Weight tolerance for casting bullets

[JHinman]

What is a reasonable tolerance for finished weights of cast bullets?

I'm casting three different bullets, from 170 grain for a .30WCF to 500 grains for a .45-70, all for use in metallic silhouette competition.

If I weigh the cast bullets, what sort of variation between bullets is expected?

I'm a newby at this casting business, so advice will be appreciated.

[44man]

What is a reasonable tolerance for finished weights of cast bullets?

I'm casting three different bullets, from 170 grain for a .30WCF to 500 grains for a .45-70, all for use in metallic silhouette competition.

If I weigh the cast bullets, what sort of variation between bullets is expected?

I'm a newby at this casting business, so advice will be appreciated.
If you ever see me weighing boolits you will know I have lost it! :bigsmyl2:
I depend on my castings only. I might worry about a .22 boolit but I have shot worse groups with sorted boolits then I ever have by not sorting. With those big boolits just make them good to start with.

[Wayne Smith]

The first and most important purpose of weighing boolits is to weed out the light ones that may have a cavity included in them. Second is to segregate the rest into groups with one or two grain weight variation cause they are most likely to group together on a target. You and your rifle, at the range you will shoot, need to determine how much variation you can stand.

[x101airborne]

thank God someone asked before i typed it out. had the same question.

[MKastning]

I very likely spend way too much time worrying about this subject, but I sort to 0.1 grain increments. When finished sorting, I throw back the few on either end of the batch and keep the middle 65 or so. I load them in order from lightest to heaviest in the loading block, then put them in the ammo box in the same order.

When at the bench, I am then working my way through the loads and relatively confident that my bullet weights are within .1 grain from shot to shot.

Does it work any better than a 1 to 2 grain deviation? Probably not, but it is one fewer thing to think about and blame flyers on I guess.

I am way new to this game, and only cast for a 2 groove 1903-A3.

:lovebooli

[NSP64]

It depends, For handgun I usually dont weigh, unless it is for long range work( hunting). For rifle, I usually try to keep them within 1.0 gr. one grain is less then 1% of a 120gr boolit. If its a 160 gr boolit then 1.5gr. I will make up a big batch then wieigh and seperate all into groups. then take the ones that are within 1.0gr and use the others for plinking/practice.

[cbrick]

Many years ago I went through that phase, weighed everything, sorted into groups of like weights. Even for my silhouette 200m handgun rounds I haven't weighed them for years now and I have shot more revolver 40x40's than I can remember.

If your casting rate is consistent and your using a properly heated mold with clean alloy your weights shouldn't vary enough to make any difference on the target, even 200m handgun loads.

Do I weigh my bullets? Sure, about 10-15 out of each batch I cast just to make sure the alloy hasn't changed and my casting was correct. Beyond that I have never found any advantage to shooting weighed and sorted bullets over shooting bullets that were inspected for flaws.

Rick

[BABore]

I only weight sort boolits for my 22 Hornet. Otherwise, only to verify alloy or a new design.

It is however a good thing to do when you first start casting. It helps you develope good casting techniques so you can get weight variance down to few tenths of a grain. Once your there, and know what causes what, then no more weighing.

[mpmarty]

I used to weigh boolits but gave it up as a waste of time. If they look good and aren't wrinkled I shoot them. My final inspection is after lubing and the rejects go into a bucket to remelt. They're already fluxed.

[cbrick]

It is however a good thing to do when you first start casting. It helps you develope good casting techniques so you can get weight variance down to few tenths of a grain. Once your there, and know what causes what, then no more weighing.

Hhmmm . . . That is a very good suggestion for a new caster.

Rick

[qajaq59]

If I'm going to work up some loads with them, I might sort out a 100 that are exactly alike and put them aside. Mainly to eliminate any chance of light weight fliers. Otherwise, I don't bother. And if the pot and the mold are at the right temps I don't generally find that many bad ones anyway.

[noylj]

It would determine what group sizes you are getting. If you are shooting 1" or larger at 100 yards, sorting won't do you any good.
If you are shooting less than 1" groups, then it MAY help.
If you are shooting less than 0.5" groups, it will help.
If you are shooting over 200 yards, it will help.

[Mk42gunner]

I will weigh a few of the boolits from the first run of a new mold; just as a check to verify nominal weight.

It is nice to verify the weight of a custom mold, or if that boolit number has been offered in various weights.

