Sorting / Weighing

[Bob259]

New to this casting bullets so was wondering what others do after they cast as to weighing, sorting by weight, what parameters used like all exact weight for each sorted that way or how much of a variant in the weight is ok, etc, any helpful hints…. Thanks in advance

[Barry54]

What are you trying to achieve?

I just toss the wrinkled ones back in the pot and the ones that didn’t fill out fully. Then shoot the rest. A lopsided fill on the base is always a reject...

[Froogal]

What are you trying to achieve?

I just toss the wrinkled ones back in the pot and the ones that didn’t fill out fully. Then shoot the rest. A lopsided fill on the base is always a reject...

YEP! If they look funny I toss them back in. If they look good, they're good to go.

[Arkansas Paul]

I just mainly use cast bullets for plinking fun at the range.
I do want to kill a deer with a cast bullet, but it will be from a .44 magnum within bow range.
I don't worry about weighing cast projectiles. If they look good, I shoot them. If they don't look good, it's back to the pot.

[Recycled bullet]

Remember that visual imperfections in the casting will show up on the scale. Your pickiness will have to be determined by what you're doing with what you have Where You Are.
As you improve the ability of heat management and rhythm the quality of your castings will improve significantly and also the speed. If you apply yourself correctly at managing these things, soon you will be producing bullets that are higher quality then can be purchased from cast bullet vendors.

How good do you want your bullets to be? That's how good they're going to be.

With rifle bullets that are long and skinny I like to roll them across the top of my toolbox while I'm wearing a flashlight on my head and if I can see any detectable run out they get remelted. With pistol bullets I reject for any crack in the hollow point or grease Groove, or any gross imperfection of fill out. The little pocks from the sprue plate don't seem to amount to much, as I can shoot revolvers at and hit basically at will a 9-in paper plate at 50 yards off hand unsupported. Maybe when I become a more skilled shooter it will make a bigger difference.

What bullets are you casting? Are you powder coating or using Grease?

[Bob259]

What are you trying to achieve?

I just toss the wrinkled ones back in the pot and the ones that didn’t fill out fully. Then shoot the rest. A lopsided fill on the base is always a reject...

Using them for target shooting (Schutzen) at 200 yards. Any bad ones are culled already and all look good, say the majority weigh 197 Gr, then you have some 196.00, 196.8, etc, just different then the majority. Trying not to over think this but I know a person that sorts to the tenth

[Bob259]

Pan lubing no powder coating

[country gent]

With experience good technique weight variations go down. Sorting first by visual defects culls most of the other flaws also.

My normal casting is bring pot to temp and flux good.
Warm moulds on side of pot or hot plate if you prefer.
All my moulds have vented sprue plates I ladle cast
I make 10 -15 pours and those bullets go right back in the pot
I over pour not pouring for a sprue but pour the ladle full of lead letting the excess run back in the pot. This keeps the bullet hot and moltern longer allowing it to fill release gasses and shrink evenly drawing from the sprue.

When done with a session I will have 400-500 bullets with in .5 grn after culling the few visuals that got by the 10-15 pours

[243winxb]

Sort by weight, only while working up a new loading. Other wise, sort out flaws thet can be seen.

This Lee mold is oval, making diameters off.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?media/new-44-mag-bullet-mold-to-try.4125/full

Was checking the difference between drop & pressure cast. Spout not touching mold vs full contact of nozzle.


https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?media/casting-with-lee-molds.4127/full

[BJung]

I use a hot plate to heat my aluminum and brass molds up to temperature. If there is time, I'd dip an edge of the molten lead or put my propane torch to add temperature. Afterwards, I'll pour lead into the mold 1-2x to bring the mold up to a good casting temperature. To maintain the mold temperature, I leave my mold on the hot plate. Rythm is the second most important thing. Don't rush it, yet don't take too long between pours. I tend to pour my lead and as soon as the lead on the sprue plate turns color and hardens, I might wait 5 seconds before turning the sprue plate and shaking the cast bullets out. Third, I use a plastic mallet to tap on the handles 2-3x near the mold so the pins line up. That's how I do it.

