I have just finished prepping 200 once fired cases and weighing them. Now that I have them weighed and the weight of each cases is taped to the case how do I sort? Thanks.

C-ROY

C-ROY,
I'm not sure if this is the best way, but it is the way I do it. I happen to like the fifty round ammo boxes for hunting ammo and the 100 round boxes for varmint ammo. Decide how many rounds you want, then select that number of rounds that are the closest in weight. I like to have all cases weigh within 1 grain. If possible, within half a grain. It is expensive, but I think it's worth it. Good luck.

[ 02-20-2003, 13:34: Message edited by: BigBob ]

I'm assuming you weighed the cases for accuracy reasons. At this point, I'd find the average weight of your cases, go +/- .2 grn., set your scale to the higher weight and weed out all your heavy cases. Then, with the remaining cases, set your scale to the lowest setting, and weed out all the light cases.

In other words: if your average is 209.3 grns, set your scale to 209.5. Anything over that (weighing heavy) set aside. Then set your scale for 209.1. Anything lighter, set aside.This will give you a good collection of cases that will have the same capacity.

Don't forget to weigh your bullets!

Chris~
There was an interesting thread here in the last couple of weeks about weighing cases and sorting. May have had something to do with concentricity also, but there were lots of ideas in that one.

One point I made was that I recently had a batch of brass with wide disparity in weight. I opted to check the brass for water capacity and found the disparity for it was not very much. I therefore used all the cases, some with as much as 10g variance and was able to shoot pretty good groups with them.

For hunting ammo I used to use a difference of �.5g in larger cases. Following that experience I'm rethinking my culling process and considering �1g. I'm really not sure any of that makes all that much difference any more but I continue to do it compulsively and because "everybody says you should".

The benchrest shooters cull down to the tenth of a grain for their brass.

I try to hold mine to a 1% of average weight variance. IE; if the avg wgt of 10 cases is 180 gr I sort them with a spread of .9gr below and above the mean (179.1 - 180.9gr). This seems to give me about a 80% + rate of good cases and the rest I use for practice or fouling rounds.

weighing once fired cases is a waste of time, IF they are not 100% clean inside. Cant get an accurate reading.

Kinda reminds me of something I tried when I first started reloading/shooting. Wanting to get the very best accuracy possible, I made up a set of flash hole gauges by grinding/sanding down nails to .001" increments to measure and sort my .222 cases flash holes.

Wow, what a difference this made in a factory Savage 340 (only gun I could afford) which shot at best 3/4"!!!!!!!

Oh well, at least I could say I did everything on my part!

I quit weighing some time ago. It didn't improve anything for me. What I did find was that I would shoot and clean, 1 round at a time at the same target and then I grouped the cases by which bullets landed closest together. This gave me much better results, but was too much of a pain in the ass. I just shoot now and play with things that are easier to deal with like brass length and OAL.

Brass length has made a bigger difference than anything else I have played with. With the same OAL, the brass langth between minimum trim length and max length has a greater effect on accuracy than I would have imagined. But then it does deal with bullet pull so it should.

This sounds like another summer project! If anyone is interested I have enough "sorted" brass and bullets to do a comparison shoot with. How about 5 shot strings - one group with weighed cases and bullets; the other standard components. Everything else will remain consistent: oal(col), powder weight, primer, trim length of case.

I'm willing to bet the results will solve no arguements - I mean disagreements.

I second Tom Holland. If your not filling the rest of the accuracy formula, it is not going to make much of a difference. I mean, you could have the best ammo that hands could make, and one small flaw in the crown of your rifle....You get the picture.

JAG

Hear, Hear!