For normal usage, I go with a visual inspection while I am sizing.

Robert

[JHinman]

Thanks to each of you! I didn't know if this was something I really needed to worry about.

I am new at this, so probably will weigh some for the time being. As was stated, it is a check on my casting techniques.

For my .30WCF and .45 Colt, these are all used for silhouettes offhand. Small differences may not matter much.

The .45-70 is for BPCR sillouettes, prone at up to 500 meters. I'd like to limit the variables as much as I can, as there are lots of other variables to be thinking about.

[Mk42gunner]

By all means, if it makes you more comfortable; weigh the boolits. I probably would if there was anywhere around here to actually shoot in competitiion.

Robert

[WHITETAIL]

JHinman, Welcome to the forum!
I do not weigh any pistol boolits.
But, I do weigh my 45-70 boolits by 1.0gr. incraments.
So I do this I inspect each and every boolit for fillout and wrinkles.
They get put back in the bucket for the next melt.:holysheep

[reloader28]

I dont weigh pistol boolits.

I only weigh rifle boolits that are being used to work up a load so I take out the weight variation. After that I usually do it just to get the really light ones out.

I could be wrong about this, but in my shooting, it seems that the neck tension has a WAY bigger effect on cast boolits than weight.

[Von Gruff]

Just an observation on the question but like many I weighed everything when I started casting untill I saw that it had very little effect for my shooting needs. Now I visually inspect as I cast,and again at subsequent stages, as in fitting the GC, lubing and loading. Generally there are few rejects after the GC stage.

A light boolit may have an inclusion and that will have a centrifical destabilisation that causes inaccuracy so concentrate more on good casting tecniche's with clean alloy and full fill out.

Von Gruff.

[Capn Jack]

I weigh my cast boolits to 0 + .5 gr. even though this will sometimes give me a 50% rejection rate and I weigh my powder to + - .1[smilie=1:

The general consuses seems to be I'm wasting my time, but if those boolits aren't making one ragged hole, I want to know it's my fault.;-)

Jack :coffeecom

[idahoron]

I am with you Jack. I weigh my paper patch muzzleloader bullets +- .5 grains. For me it is about confidence in my load. When I am hunting I don't want to second guess anything. I might cast 150 bullets or more to get 50 that are perfect. What do I care I have all day to do it. I enjoy trying to make the most perfect bullets I can. This method has worked well on game so far. Ron

[Capn Jack]

Yeah Ron, it would be nice to have a 100yd range outside my back door. I think then I would play with the 1gr. over and the 1gr. under to see if that's why I sometimes get vertical stringing on a few of my groups of purchased boolits.

Who knows, maybe it's just that third cup of coffee.

Jack :coffeecom

[splattersmith]

As noted, depends. On my 40-65s I weigh them all. Why? My wife shoots them and I ain't going to get "you sabotaged me you egregious cur poop". I have a defense.

45-70s. I weigh them. I have found in both calibers a few extra light ones that get culled. I do not want to shoot them in a match and weighing calms the mind. I separate into +- 1 grain above the 400 grain levels. I don't really see any difference and have shot mixed batches at steels in practice. But then a dirt digger or two gets kind of forgotten when not scored.

I do note - a couple voids can ruin a good score so I weigh them.

Cowboy pistols. Only the first 10 or so and the last ten or so.

[Capn Jack]

Thanks Splattersmith,

If it looks good, .38's go into the lube and down the tube. If they hit within 8" at 25yds I'm happy.[smilie=1:

The rifle is another matter I shoot 325gr.GC and 420gr.GC in a .458 Socom AR.:?
and after a few hundred rounds and shooting two scopes apart, I'm still trying to "Tame" the beast. I want to be sure that if I don't see one ragged hole, it's me and not the rifle, or ammunition.

Jack:coffeecom

[williamwaco]

Very good additional discussion of this topic here:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=131714

[ku4hx]

I stopped weighing pistol boolits decades ago. For my shooting habits it was a waste of time.

For rifle boolits I generally stick with + or - .5 grain ...... generally.

[311-200]

Hello JHinman,
I asked the same question 9 months ago - here are the answers!
Hope this will help!
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=107825&highlight=weight+tolerance

[45-70 Chevroner]

If you buy non premium Jword bullits you will find that they will very by 1.0 grain or so. I would not worry about pistol boolits but I do weight my rifle boolits to with in 1 or two grains depending on the normal weight say 170 grain +- one gr. or 450 grain +- 2 gr.