[Winger Ed.]

I'll cast with one mold until I get a coffee can full of pistol boolits, or a few hundred rifle ones.

I'm pretty picky with the rifle boolits.
I don't weigh 'em out, but it they don't look perfect, they go back into the pot.

Handgun boolits-- If they look pretty good with no obvious flaws, I load 'em.

[Larry Gibson]

Using them for target shooting (Schutzen) at 200 yards. Any bad ones are culled already and all look good, say the majority weigh 197 Gr, then you have some 196.00, 196.8, etc, just different then the majority. Trying not to over think this but I know a person that sorts to the tenth

Since you are target shooting at 200 yards with small scoring ring target you may find this method of weight sorting to best suit your needs.

Ten years ago I thought I was casting pretty good bullets, excellent in fact. However. the more I got into shooting cast bullets at HV I found while I was casting good, excellent bullets I too hit the accuracy wall that joeb is alluding to. I also found that when those cast bullets were pushed to really HV (2500 - 3000+ fps) they did not do as well as expected. Back then I was weight sorting as we've all been told to. If you line them out by weight you get the so called "bell curve". In proving insanity I, like you and everyone else, then did the same testing of each .1 gr testing over and over again expecting different results.....we all got the same results; accuracy was not really improved via that method no matter how many times we ran the test. You are asking me now to run the same test and think I will come up with different results? It wouldn't happen.

Let's assume we have a mould that will cast perfectly even bullets in all dimensions. Not an assumption but fact is that mould has a finite capacity for any alloy. Thus if we cast with a good alloy giving the best fillout then only those that weigh the heaviest will have filled the mould out completely. Any bullets with less weight are then not dimensionally the same. We may not be able to measure other than weighing that difference but the difference is there in lighter weight bullets none the less. Now that difference in weight (mass) is there but it is not predictable.....we don't know where in or on the bullet that difference in weight is missing from. The missing weight is what creates the imbalance. I suspect voids in the alloy are not the problem but rather other aspects are which I have previously discussed.
I recently cast 542 NOE 30 XCB bullets of #2 alloy. I have just completed weight sorting them. In the next post I will show the graphed results of the weight sort which should aptly demonstrate what I'm saying. Have to copy, download, etc. so it will be an hour or so.

Here is the results of the weight sort. 542 bullets were cast of Lyman #2 alloy and WQ'd. They were then aged about 12 days before I got around to weight sorting. Here is my set up for weight sorting. I visually inspect each bullet for any defect. If any is found that bullet is rejected to be melted and recast at a later casting session. Those that pass my anal visual inspection then have any remnant of the sprue cut off. That is done on the lead block with a sharp blade on the pocket knife. The bullet is then weighed on the Redding balance beam scale. While waiting for the beam to settle I then visually examine and sprue cut another bullet. With the magnifier in front of the scale I can readily and accurately see what the weighed bullets exact weight is. The bullet is then placed in a bin for that weight.

Of the 542 bullets weighed 22 were rejected for a visual defect or because they weighed less than 156.9 gr which means the weighed ones had passed the visual inspection but still weighed way lite. The remaining 520 XCBs were weight sorted into separate bins of .1 gr increment from 156.9 gr to 158.0 gr......a 1.1 gr spread.

323193

Here is the rough graph of the weight sort. As you can see there is no "bell curve". The curve rises from 156.9 gr slowly to 157.5 gr and then rises sharply. The "curve" then plateaus out at 157.7, 157.8 and 157.9 gr with 113, 124 and 110 bullets for each weight. The "curve" then falls sharply to just 9 bullets at 158.0 gr. Of those 9 bullets only 2 actually weighed 158.0 gr. The remaining 7 bullets weighed between 157.9 and 188.0 gr. There were no bullets heavier than 158.0 gr.

323194

The weight sorting is showing us the 113 bullets of 157.7 gr, the 124 bullets of 157.8 gr and the 119 bullets (I'll put the 158.0 gr bullets in with those) of 159.9 gr weight has the highest weight/mass of alloy in them. Since the curve dropped off suddenly we see those weight bullets are the most consistent and the best the mould will produce with that alloy. Those 356 weight selected bullets will be used for best accuracy.

