Sorting Brass ?

[FarNorth45]

First of all thanks to everyone for all the help and my paper patching is coming along great now ..... and i really dont like loading greasers now at all lol.
My question is , how do you guys like to sort brass ? By weight , volume or case neck thickness? I'm just trying to get my loads as perfect as possible and curious about what works best for you when it comes to brass selection?
Thanks , Pat

[Winger Ed.]

Semi-auto handguns- it gets sorted for caliber and then it all goes in a bucket to await the cleaning and reloading process.

Rifle stuff gets sorted by caliber & matching head stamps into batches of 100.
I try to keep them together so they stay a matching set as far as length, and how many times they've been loaded.

[country gent]

On my BPCR cases I sort by head stamp. When new They are trimmed primer pockets uniformed and flash holes deburred. I may check neck wall thickness to see what it is and how consistent. I have one rifle 45-70 with a righter neck area and it can be hard loading with certaian cases and bullet dia. Here I can sie the bullets down .001 or .002 and they work ( grease groove with my PP all are fine).

I have found most new brass is much better than 15 20 years ago as.

[cwtebay]

Pistol and plinker brass gets sorted by caliber and how many x fired.
Hunting and long range brass is sorted by caliber, x fired, brass weight, headstamp / manufacturer. Just got into sorting by case water volume (per a shooting mentor).

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[FarNorth45]

Thanks guys !! I should've been more descriptive....
What i really ment was for Long range BPCR shooting , building your best accurate load for long range .
Weighing Brass ? Checking case neck thickness or volume checking ?
I know some people don't go to that extent, but i know when applying a slight taper crimp to paper patched rounds there is differences in the tension
..... i can feel it , curious how the long range guys like to group their brass ? I use starline , but there is still some difference in them .

[MostlyLeverGuns]

Buy lot (100,200,500,1000), for rifle - take 100, size(probably just neck if unfired/new), run through annealer, measure length, trim to match shortest, iuniform primer pockets (some more recent lots do not need primer pocket uniforming), debur flashhole, neck expand with NOE/Lyman 'M' die and load. For handgun, separate into headstamp lots with or without cannelure and load. I do check for weight differences, sometimes sort into weight lots, but only after trim and flashhole deburring. Differences in neck tension is more often resolved by proper annealing and/or proper neck expander diameter rather than neck thinning unless rifle has extremely tight/special chamber.

[Distant Thunder]

FarNorth,

What I have done with my .45-70 and .45-90 is buy 300 to 500 Starline brass all at one time and of the same lot. That has given me very uniform brass and results. I NEVER anneal my straight cases, ever. I sort out any short cases, they are bad for paper patch. There really haven't been many. I deburr the flash hole, FL size for the first firing and fireform. I may check a few for weight, but they have been very uniform.

For my .44-77 I had to gamble a bit and I bought my cases from BACO in two batches due to limited funds. i was was pleased as hell when the second batch check exactly the same weight as the first. These I annealed, FL sized, deburred the flash hole and fire formed. I then neck turned them and fireform again and neck turned them a second time. It's a bit of work but the reward has been worth it, very uniform brass and accurate loads. Length hasn't been a problem with these BACO cases either, most have come up to 2.240 to 2.250" after the second fire forming. The rest will get there I'm sure. It's all pretty amazing considering BACO makes these from Starline .50-110 brass and the uniformity and quality are excellent.

[FarNorth45]

Thanks guys !!!! I always debur my Flash holes on every piece of new brass i get and on bottle neck cartridges i usually turn the necks ...... but i wasn't for sure of what worked the best for straight wall bpcr . I appreciate the help !!
For you guys that check by weight , i haven't really been able to buy big lots of brass so i have just bought them when i could . Tonight i weighed them and most all of the starlines was within 187.5 grs -189.5grs . I had a few that was down to 184-185 so i marked them for fouler rounds . Should i be sorting to tighter tolerance than 2grs ?

[Winger Ed.]

Once a bunch are all sized, trimmed, & so on---
weighing them is how I'd separate out the ones you need to be exactly the same.
I wouldn't trust a water volume sort of test.

Just a wild guess: I'd think you'd get more of a variable introduced as the barrel heats up,
than a 2 grain spread of differences in case weight.

[Chill Wills]

In my experience you need to see more than 10 grains difference in a 45-70 case to begin to to see a volume change and even then it does not show up on the (BPCR) target. Maybe at the highest levels of the F class rifles but not in BPCR, such as it is = black powder, lead bullets and singleshot rifles with iron sights or low powdered 3/4" scopes.

[Don McDowell]

sort the prepped cases from the unprepped, load and go.

[Distant Thunder]

I'm with Chill and Ed on this, + or - a few grains between cases is not going make enough of a difference to see with all the other variables we deal with. We not really loading for 1/4 minute groups here, more like 1 1/2 to 2 minute and in rare cases 1 moa. The rifles and loads of most serious shooters are capable of winning the match, it will usually come down to the best shooter/spotter on a given weekend.

[FarNorth45]

Great information and thanks everyone. I'm always just obsessed with producing the best loads i can when it comes to target shooting ...... and always trying to think of ways to make it even better .......... it's just my nature and will keep me awake at night thinking about it !!! ha!ha .