Sort lead bullets by weight ?

[John Hill]

I am casting SWC for .38 spcl and am using a Lee mold for 158 gr. After sized and lubed with Alox, I weighed 100 individually on my digital scale (compared to my balance scale) and have them separated by 1/10th grain. For best accuracy, what is the most practical weight increment to group them into? For example; put all that weigh between 159.0 and 159.9 into one group and 160.0 to 160.9 in another, etc. or closer groups or does it really matter at all?
Also, since they all weigh between 159.0 gr and 161.5 gr, should I vary my powder load to be less or more for the higher bullet weights compared to the lighter bullet weights for best accuracy?
Thanks
John

[44magLeo]

For most practice or plinking just loading them is fine. If you are after more of a target quality load then separate them into lots by.5 grs, .25 grs or even .1 grs. Try them, see if they shoot better. I doubt anything closer than .5 grs will be enough better to be worth the effort.
Leo

[mold maker]

I made a board with dividers every couple inches to separate by 1.10 grain. Then pick the weights ( usually in the middle) that hold the majority. The purpose of the load determines how wide a spread is acceptable.
I find that those underweight are less accurate than those overweight. Just guessing, but I think the overweight are balanced, while the underweight have off center voids.

[Big Boomer]

Doubt that you will see much difference between the stated weight extremes at 25 yards. At 50 you might see a difference. Wouldn't worry about varying the powder charges. Biggest problem will be boolits that have a void somewhere if you DO NOT weigh. One day I was shooting my 5-shot .45 Colt (Bowen built Ruger Bisley Blackhawk shooting a 340 gr. LBT WLN gas check boolit over 24 gr. of H110 at 1,400 fps) and had 4 rounds in one hole at 25 yards. The fifth round evidently had a void and landed a good 1" away from the other 4 rounds. No, I am not about to weigh boolits for a handgun though I should have given what the first 4 looked like on the target I still have. However, I might weigh boolits for a rifle for serious work. Big Boomer

[44MAG#1]

If you are that good of a shot in field shooting situations you must be one heck of a good shot. Or, someone with a lot of extra time on your hands

[jhalcott]

I m with boomer on this. Target RIFLE bullets are sorted to half grain weight. Most other loads are what ever drops from the mold.

[hickfu]

I have had spreads of 12.5 grains in a 430gr boolit and did not see any difference when shooting at 100 yards so I dont even weigh them any more. I understand bench rest shooters trying to hit a target 800 to 1000 yards away doing that, but cast boolits?

to each their own...

[John Hill]

Thanks guys! Great info. My blown patterns with .38 spcl must just be me. Ugh! I'll just cast them, size and lube and shoot em up.
Thanks
John

[Scharfschuetze]

John,

My comments below are based on the assumption that your 38 Special is a service grade S&W or Colt.

If all of your boolits are within the 2 grain spread you posted, then you have nothing to worry about, particularly in a revolver that may or may not hold 2" at 25 yards.

You could always figure your average and then figure your standard deviation and then discard any projectiles of say 1.0 Sd either side of your mean. Once done, then just load all the boolits that are within your preset standard. That should give you a good number of boolits from your total for shooting.

I don't think that it's worth the bother though as your technique, mould and alloy are doing just fine. The vagaries of case weight, case length (which impacts the crimp), primer brisance and charge variation may very well sabotage the best of your efforts as far as pistol ammo goes. That is unless you are involved in a long range competition such as silhouette shooting which has its own exacting standards.

Now any boolit way off due to an unseen air pocket or improperly filled out driving bands, et cetera is a different story and those need to go back into the pot and remelted. For most revolver ammo from a service grade gun, I just give 'em a visual inspection and call it good. I like my revolvers to shoot within 2" or so at 25 yards and I have no problem achieving this with visually inspected boolits.

My Model 19 with just visually inspected boolits at 25 yards.

[bangerjim]

If you got tons of time on your hands! Or a doing uber-accurate competition shooting. Or doing accurate rifle rounds.

I NEVER weigh standard boolits. Just cast them, PC them, load them, and shoot them. Good nuff for casual plinking. Weighing those is a total waste of time. If a mold is waaaaay off, fix it so it drops around where you think it should be.

But for a 38spl............naaaaaa. I cast and shoot thousands of them in 8 different weights/designs and have never weighed a single one.

banger

[44man]

I went through the weighing stuff to see and actually shot worse groups. I just never seen any difference. If you cast good a few tenths will not be seen.
Now maybe if I shot BR with small calibers I might get picky but I depend on my casting first.