The 157.6 gr bullets will be used as fouler/sighters as I expect they will give very good accuracy also given only a .2 gr +/- difference in weight.

Had we lumped all the visually selected bullets into one group 70% would have been with the excellent bullets, another 15% would have been with the fouler/sighter bullets and the remaining 15% would have been with bullets having a weight/mass difference of 1.1 gr. Now, had I done that I probably would have got nice 1 1/2 moa groups with 7 +/- shots going into moa or less and 2 -3 +/- shots going out of the group in the 1 1/2 moa +/-. How many of you shoot groups like that with bullets only visually sorted?
It is with such weight sorted selected bullets (the 157.7 to 157.9 gr bullets) that I am able to hold moa accuracy to 300 yards and beyond with a 2900+ fps velocity.

That is how I weight sort and why it makes a difference.

[M-Tecs]

Larry have you ever tested bullet indexing? On another thread I am having a hard time understanding how bullet indexing is beneficial? or what feature you would use to index to?

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?465183-Breech-seating-tool&p=5685758#post5685758

[Shopdog]

Keep notes on moulds,it will save some time later as you get more. Dosen't need to be a novel... jot down date,alloy,pot temp,and then weigh a cpl dz. It could be a year or two before using that mould again.... notes give a good head start.

Seems like every time I start weighing,they're so dang close that I get bored and stop. Will save you the long version but in my testing,base fill out is the key to a lot of issues. A VG sprue plate helps...

Good luck with your casting and shooting.

[Bob259]

Wow, thanks for all the input, I have a lot to learn but this will help immensely.

[Larry Gibson]

Larry have you ever tested bullet indexing? On another thread I am having a hard time understanding how bullet indexing is beneficial? or what feature you would use to index to?

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?465183-Breech-seating-tool&p=5685758#post5685758

Years ago when I was younger I gave it a try. Saw not benefit to it with turn bolts, either hand or gas.

[fredj338]

I dont weight sort pistol bullets but for my 44 mag bullets used for hunting loads out to 125-150y. I also weigh my 45-70 bullets used for any hunting. Small weight variations dont affect accuracy as much as base irregularities. The bullets i do weigh, mostly looking for a big diff that may indicate an internal void. So that is what i focus on during inspections.

[wv109323]

Using a tuned .45 acp target pistol with a Ransom Rest, i came to the following conclusion.
I cast 5-600 200 g. swc. I visually sorted and culled the obvious bad ones. I then picked out what I thought was the worst looking of the ones I had previously inspected.
I then Ransom Rested the worst vs. the best. There was no significant difference between the two groups. The best were like 1 3/4" vs. 2" at 50 yards for the worst which is acceptable to me.
The load was 4.2 g. Of Bullseye powder with a .469 taper crimp.
Now I just visually inspect and load.
BUT, this may not be the best solution for rifle boolits at longer ranges at higher velocities.

[405grain]

I've seen that there are two different camps when it comes to shooting cast bullets. For one group, if it goes bang that's good enough. For the other, getting the best accuracy and smallest group possible is one of the goals. It's all a matter of what you want to do with the ammo that you produce. For most shooters and hunters if the performance falls within their capabilities, and it gets the job done, that's more than good enough. For target shooters, and other people that are just plain nuts, getting the tiniest groups is an obsession.

Visual inspection will easily cull any obviously defective bullets from your batch. Weight sorting will further eliminate those bullets that are outside the average for that group, and uniformity is what the goal is here. For accuracy you want uniformity. You're not looking for the maximum velocity or the maximum penetration, or expansion, or weight, or anything like that. What you want for accurate bullets is sameness. You want to remove variability so that the only difference shot to shot is the skill of the shooter. You want bullets that are similar to each other. Where visual inspection can detect obvious flaws, weight sorting can detect the hidden ones.

