Holy balance beam

[XWrench3]

I WAS QUITE SUPRISED LAST NIGHT. I HAVE BEEN CASTING FOR BETTER THAN A YEAR NOW, AND I HAVE ALWAYS JUST LOADED THEM, AND SHOT. NEVER WEIGHED THEM, MOSTLY BECAUSE THEY HAVE ALL BEEN LOW PRESSURE PRACTICE ROUNDS. WELL, I DECIDED TO MAKE SOME ACTUAL HUNTING LOADS, FOR MY 44 MAG PISTOL, AND MY 45/70 RIFLE USING SOFT LEAD W. GAS CHECKS. I WENT ABOUT LIKE USUAL, THEN IT HIT ME AFTER MAKING 10 ROUNDS, STRAIGHT LEAD SHOULD BE HEAVIER THAN AN ALLOY, AND SINCE I WAS GOING TO LOAD THESE PRETTY WARM, I HAD BETTER CHECK THE WEIGHT, SO I DIDN'T GET INTO TROUBLE. I WAS REALLY SUPRISED HOW MUCH MORE THEY WEIGHED THAN WHAT I THOUGHT. AND, THERE WAS A LOT MORE VARIENCE IN THE WEIGHT THAN I WOULD HAVE EVER THOUGH POSSIBLE. MOST FELL INTO A 2 GRAIN MEDIUM. BUT THE EXTREEM SPREAD WAS OVER 10 GRAINS ON THE 45/70, AND 8 GRAINS ON THE 44. I HATE TEARING DOWN AMMO, :groner::killingpc BUT THIS COULD GET REAL UGLY, SO I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE A CHANCE. AT LEAST I THOUGHT OF IT BEFORE I GOT 50 OF THEM LOADED,

[x101airborne]

If you are happy with the groups, why weigh? As for hunting rounds, weigh a batch, select the most consistent 20 or so, and keep those just for hunting. Still load the rest for practice / varmints. i have not had a boolit yet I can definately say i did not pull off and the "oversize" group" wasn't my fault.

[44man]

They are not bullets, they are boolits so just shoot them.
10 gr is NOTHING!

[scrapcan]

weigh some of your commercial jacketed bullets to see what happens.

Also 10 gr on 405 grain bullets is only 2.5% variance. if you had 10 grains on a 100 grain it may make a bigger difference.

I am also of the opinion that if you are happy with how it is doing on paper, it will do the same in the field.

What bothers me more are those who shoot their guns from a rock solid bench/gun cradle and then expect the same itty bitty groups when standing on their own two legs with ever testign what they can do while shooting under hunting conditions.

[fredj338]

For practice ammo, I just take the average wt, 10gr may or may not be "nothing" depending on your load. I do weigh my target rounds & hutning rounds, I reject anything much over 2gr variation. Something like 10gr could be internal voids, certainly not good for accuracy.

[44man]

For practice ammo, I just take the average wt, 10gr may or may not be "nothing" depending on your load. I do weigh my target rounds & hutning rounds, I reject anything much over 2gr variation. Something like 10gr could be internal voids, certainly not good for accuracy.
Could be a void in some, I was thinking his boolits were just heavier then the mold says. But temps could have done it too.
It sounded like the man was concerned about over weight with his load. Not much concern.

[stubert]

A ten grain spread on a 400 grain boolit is little over 1.2%. 400 grains minus 1.2% is 395.2 grains. 400 grains plus 1.2% is 404.8 grains. That gives a spread of 9.6 grains. Not enough to sort for me! A 1.2 grain variation is good in my books. If you cast a 180 grain for your 30. cal. would you cull them if they only weighed 177.8? I wouldn't.

[BCB]

Yep, as mentioned, the percentage of variance is small since they are heavy boolits...

I would definately shoot 'em...

Good-luck...BCB

(P.S. MIGHT TRY DISENGAGING THE "Caps Lock" KEY!)

[bigted]

wowww im a learning feller here. i put em back if i have a 2 or 3 gr diff in my 500's for my 458 boolits. same for the 400's. guess i need not be so picky huh?

[MtGun44]

In real life, measuring something much better than about 2% is uncommon and in many
fields, impossible. Expecting much less than 2% variation in any sort of normal item is
likely to result in dissappointment and frustration.

It is real easy to say you are going to hold some tolerance, but actually doing a lot better
than 2% usually takes some serious work. Not that it is impossible, but it can require quite
a lot of extra effort.

If you are worried about the variation, run this experiment. Pick out 5 of the heaviest and
5 of the lightest. Load each set and mark them. Shoot two groups during the same range
session and see if the POI changes. You will probably find that it doesn't shift any
meaningful amount at reasonable ranges. OTOH, if you are trying to shoot 500 yd targets,
you may NEED to have a lot better than 2% variation in all of your controllable variables to
be competitive because that extra effort is sometimes the difference between the best and
second place. For hunting, it is likely completely unimportant.

Bill