How do you segregate/reject your cast bullets?

[wquiles]

I bought on-line several cast bullets for my 44Mag (I know, I know, I should be casting my own - I am working on that angle ....), and I received some "less than perfect" bullets. I contacted the seller, and they sent me additional ones no charge. Great customer service - no complaints.

Now, I went ahead and weight each one, and inspected each one, and first segregated on those few that had the noted defects, and then segregated the remainder by weight - basically eliminating the very light and heavy ones. So my question to you guys: how do you choose your "good" ones from the "plinking" bullets?

- Visual/defects?
- Weight? if so, what is the margin for rejection?



Weight-wise, these were made from a Ranch Dog 265gr mold (with GC) and sized .432" (perfect for my particular Ruger), but they weighted right at a nominal of 280gr:



These are tumble-lubed:



Dummy round with no powder/primer:



Here are some of the ones with defects I rejected:
The one in the dummy round, and the two bullets at 11 and 12 o-clock:



The bottom left (pointing to the right):


Bottom bullet:



My plan with the light/heavy/defect bullets is to load them for plinking - not worrying too much about best/optimum accuracy. What do you guys do with your "rejects"?

Will

[tazman]

I segregate by visual defect only. I don't worry much about weight as all will usually be within a couple of grains anyway(I am talking 38/9mm here).
I don't worry about weight because I am not a match shooter and nothing I do requires match accuracy.
It wouldn't matter in any case because I am not capable of one hole groups at 50 yards let alone 1 inch at 100yds as are some of the people on this site. I am not in that class.
If you are capable of such, then you may want to use a finer standard of selection.
Also you might want to test those defective boolits and see just how good they shoot. It might surprise you.

[wquiles]

Thank you. I suspect that those defects I show above are cause by the mold not being hot enough, but once the mold got hot, the rest of the bullets look fine.

Also you might want to test those defective boolits and see just how good they shoot. It might surprise you.

That is exactly my plan. If they shoot (for me, and my setup) as good as the "more uniform" bullets, then I will not bother separating them. My setup is a 1x Red Dot sight (my eyes are now too old for iron sights), so it might not make much of a difference

[Artful]

I visually inspect - especially the bases...most important part.
- then I have two balance beam scales -
if it's under - back into the pot
If it's between - practice
if it over then match

[Bent Ramrod]

I weigh boolits for specialty (match or long range shooting) use and for load development. In the first category it's not that much extra work for the percentage and in the second case it's just the elimination of another variable from the mix. For normal "fun" shooting, rifle or pistol, using a proven load, unless they are really deformed or have rounded bases, I load and shoot them all up.

[Shiloh]

If it has a base and a nose, it get kept. I look them over again, the ones with gaps and voids get scrapped.
Any defects on the base, and they get recycled.

Shiloh

[John Boy]

You are lucky these bullets have GC's cause those bullets are plain Ugly!

[dragon813gt]

Any glaring deformities? Any wrinkles? Base filled out w/ no rounded edges? If the answer to all three is no then they get shot. And honestly they have to be really wrinkled for me to put them back in the pot. Nose deformities have little effect on accuracy. The base is the most important part.

[220]

Visually inspect only, those with obvious defects get recycled.
I pull out any rejects after casting, again when lube/sizing/coating and again when loading. Cant see the point in adding another step by individually inspecting each one when they are going to be handled probably 3 times between casting and loading.
I have done a bit of weighing and if my casting is anything like consistent then once those with obvious defects are culled then variation in weight is less than 1%.
Have bench tested rejects against weighed projectiles in one of my revolvers. 5% variation against less than 1% did open groups by 20% but still good enough for 10 shot 10 ring groups on an Olympic precision pistol target at 25m.

[462]

Do yourself a big favor and don't delay casting your own.

I don't sell boolits but have given away a few thousand. I'd be ashamed giving those boolits away, let alone charging good money for them.

[JeffinNZ]

I used to be absolutely manic and weighed and inspected every bullet I was going to shoot. Now I generally only visually inspect but I am still pretty harsh.

[HeavyMetal]

Visual inspection 99% of the time concentrating on good sharp base's for keepers.

For match or load devlopment I also weigh and try to seperate into batches with a 2 grain spread.

I've found that since I went to a hot plate my molds are a lot more uniform in heat and provide much more uniform castings than I got 3 years ago, this has reduced my urge to weigh castings unless I see glaring defects visually.

Back to those you bought: Tumble lube you say?? Where in lies the lube?? I'm thinking those are a tad lite on lube plus a bit soft as they are about 15 grains heavy ( and it ain't the lube) have you had leading issues?

If they fit right and are GC'd maybe not but I am curious.

Yes those would also be my reason to cast my own, LOL!

[462]

In answer your question.

Handgun boolits: Sharp bands and bases. Have not found a need to gas check Magnum handgun boolits.

Rifle boolits: The above, plus no wrinkles, inclusions, or any other type of deformity, and sorted by weight after sizing/lubing and checking.

[HATCH]

I do mostly handgun. I look at the sprue mark on the base. If there is a pin hole then it goes back in the pot. Then I look or fill out.

[wquiles]

Wow, thank you so much guys. Great feedback - much appreciated

And to answer the question - I don't know "yet" how these work (or not) in my Ruger. I have about 120 bullets (including the new replacement ones), so I can experiment a little. I will load 10-20 rounds to test accuracy in the next week or so.

[texaswoodworker]

Major visual defects go back in the pot. Minor defects are ok for plinking. I only weight if I am looking for a high degree of accuracy. I won't weight my 45 acp bullets for plinking at 15-25 yards. I will weight my 30-06 bullets for shooting tight little groups at 100 yards though.

[smokesahoy]

It looks like you were sent the proceeds of 1 run, the defects appear to all be cold mold defects. I'd have put them back in the pot, the vendor opted to just send whatever fell out. I hope they were cheap at least.

[Jack Stanley]

The smaller the caliber and the longer the distance the tighter I am on quality control . The middle of a match is not the time to be wondering if you were making good slugs .

However for short range as long as the baseband is perfect that the rest looks well filled out I use it . Mid range distance it depends on what I want to do , since I store visually good bullets I can weigh them if I need to before lube .

Jack

[Green Lizzard]

i dont mind returning them to the pot, i have enough flyers from my shooting without building them in. when shooting for score if just touches the line you get that 10, if it just misses you get the 9. i ask myself, do you want to put a three cent gas check and a three cent primer on that then miss the line

[prs]

Agree with John Boy, but even with checks you will win no prize.

Remember Karate Kid, Mr. Miagi say; "Best'a defense is no be there." That applies here. Clean the mold, re-melt that scrap, pre-heat the mold, and try-try again. Do not start keeping boolits until they look perfect. If its a multi cav mold keep none if any one is FLB (funny look'n boolit). If having trouble, get them up to where they frost and then back off the heat a tad, keep boolits only when they drop consistently. This PIA method is not a PIA, it will save you lots of **** ache when you cull by weight. Culling by weight with good look'n crisp detailed boolits of appropriate size is not needed for casual plinkers. On the other hand, game animals deserve the best chance at a humane kill and target shooting requires the best too. Best practice is to weigh each boolit, set them on paper in rows representing the "same" weight. Same is your definition, 1g, .5g, less, more? With a big group your rows will sort of give you a bell curve of boolits. Any given row can be a "lot" unto itself. The center row and maybe two to each side are keepers, the out-layers are scrap for re-melt. The more proficient you become and the better broken in your mold gets (or your familiarity with what the mold "likes") the more your bell curve hugs close to the center row. Its like getting to Carnegie Hall.

prs