On cast bullets where I want to shoot for accuracy I weight sort the bullets so that the "best" ones are within 1/4 grain plus, or 1/4 grain minus of whatever the average weight is for that batch. This gives me bullets that are all within 1/2 grain of each other. I'm not going to sort down to 0.1 grain because honestly I'm not that good of a shot, and that level of precision is wasted on me. I am overjoyed on those rare occasions when I'm able to shoot a 1" cast bullet group off the bench at 100 yards (and that's a rare occasion indeed) The bullets that pass visual inspection, but are out of weight spec. are used for plinking, general fun range shooting, and practicing offhand shooting.

I do not do any weight sorting on pistol bullets, as visual inspection is enough to separate the wheat from the chaff. Rarely would I ever make a pistol shot at over 50 yards, and visual sorted bullets do fine for the closer ranges usually fired at with pistols.

[Winger Ed.]

For target shooters, and other people that are just plain nuts, getting the tiniest groups is an obsession.

I've know several guys like that. For myself, I look at it as a challenge.

I'm happy with 2" or so groups at 100 yards with cast in .30-06.
And about 3-4" in with open sights on my .45-70 Marlin CB.
Shooting them is fun, and doesn't cost much more than something like .22LR CCI Stingers.

When I get in the mood to really see how good I can be, I'll get a box or two of Sierra Match King Hollow Points,
and tweak out a load for them.

[PopcornSutton]

I'm one of the obsessed with accuracy guys. I regularly compete in CBA benchrest. What counts is your score. To me, I don't care what "class" someone shoots in, the score is what counts. If you really want to chase accuracy, you need to start with an accurate gun, and test everything. AND, learn to tune your load. Some powders work better than others, powder charge, seating depth all make a difference. Fitment of bullet to throat is needed.

Visual and weight sorting is required. How far to sort with weight, I don't know. I aint the best caster by any means, to get enough bullets to shoot a match, so I try for +- .5 grain. What I worry over most, is the base. I think this is the most over looked, but very important aspect to an accurate bullet. Getting a gas check seated and sized perfectly square with the bullet axis, and the check surface flat and the same is not as easy as you might think. Some come out with a dish shape, some domed. When the bullet leaves the barrel with the pressure behind it, ANY variance is going to show up on paper, especially at 200 yards.

[dverna]

Lots of good advice.

People who weight sort pistol bullets are wasting their time from my testing. At 50 yards or less, it is pointless. Tested in a Ransom Rest.

I could not get rifle bullets to shoot well (consistent sub 2 MOA) even with weight sorting and I gave up. Lots of folk say they can do it. Some can average that over multiple groups...which is success IMO. A couple of good groups does not work for me.

I have weight sorted .22 cal pellets and at 50 yards the difference in groups was inconclusive. It was not worth the time for my needs.

Your needs and expectations are paramount. It does not take a lot of effort to see if weight sorting matters in your guns, with your loads, and your skills. 100 rounds will tell the tale.

If you decide to test, you will learn more from ten 5 shot groups, or five 10 shot groups. Do not let one or two groups fool you. If you use 3 shot groups, you are wasting resources and time.

[William Yanda]

Rifle or pistol, plinking or target, distance? Inquiring minds want to know.

[charlie b]

Don't hunt, just make holes in paper for fun. Don't shoot pistol much anymore either. My most common shooting distances are 300 and 500yd. Load development starts at 100yd, simply because wind is less a factor at that range. Real fun is shooting soda cans at 300yd (no I don't hit with every shot).

Getting cast bullets to shoot 'small' groups is frustrating to say the least. I don't recommend it unless you are ready to go down the rabbit hole.

[Larry Gibson]

BTW, I also do not weight sort all my cast rifle bullets. I only weight sort those cast bullets to be used for the best accuracy at 100 t0 600 yards. I shoot many cast bullets that are only selected visually having no defects. Same with Handgun bullets, visual inspection only. I've also learned over the years to quality cast instead of quantity cast. I end up with a whole lot less rejects that way and, in the long run, more bullets for the total time spent.

Day before yesterday it was a cold, windy and a bit rainy day so I cast about 750 NOE 30 XCBs. Those will be weight sorted as I'll use most of them in my M70 Match rifle and my 30x60 XCB.