[gerrycan]

I sell a l ot of my extra cast boolits and because they vary in weight so much [1-5 grs.] I sort them into batches of 50 by weight in 1 gr.increments [ as has been said 150-150.9]. I do this as a service to new CB shooters to eliminate the weight " variable" in their load development. I use the extremely varied weight castings myself and don,t see much inaccuracy. I,ve noticed commercially cast CB,s seem to vary a lot in weight,are very hard and mostly too small [diam.] but some shooters swear by them -go figure . Gerry.

[Bullet Caster]

So, then, IMHO the general concensus is don't worrying about weighing pistol boolits unless you're a new caster (like me) and you should weigh rifle boolits. I think that I'll weigh both pistol and rifle until I get better at casting. As previously mentioned this will help to develop a better casting technique and the ones in the middle are keepers and the extreme's + or - are then weeded out. Sounds like a good practice esp. for me. After all, I only have time on my hands and not $$. Respectively submitted by BC

[HammerMTB]

As some of the above, I usually weigh some boolits from a new mold. Weighing 1 or 2 doesn't tell me much, so I weigh 20-50, depending on how much time I want to waste on it and just how critical my needs.
If I am turning out big volumes from a 6-cav, I want to know how much variation I am getting. Because it's too much trouble to sort them as I cast, I just take the approach that the whole of the weighed bunch represents the variation.
Having weighed a bunch of lots of castings, I find they fall into a "modified bell curve"
That is, they will have a steep drop-off of the bell curve at the upper end, where the boolits are fully filled out and filling the mold properly.
If the mold is a good one and my PID controller and I are having a good day, weights will be pretty consistent and the tail at the lower weight end of the bell curve will be small like the upper end.
If something is going wrong, it will have a long tail and a high volume of boolits- rejects.
Once you've done this a few times, you will find you can identify the rejects visually for the most part.
I still marvel that now and then I get what looks like a perfect boolit, but is significantly light. This HAS TO BE an internal void. Shooting it would no doubt bring a flyer to the group. If yer willing to overlook that anomoly, I guess ya just smile and let it go.
If yer trying to find and eliminate that flyer, you may need to weigh to sort them.
I don't find any of my high volume pistol boolits need to be weighed.
I do have some hunnert and 2-hunnert yard pistols that benefit from weighing boolits. Volume of those is not so great it is much of an imposition.

[noylj]

Having weighed my own cast bullets in 9mm and .40, I had separated them by 0.3gn.
I found that if I took a mix of the very lightest and the very heaviest, I got the "same" groups size, on average, as I did from shooting just the low end, just shooting the high end, and just shooting the ones at the top of the bell curve. I only tested at 25 yards and would probably still sort by weight if I was in a major Bullseye competition, but the targets were quite clear--it just doesn't matter.
The biggest flaw at distances of 25 yards or less is the bullet base NOT being completely filled. It didn't seem to matter if the there were wrinkles along the ogive or the upper bearing section, but any flay at the bases corner caused groups to open up like a shotgun.
The thing about casting and reloading is experimentation and determining what works in your guns.

[vrh]

I cast for my .243 rifle. My mold is a 95 grain Lyman. I cast in lots of 100 bullets. After weighing each with a gas check, I seperate them into groups. One group of bullets that weigh 101.1 to 101.3 grains....one group that weigh 101.4 to 101.6 grains and a final group that weigh between 101.7 to 101.9 grains. All the lighter and heavier ones go back into the pot to be remelted. A little time involved but I feel that it is time well spent on getting the best bullets to shoot.

[TexasGrunt]

http://i.imgur.com/uPQcp1b.jpg

This is a six year old thread. I doubt the original posters even remember it. But thanks.

[OS OK]

You stick with whatever you need to do to understand...most have been there and done that, it is how you get a rock solid understanding of all the little nuances of this business.

Here's some extra information you might find interesting...

191915


POST/post...TexasGrunt...I didn't even notice that..."Duuuh!"

[Tackleberry41]

Something like pistol bullets I don't concern myself with variations in weight. Blasting targets I don't worry to much. But I do go thru and weigh them when I want accuracy. Don't go nuts with it, but do get rid of the ones obviously heavy or light for whatever reason. Within a grain, grain and a half Im happy.