Weighing brass.

[Lead pot]

Hi Marsh>
I dont weigh the brass it self,but I do weigh the inside volume.I fill the case with graphide,tap it 5 times on something solid, top it off again and scrape it off flush and weigh it.
The reason I do this is to get even compresion on my powder.
Marsh that lube you asked about a while back did'nt work any better tham Emmerts,but this stuff out of the original Sharps Rifle manual is verry good.It shrunk my groupe 3/4"by average over anything else I have used.And the fouling stayes moist with a few blowes on the tube.One pass with a dry patch the bore is clean.

Make smoke Marsh,  Lp.

[Coydog C.]

Marsh,


      I do weigh and segregate my brass in either 50 or 100 round lots.  Keep in mind that I’m usually dealing with 250-500 piece lots per rifle. My reasoning is that if the external dimensions are the same, and the weight varies, then the internal dimensions must be different. This must have some effect on pressure, thus velocity.

    Now, I’ll be the first to admit, that seeing this difference in weighed VS un-weighed brass on paper or a target is hard to do. The benefits, may indeed be minimal, but since confidence is a factor of shooting well, I consider weighing my brass time well spent. With an electronic scale it only takes a few minutes to do an entire lot anyway and I consider it part of my normal brass prep routine.

  I then index my brass using a clock method to keep my brass lots identified, orient my case when sizing, bullet during seating, and finally my cartridge during firing.

IE: 45 2.4" LOT A,  201.3-202.1,  12:00  (index mark position)

The index marks (and lots) also give me a way to track brass usage, trimming and annealing.

Some of the brass I’ve worked with has been extremely consistent to the point that weighing really IS pointless. I’ve had a couple batches of Starline 45 2.4” that’s only had a variance of 2.4 grains total for 250 pieces which equals a 1.1% variance. I still weigh it though, because I’m going to use the “lot method” to track other stuff, so weighing is a reasonable way to segregate it as any other.

Hope this helps,

    Chuck

[EDG]

Here is some minutia offered for thought.

My Machinery's Handbook lists the specific gravity of 70/30 cartridge brass at 8.44 or 8.44 times that of water.  In a recently published list of the density of 108 powders the average density is 12.6 grains per CC. (This list was published in Guns & Ammo - FWIW.)
Water is 15.42 grains (1 gram for a specific gravity of 1) per CC.
A gram converts to 15.42 grains.  So the brass is 8.44 X 15.42 = 130 grains per CC or about 10 times a heavy as the average powder.   Thus if you are concerned about your powder charge being accurate to ±.1 grain the equivalent volume of brass would be ± 1.0 grain. If you let the powder charge vary by ±.3 of a grain the equivalent volume of brass would be ± 3.0 grains. I mention this to give some perspective to loading carefully weighed charges into brass that might vary 10 grains. Same applies to letting your powder charge vary ± .5 grain using cases that are weight matched to ±.5 grain.  

Ed

[monkeyboy]

Keep in mind that Coydog indexes his primers! Monkeyboy.

[Coydog C.]

Bwaaaahaaaaa!

So my old nemesis "Monkeyboy" has found me again! Just goes to show you that they’ll let anybody, or anything into this site!


BAD MONKEY! BAD MONKEY!



So, who left your cage door open this time?




BTW, I’m working up a LR load for Alliance this week. I’ll let you know what I think after testing this weekend.

Chuck

[Horsefeathers]

Weighing all components Helps. I loaded 45/70 rounds with 4759 smokeless powder. 50 yards old er Italian Sharps from Sile. Sread out group with assorted brass, unweighed bullets and powder thrown from measure. WeighedBullets and brass got tighter stringed out group all close together. But With weighed bullets,and brass and powderowder got one ragged hole all touching. Im convinced.  For black powder weight of powder shouldnt be that criticle. Horsefeathers.