[Wolfer]

I just cast and shoot. Life is a fickle thing, as I get better at shooting my eyes progressively get worse.
I can't tell a difference in pistol loads. I also don't weigh my rifle loads either since most of my shooting is from field positions. Any of them will probably shoot better than I can.
Years ago I bought a bunch of Sierra blitz king factory seconds. Some of these were perfect, some had a malformed tip while some had no tip at all just a big HP.

I loaded up some of each type to see how bad the deformed ones shot. I can't remember how many rds I shot of each type but it was a lot.

Much to my surprise all bullets shot into approx 3/4" groups at 100 yds. The best was the HPs with no plastic insert. Virtually no difference between perfect and not so perfect bullets. After that I just pulled them out of the sack and put them in a case.

[JimmyTheDentist]

. . . If all of your boolits are within the 2 grain spread you posted, then you have nothing to worry about, particularly in a revolver that may or may not hold 2" at 25 yards.

. . . vagaries of case weight, case length (which impacts the crimp), primer brisance and charge variation may very well sabotage the best of your efforts as far as pistol ammo goes.

Scharfschuetze nailed it . . .


If our goal, truly, is consistently excellent results wherever/whenever/whyever/whatever we’re shooting, then what harm does it do trying to eliminate at least one of those many variables he mentions?



I shoot Bullseye and so I’m always looking for whatever process might improve my score just a little bit.



Even if you’re not competing, it’s helpful, at the very least, to know what each of your molds/alloys is actually producing, right?



Ya gotta break out the scale anyway to establish your “normal”. So why not get rid of the extreme outliers from any production run? Or at least set those goofy ones aside for use where the results are inconsequential?



While you’ve got the scale out, how much extra work is it, really, to batch up the remaining “good” bullets by weight?



Necessary? Heck no!



And there’s a real good chance that going through all the extra steps might not improve your results in the least little bit. But it sure won’t impede you any in attaining your goal.



I don’t modify the powder charge based on these minute variations in weight from a single mold (ya gotta draw the line somewhere, yeah?). And heavier bullets will allow for larger increments while sorting.


But it seems a simple thing to remove any bullets that are measurably far from expectations and to separate the rest by weight. Ya just might create a pile of finished rounds that makes for some very satisfying time on the firing line.



Good shooting!



J the D

[dragon813gt]

I will weigh a bunch when first casting w/ a mold to see how consistent I am. You won't see a difference w/ pistol bullets. Load and shoot. Rifle bullets are a different story. But even then you could be wasting your time.

I went one step further and graphed my results w/ a mold :laugh:

[Ed_Shot]

Before I joined this forum I weighed everything. Now it's visual inspection only for hand gun boolits. It's the practice at the range that makes groups tighter. Must admit I still weigh every rifle boolit but don't shoot rifle near as often as pistol.

[edctexas]

I do occasionally weigh boolits to check my casting process. If I make a temp change in the pot or try a different mold temp, I make measurements of weight of roughly 100 boolits. I compare those statistics with the last time I did a check. I typically get +/- 0.2% to 0.5% variation for 90% of the sample cast. Usually I see defects in the light boolits. The heavy one I shoot anyway.

Does this make more accurate shooting? Darned if I can tell, but I feel like I am making the best ammo I can. Am I crazy? Probably, but this is one aspect of a retired engineer's attemp to shoot as well as I can!
Ed C

[Big Boomer]

44MAG#1: Never said anything about the position I was in when I fired that group ... but I definitely was not in a hunting or field position or standing on my hind legs. I was seated at a bench and shooting off sandbags. No way in the world I could have done it otherwise. However, it was shot with open sights. I also know luck when I see it. These almost 76 year old eyes also don't see like they used to and that was several years back. Big Boomer

[brassrat]

I like shooting off a bench and have weighed, then sorted, and finally sanded the bases on commercial pistol boolets. Then, I can accumulate 50 or 100 of the exact same weight and load. This leaves me with a box too good to shoot.

[44man]

When I see any differences, I pin it on the brass as that will have more affect then a boolit.

[Motor]

Thanks guys! Great info. My blown patterns with .38 spcl must just be me. Ugh! I'll just cast them, size and lube and shoot em up.
Thanks
John

John. Unless you are some kind of expert shot competing in matches where there is just one ragged hole in the paper, I'd say your statement here is your best way to go.

I seriously doubt even +/- 5gr. of boolit weight is going to make much difference at "normal" pistol shooting range. Heck I use a 250gr muzzleloader bullet in 500 S&W and the accuracy at 50 yards is nothing short of amazing. I'm sure the weight of those things are all over the place. Its a Lee REAL with the deep grooves and I powder coat them. I would not be too surprised if they were over +/- 5grs is variance.

Motor