Bullet Weight

[Danth]

Hello All: I've been swaging 40 S&W into 44mag bullets. I'm using CH 101 dies and making 240gr soft point and hollow point bullets. The weights vary plus or minus 5/10's. Is this to be expected, or should I be doing better? I swage each bullet twice, counting up to 5 before extracting. The excess lead tit is about 1/16th of an inch long. Your thoughts are appreciated. Best, Danth

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

The excess lead tit is about 1/16th of an inch long. Your thoughts are appreciated. Best, Danth

I think the die can be adjusted to eliminate "The excess lead tit"
depending on exactly what you mean by that ?
BT should advise you on that.

I'm pickier than most on final bullet weight,
I preweigh/sort the cores and cases into batches,
then I weigh them again to match a core to a case.
I like be within 0.5 grain plus or minus.
Jon

[klcarroll]

If when you say "plus or minus 5/10's", you mean plus or minus "half a grain"; .....Then I would say that you're doing MAGNIFICENTLY!!!

I would bet a week's pay that the .40 S&W brass you are using for jackets varies by that much! (.....And is the probable source of the variance!!!)

If you want a "Reality Check"; ......Grab a box of factory jacketed bullets and weigh each one!! .....And see how much THEY vary!!!

Kent

[buck1]

I dont even weigh mine. If they group tight, I am happy. If I were shooting long range, I would weaigh a few for that. But so far these are holding under 2" at 25yd and I shoot off hand mostly. I wanted these for hunting. I hope the rabbits are out tomorrow!....Buck

[Danth]

Klcarroll, you are right. I weighed the jackets, and the variance was the same: plus or minus 5/10 of a grain. I used to part off the rim and trim to length, but now am leaving the rim, and they shoot just fine. Wonder if anyone has done any testing to determine how much weight differential makes a serious difference in accuracy. I'm shooting these in a Ruger carbine and now need to work on load development. Danth

[Ickisrulz]

On Dave Corbin's wedsite somewhere he says that 5-10% (if I remember correctly) of the overall bullet weight would not be noticiable except maybe to benchrest shooters. On my first attempt at swaging I found the cores I cut from lead wire varied greatly. So much in fact that the height of the bullets varied and would have effected seating depth. To fix this I separated them by weight using a digital scale and loaded them in batches. Now, I check each core while seating and bleeding off excess lead with the scale. If needed, I put them back into the core seater and bleed off a little more lead. I'm thinking a core mould would help me achieve more consistant cores while at the same time using cheaper lead.