[Bigslug]

Larry's bell curve represents my experience helping my department's rifle team get ready for a smallbore competition - I sorted their .22LR cartridges by weight and then again by rim thickness. You end up with a big batch in the middle and have your outlying extremes on either end.

As pertains to casting for Schuetzen level accuracy, I'd probably run a strip of masking tape along a tabletop, and write a section for 195 grains, 195.1 grains, 195.2, etc... That will let you see what kind of spread and concentrations you're dealing with. No sense doing that until you've made an initial visual culling.

From there, you could start looking at the extremes to find out WHY they're extremes: your first cull missed something, you have a wonky cavity in a multi-cavity mold, etc... with the goal of reducing the duds to begin with.

As long as you're getting a decent pile of good bullets in the middle weight categories, you might as well keep them segregated by those tenth grains in the ammo boxes when you load them so that your ammo is as consistent as possible within a given string on a given day.

If you keep a detailed "sniper's log book", you might actually start to see a difference. It's worth remembering, however, that the bigger the bullet, the smaller a percentage of the overall weight that tenth grain will be - on a 200 grain bullet, it's 0.05% - so it may be hard to see over 200 yards on a low velocity load.

[Bob259]

Larry's bell curve represents my experience helping my department's rifle team get ready for a smallbore competition - I sorted their .22LR cartridges by weight and then again by rim thickness. You end up with a big batch in the middle and have your outlying extremes on either end.

As pertains to casting for Schuetzen level accuracy, I'd probably run a strip of masking tape along a tabletop, and write a section for 195 grains, 195.1 grains, 195.2, etc... That will let you see what kind of spread and concentrations you're dealing with. No sense doing that until you've made an initial visual culling.

From there, you could start looking at the extremes to find out WHY they're extremes: your first cull missed something, you have a wonky cavity in a multi-cavity mold, etc... with the goal of reducing the duds to begin with.

As long as you're getting a decent pile of good bullets in the middle weight categories, you might as well keep them segregated by those tenth grains in the ammo boxes when you load them so that your ammo is as consistent as possible within a given string on a given day.

If you keep a detailed "sniper's log book", you might actually start to see a difference. It's worth remembering, however, that the bigger the bullet, the smaller a percentage of the overall weight that tenth grain will be - on a 200 grain bullet, it's 0.05% - so it may be hard to see over 200 yards on a low velocity load.

I have been doing that. I was also told to keep in order cast. When you start sorting by weight then add order cast on top of it 🤪

[Bigslug]

I have a hard time fathoming the notion of separating bullets by the order they were cast in. I can see setting aside the first pile cast if you decide you need to toss a lump of tin in the pot to quit fighting fillout issues, but if the alloy and temps haven't really changed, what would the order matter? and why would it matter more than the stuff you can actually measure?

[high standard 40]

I have a hard time fathoming the notion of separating bullets by the order they were cast in. I can see setting aside the first pile cast if you decide you need to toss a lump of tin in the pot to quit fighting fillout issues, but if the alloy and temps haven't really changed, what would the order matter? and why would it matter more than the stuff you can actually measure?

Agreed. I recently started casting the bullets I'll need for the coming competition season. I did it over a three day period. When I visually sorted I had only a small handful of culls. The remaining bullets weight sorted to +/- .25 grains

[charlie b]

Time after casting could be important if you have an alloy that changes hardness over time.

[fa38]

If I am shooting 200 yards at a Schuetzen match I will weight sort my bullets if I am shooting a bench match not that I shoot the bench matches very often as I do not have the patients to wait for a condition. So maybe weight sorting for bench rest shooting is a waste of time but I still do it. And I can shoot them offhand.
I am not sure anything I shoot (offhand) needs weighing as I am getting so bad at offhand maybe the big flyer will go into the center of the target.
Therefore, the top and bottom ends of the various weights get shot offhand and the middle is for bench shooting.
All my bullets go downrange. The bad ones get shot as fouling shots after waiting for the next relay. Sometimes there is 20 minutes between relays. And especially when I forget to stick a bullet into the rifling with my breech seating tool to keep the fouling from really drying out.