range so after that I don't sweat it.

Now as to weighing boolits: If I compete for points and or money my boolits will get weighed and seperated into "lots" that vary plus or minus 1/2 grain.

If you do not have a digital, accurate, scale this is an exercise in frustration!

I did not attmpt it, ever, with my old beam scale but bought a very early Pact in the 80's that I am very pleased with and this is it's only job!

The most incedible thing happened after I got the Pact scale. I realized that my boolits were very uniform and that, every once in awhile, I would get a boolit way out of the average weight range. These "Rogue's" would be 6 or 7 grains heavy, or lighter, than the average for the batch I had cast.

Out of 700 or 800 cast I would usually get two or three " way off's" Since these would go slower, or faster, that the rest of the boolits from the same batch you could get "flyer's" that hit higher ( slower fat boolit) or lower ( faster skinny boolit) than the POA. This could be as much as 2 inch's at 25 yards depending on the gun and velocity of the load.

For shooting cans and beer bottles this is not important for anything else it can be!

[Shuz]

+1 to what geargnasher and HeavyMetal wrote.
I shoot mostly 44 mag handguns for hunting and plinking and don't bother to routinely weigh those; however, for my CBA match shooting with .25 caliber rifle boolits, you betcha I weigh those. That is the only weigh(pun intended) to detect internal voids which will wreak havoc on your scores if you don't. A digital scale make this job really easy and fast.

[Lead Fred]

I weigh every boolit.
If they are anything lighter, they get melted back down.
If they are 5 grains higher, they get melted down.
Most are within 2 grains.

[Rocky Raab]

No, I don't compete. I should have said that, geargnasher.

I cast bullets so I can shoot more, not to shoot "more better." Guys like Mike Venturino weigh and sort their long-range competition bullets - and rightly so. But the casual revolver shooter, the woods hunter, and the cowboy action shooter need never bother.

[1Shirt]

I just agree with Bass!
1Shirt!:coffee:

[DesertWolf]

I weigh all my boolits. +/- 0.5 gr that's it, any more outta wack tha that and back in the pot they go!

;)

[joeb33050]

I weigh all my boolits. +/- 0.5 gr that's it, any more outta wack tha that and back in the pot they go!

;)
Absolutely correct. If the caster can't keep 99% of the bullets within +/-0.5 grain, he's doing something wrong. Based on records of 22,545 cast and weighed bullets.
joe b.

[Rocky Raab]

Joe, have you ever watched that TV show "Monk?" It's about a guy so obsessive/compulsive that it's painfully funny? You'd love it.

[340six]

I weighed them on the digital scale right after starting this thrread. Most any were off was minium .5 to 1.2 grains on a 250 grain bullet.
So I guess I did ok

[Blammer]

I wt some of my batches and usually come out with 3 categories by wt, say 250, 251 and 249. I shoot them in groups if I wt them. size lube and shoot all the 250's etc....

if it's just plinking I just size/lube/shoot, no weighing them.

[joeb33050]

Joe, have you ever watched that TV show "Monk?" It's about a guy so obsessive/compulsive that it's painfully funny? You'd love it.
I should have mentioned that I shoot rifles. My pistols are a Striker in 308 Win, and a Competitor in 30 BR. If I shot revolvers or autoloaders, I'd buy cast or swaged lead bullets. I never could justify the time required to cast lots of pistol bullets, and the weight variation probably doesn't matter much.
joe b.

[RobS]

For my rifles where accuracy at long ranges is desired I weigh all my bullets and keep them at 0.7 grains from each other, i.e. 250.0g to 250.7g. I've found that when I start to push over 1 grain difference the groups will show the effects especially past 200 yards.

With my pistol/revolver bullets I tend to keep them around a grain difference, but have not seen effects at the shorter ranges to weigh out each and every bullet so I don't. A simple first time weighing of the multiple cavities of a new mold with a given alloy to see if the mold produces weights that are close for my desired acceptance of variance and if the mold produces what I want I usually just give the eyeball inspection of the bullets before reloading.

Everyone as their own level of what is acceptable or what is accurate so if it works for you and you like your results then it's a winner, winner, chicken dinner for you.

[DLCTEX]

It does matter what caliber you are casting. I recently have been testing various loads in 22 Hornet with 225-438 boolits. I visually inspected as I sized and lubed and culled the defects. As i was testing for accuracy I decided to weigh the boolits on my beam scale. I weighed a large handful and didn't find one that varied by a full tenth of a grain, so I quit weighing. I cast them in one session, preheated the mould, and kept a steady pace so that the mould temp was consistent and tried to keep a generous sprue puddle.I can't do that well with the larger calibers, of course, but I can get good results using the same method.