Weight tolerance?

[rugerfan.64]

How close do y'all hold your weight tolerance? I cast 400 or so the other day and rejected probably 30% of them. I'd have runs where I'd get 90% acceptable,runs where I'd have 90% reject. All of the ones I accepted weighed 215.something, so I have a 1 gr. variable already built in. This was a 45 ACP,straight WW. I found how I filled the molds had a lot to do with the consistency of the weights. Any opinion would be welcomed.

[linoww]

i have shoot bullets that looked good but varied in weight 2-3g in a very accurate 30 caliber bench-rest rifle before.I marked them with pen and shot them into groups shot with "perfect" bullets.None went out much and most of the time they were in the groups.This was a gun capable of 1/2" at 100 yards.In an handgun,not a BR rifle and i wouldn't worry about it and let the target tell you if it matters.I have shot some pretty ugly 38 bullets that still shot 1.5" at 25 yards in a scoped k38.I am in the minority on not weight sorting bullets,but i have shot many matches with cast bullets unweighed(even 22's) and done pretty well.

[Lloyd Smale]

In a handgun anyway ive found that if they look decent they will probably shoot decent. Where you see a differnce even with a handgun and more so a rifle is when the range gets out past 200 yards. If i know im shooting long range i like to keep the weights to within 2 grains.

[bosephus]

 i quit weighing bullets long long long ago .

  i just make sure the ones i keep  are completly filled out and have nice sharp edges on the base ( most important ) and driving bands .
 i also take a few random samples as i am casting to check dia .

 

[Graybeard]

Interesting question so I'll tell you a story of a test I ran once many years ago back when I could actually shoot very well and seldom was out of the top three at any of the competitions I went to. Mostly me or my now deceased best friend Billy Doss would win and the other would be second but not always.

Billy and I cast bullets together from a four cavity Lyman 429244 GC mould. He hated to cull a bullet once we had put the effort into casting them no matter the appearance or weight so he asked me to run a test to see how much difference it made.

I sorted bullets into three groups. Group 1 looked perfect and were within three grains or so of each other. with our alloy they averaged 242 grains with check and lube. Group 2 were bullets that looked near perfect but had wider spread off weight often as much as 10-15 grain variation due to internal voids. Group 3 were bullets that would normally be visual rejects and had much wider weight spread.

Amazingly group three turned in the smallest groups in my accuracy testing. I was shooting six shot groups as best as I recall from my S&W 29 Silhouette with 10-5/8" barrel. I think I shot three groups with each of the three groups.

The difference was small less than an inch difference in accuracy but the worst bullets still shot better than the best. After that we didn't reject any of the bullets we cast. Billy gladly took them all and shot them. He racked up a lot of first place and second place finishes in silhouette matches we shot using them. I've been a lot less critical of what I keep versus what I reject since. If you're shooting at no more than 50 yards with no money riding on the outcome I'd not worry about it even if you have bullets five  or six grains over and under your median weight. We were shooting at 25, 50, 75 and 100 meters and those ugly reject bullets Billy shot still knocked those rams over at 100 meters.

[Lloyd Smale]

same thing here bill. I used to toss the bad ones back in the pot until my buddy chewed my but. He said he take all the rejects i could  supply him for the same reasons you found.

[Czech_too]

The only cast that I weigh are the .22 caliber ones.  I keep those that are + or - half a grain of the average weight.  My thinkin' is that any relatively large variation in a bullet that weighs, on average, say 35 grains, is going to reflect that variation a lot more downrange, than a bullet that weighs 150 grains.

[gypsyman]

I use to weigh out my silhouette bullets, and kept anything that was + or - about 1 gr., making a 2 gr. high or low. I did it I guess, more to make me feel better. Havn't shot silhouette in a few years, so most of my casting is done for .40 and .45, 20-50 yds. If it looks good, shoot it. gypsyman

[rugerfan.64]

Thanks y'all. I see my inventory increasing in the future. I probably can't shoot well enough to realize the weight consistency. Any thing under the size of a beer can is safe. Well unless its full,,,,,and coldddd.

[linoww]

There is another popular cast bullet sight that when the same question is asked it would be a 100 response lecture on the aspects of weight sorting and benefits.And if you dont sort you apparently don't have the skill or "understanding" of a true cast bullet connoisseur (according to that group anyhow)

i like this place--very practical--

[mechanic]

Unless they are badly deformed I use them.  I don't as a rule weigh them at all.  I am more concerned with size  than weight. 
 
Ben

[LAH]

I don't weigh my 357 bullets for some reason but I know not why. The bulk of my casting is for bullets in the 200-300 grain range. If these bullets are +or- 1% I'm more than happy & so are the customers. I have one mould from Redding/Saeco, a #68, with which I cast 40 pounds of bullets. These were spot on for about 20 weighed. When I say spot on they didn't vary over .1 grain with most the 20 well under that. These were cast with a batch of range lead. Those bullets are capable of perfect scores & are probably X-ring stuff.   But not to blow as all my bullets aren't like that.   For 99% of our shooting plus or minus 3% would probably work just fine.

[rugerfan.64]

Thanks for the input y'all. So far I've cast about 700 bullets, 45 , 357, a few 9mm. I got into this casting stuff via my brother, his equipment. I am really liking the results I get from casting. I've tried tumble lubing, and pan lubing. I've figured out how to pan lube the 45 hollow points withou getting wax all over the bullet so it doesn't clog up my seating die. I've saved myself a couple hundred $ in bullet costs so all is right with the world.