Weighing bullets.

[Dusty Miller]

Last week I cast about 250 bullets and today decided to weigh a representative sample and see how they varied.  Out of 50 bullets eight weigh 239 gr., 31 weigh 240 gr., and 11 weigh 241 grains.  I was quite surprised by this, thinking there would be much more varience.  Maybe my casting technique was really clicking that day, I just don't know.  Has anybody else here weighed bullets?  What were your results?

[rbwillnj]

I weigh my target (Bullseye) bullets, and I keep the ones that are +/- one grain for a 200 grain bullet.   I do get rejects, so I'd say you had a good run.

[Graybeard]

Long years ago when my best friend Billy Doss was still alive and we were doing a lot of competition shooting of silhouettes we'd get together at my house and cast bullets to shoot. He absoluted hated to cast bullets and didn't like loading all that much more but accepted it as a necessity to shoot. But once we had a bullet cast he was loath to not use it. I on the other hand wanted to remelt all that didn't look visually perfect and then even those I wanted to weight to be sure they were consitent in weight.

So Billy asked me to perform an experiement. I set aside three groups of bullets from out last casting session. One group was visually perfect and all within a grain or two of each other. The next group were visually perfect but failed to weight within the above sample. Some of these must have had voids in them as they weighted several grains light and for some reason some were several grains heavier. The last group were the culls on visual examination. They had gouges in the base where we failed to wait long enough before cutting the sprue and took out a chunk and some with failure to completely fill out at base and/or the driving bands. Some had wrinckes and obvious voids. They looked pretty pitiful.

The bullets were from a Lyman 429244GC mould and we were shooting them in .44 magnum TCs with 14" barrels at the time. I loaded them up over our preferred charge of 17.0 grains of 2400. All loads were identical except for the three groupings of bullets used.

I then fired them at 25 and 50 yards for accuracy. Would you believe the best groups at both ranges came from the reject bullets? Yup sure enough did. The groups weren't significantly better but the group average of them was clearly the best of the entire lot. The visually perfect and same weight bullets were next by a small margin with the visually perfect but off weight ones last barely.

From that point on if we cast it Billy claimed it. If I didn't want to use it he did. No more went back into the pot to be cast again. He continued to shoot as well as always and won as many matches as I did and at that time one of us won most of the local matches that we shot in.

I still for the most part toss back those I don't like the looks of but I've pretty much stopped weighting bullets.

Years later I did a similar experiment with real heavies for the .45-70 fired in a Browning Hi Wall BPCR and got the same kinda results. The ugly ones shot as well as the best. Hard to believe but I've done the experiment twice with two different bullets and two different guns and it just don't seem to help to weight them.

[VTDW]

Bill,

Your post has helped me decide sir!!!  I will quit being so darned anal about this stuff...seriously and NBS.

Dave

[Lloyd Smale]

ive done alot of testing myself and have found that it takes a really bad bullet to cause any deterioration of accuracy under 50 yards. Like maybe one with its nose missing

Long years ago when my best friend Billy Doss was still alive and we were doing a lot of competition shooting of silhouettes we'd get together at my house and cast bullets to shoot. He absoluted hated to cast bullets and didn't like loading all that much more but accepted it as a necessity to shoot. But once we had a bullet cast he was loath to not use it. I on the other hand wanted to remelt all that didn't look visually perfect and then even those I wanted to weight to be sure they were consitent in weight.

So Billy asked me to perform an experiement. I set aside three groups of bullets from out last casting session. One group was visually perfect and all within a grain or two of each other. The next group were visually perfect but failed to weight within the above sample. Some of these must have had voids in them as they weighted several grains light and for some reason some were several grains heavier. The last group were the culls on visual examination. They had gouges in the base where we failed to wait long enough before cutting the sprue and took out a chunk and some with failure to completely fill out at base and/or the driving bands. Some had wrinckes and obvious voids. They looked pretty pitiful.

The bullets were from a Lyman 429244GC mould and we were shooting them in .44 magnum TCs with 14" barrels at the time. I loaded them up over our preferred charge of 17.0 grains of 2400. All loads were identical except for the three groupings of bullets used.

I then fired them at 25 and 50 yards for accuracy. Would you believe the best groups at both ranges came from the reject bullets? Yup sure enough did. The groups weren't significantly better but the group average of them was clearly the best of the entire lot. The visually perfect and same weight bullets were next by a small margin with the visually perfect but off weight ones last barely.

From that point on if we cast it Billy claimed it. If I didn't want to use it he did. No more went back into the pot to be cast again. He continued to shoot as well as always and won as many matches as I did and at that time one of us won most of the local matches that we shot in.

I still for the most part toss back those I don't like the looks of but I've pretty much stopped weighting bullets.

Years later I did a similar experiment with real heavies for the .45-70 fired in a Browning Hi Wall BPCR and got the same kinda results. The ugly ones shot as well as the best. Hard to believe but I've done the experiment twice with two different bullets and two different guns and it just don't seem to help to weight them.

[Dusty Miller]

Well, I think my reloading just got a bit easier!  Thanks guys. 

[jgalar]

Well I feel better now. I haven't found visibly imperfect bullets to give any worse groups than those that looked perfect. Weighing didn't make much difference either. To hear some people talk you have to have perfect looking and weighted bullets or they just won't shoot. I figure thats what rifling is for - to make imperfect bullets fly straight. I can come out of the casting closet now

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

I've weighed bullets.  I thought I noticed some difference when the bullets were sorted.  But I also noticed that when I would pour an entire ladle over each cavity the weight variation drastically narrowed.  So I just used that to govern my casting technique and I don't weigh bullets often.

I've also read as many articles/posts by people with as much experience as Graybeard who have claimed sorting bullets makes a big diff.

I've owned some guns that were extremely particular about loads, and others seemed like you could load with rocks and they'd still drive 'em in the same hole.

[Awf Hand]

Shooting benchrest Schuetzen at 200yards, I disagree that sorting doesn't make a difference.  Those that do, win.  Those that don't, don't win.  Mine are sorted into 0.2gr increments, and, having tried the same experiment as GB, benefit from this sorting.

Someone mentioned that at 50yds or less that sorting doesn't make a difference..?  I agree with that, but for long range it is just one more variable that you can take out of your "system".  If you're looking to chew bits off of your longer range BR group, brass prep and bullet sorting are the cheapest ways to make your ammo consistent.  -FOR BULLSEYE SHOOTING with my 38, I never bothered and never will.

"...for some reason some were several grains heavier..."  I had a theory on this and I was able to verify it using my lathe.  The mould blocks were not closed tightly and resulted in an out-of-round bullet which was overweight.

[Lead pot]

I found an ugly bullet will shoot an ugly pattern let alone a group.
At 25 yards or 50 even you can just about take a hunk of lead and shape it with a hammer so it fits the case and and it will hit close at those ranges

Kurt

[rbwillnj]

When I first got my Ransom rest and tested the standard load I had been shooting for years, I found I was getting a 3" group at 25 yards with my Kimber.   My standard load was 4.0 grains of Bullseye with a 200 grain commercial cast bullet, and what ever brass I picked out of the brass bucket.   I did extensive testing.  Different bullets, Different powders, Sorted Brass, Weighed and sorted Bullets etc.   After all this testing, I got to a 1" group at 25 yards.  My load was 4.0 grains of Bullseye with a 200 grain cast bullet, but with either all Federal, or all Winchester Brass.  All of the brass trimmed to the same length, and all of the bullets weighed to +/- 1 grain.   

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

After thinking about this a bit, I suppose the difference could depend on a combination of variables, weight only being one variable.

If two bullets cast from the same material weight differently it's because one bullet is either missing some mass or the other bullet has extra mass.  A small void that is off center of the axis of spin could throw a bullet way off.  Whereas the same void placed closer to the center might not have any effect at all.

I'm sure sectional density and/or ballistic coefficient play in too.  Just like some boats are inherently stable while others will tip the moment a dragonfly lands on the gun'l. I'm sure some bullets are stable while others are quite finicky. 

[Lead pot]

BJJ

One thing for sure you cant compress lead that don't have voids in the core some place with the swage pressers we work with, you can only displace it.
Casting bullets you can get variances by temperature fluctuation, alloy separating, lead does not absorb the tin the tin bonds to the lead molecule, sort of a difference like a mixture instead of a compound.
A cast bullet will drop out of a mould 4/10 grain from the light end to the heave end for the bullets I cast. If they vary more I let the temperature of the alloy or the mould get away from me or I changed the way I make the pour by holding the ladle on the plate to long or not at all. That will change the weight of a 540 grain bullet by as much as 1 or 1-1/2 grains.
If you cast a bullet that varies 2 grains you have a bullet that is not filled properly or there is a void in it.
Use a high powered magnifying glass some times and look it over. The lube groover are not filled were you might have rounded or edges uneven or the base is not sharp.
Now when these bullets leave the barrel from my .40/70SS at 1400 fps with a 16 twist that bullet is spinning at 63,000 rpm's
Now if you are missing just a little fill on one side of that bullet that thing will do all kinds of goofy things going down range.
You will see it more so at longer ranges past 100 yds then at pistol ranges of 25-50 yds.

Kurt

[Drilling Man]

  I've cast many thousands of bullets over the years, 99% of them pistol bullets.  Of those, probable 60% or more were 44 cal. bullets.

  I think those of us that have been casting for many years have learned that being consistant is what it's all about.  I've cast huge amounts of bullets useing a 44-250 KT mould as that was the bullet i used for all of my hunting and competition in years past.  (and still use for hunting)

  I went through a phase of weighing cast pistol bullets, but after a while from useing the rejects for practise i realized my scores were just as good or better than the weighed ones that i used in matches. (long range sillhouettes) So, i quit worrying about it and concentraded on my shooting.

  I did made sure i culled the "first" bullets out of the mould, untill it was up to operateing temp....  And that they all came from the "same lot" of lead ingots that i make up.  Also that they "visually" look good as i sized them, and  "felt" the same going through the luber/sizer.

  When you cast & load as many as it takes to use them in competition, you get so you can "feel" if something isn't right, and you pick up on it right away.  You will too, as you cast more and more...

  DM