While experimenting with a new electronic scale I decided to see what freshly trimmed casings weighted. I noticed a surprising variation in the weight of empty brass. When target shooting how much consideration should I give to this factor? Can I compensate for brand differences or must each brand be handled in separate batches?

After this I will purchase cases by one manufacturer and in several 1000 round units, hopefully from the same production run, but there is no guarantee. Or is there a way to tell?

what range are you target shooting? Out to 500yds I dont do any sorting what so ever, I dont see that it makes that much of a difference. I do however, sort and turn the neckes of my 338 Edge so that they are all as even as possible. I shoot that gun out to 1200yds.

What sort of shooting are you gonna be doing?

My club range is limited to 200 yards.

Just sorting to keep brand or lot number the same would be sufficient for you.

quote:

Just sorting to keep brand or lot number the same would be sufficient for you

+1

Practicing your bench technique will do more for you than weighing cases. And learning to use wind flags of some sort.

Weighing brass is a waste of time.

Weight brass is a means of learning about brass.
I have 3 small lots of 45-70 W-W brass that came to me from different sources.

I was considering putting all of them into one lot and forming them into 40-65 brass for a BPCR rifle.

Lot#....QTY....Mean....High....Low....SD

1..........22....164.74....167.3....163.5.... .90
2..........30....165.20....166.7....164.3.... .58
3..........90....163.10....165.1....160.2.... 1.19

Any comments????

I will pose this question to you.
If you get a quantity of new rifle brass in a caliber commonly used in competition that is not in its original packaging what might you speculate about it?

quote:

Originally posted by SR4759:
Weight brass is a means of learning about brass.
I have 3 small lots of 45-70 W-W brass that came to me from different sources.

I was considering putting all of them into one lot and forming them into 40-65 brass for a BPCR rifle.

Lot#....QTY....Mean....High....Low....SD

1..........22....164.74....167.3....163.5.... .90
2..........30....165.20....166.7....164.3.... .58
3..........90....163.10....165.1....160.2.... 1.19

Any comments????

I will pose this question to you.
If you get a quantity of new rifle brass in a caliber commonly used in competition that is not in its original packaging what might you speculate about it?

There will be some exceptions as in your case.

I never mix headstamps. Having said that, I have weighed same headstamp brass and it is close enough for hunting ammo, to the degree that I have shot some one hole groups at 100 yes that are to close for me to measure (certainly not the norm).

I did it several times on new batches largely out of curiousity. It does make you stop a bit longer to notice things like bent mouths and oddly shaped primer holes. I took the few that were either lowest or highest and use them to set up adjustments on dies, trimmer, etc.

I don't think I'd spend the time again unless I got into competitive BR shooting.

.

Most brass you get today is close so the above comments are valid. However, I have had a few lots that had more than a five grain difference (enough that I pulled those) between the heaviest and lightest cases. For my usual hunting loads, I don't weigh cases. If I'm trying to find the best accuracy, I do weigh them.

quote:

If you get a quantity of new rifle brass in a caliber commonly used in competition that is not in its original packaging what might you speculate about it?

You may get a batch of cull brass.
By that I mean someone may have bought 500 cases and sorted by weight and took out the 300 best cases and thrown the highs and lows into the bag for resale. This gives you brass that is the worst extremes of the original lot.

I have about 700 rounds of .38, 250 rounds of .357. and 300 -400 rounds of .223, plus loads of .270 winchester magnum, .303, .308, .30 - 06 etc.

I plan to buy 1000 rounds of new .38 and 1000 rounds of .223, or multiples of these packages.

I just purchased a Ruger No. one in .223 and an RCBS Pro2000 auto indexed progressive press. My sone left the scales on our reloading bench so Iplayed with in for a few minutes.

Unless there is a serious reason to cull I will simple use the "old" brass by manufacturer and keep the new brass separate.

Thank you all for your input.

quote:

After this I will purchase cases by one manufacturer and in several 1000 round units, hopefully from the same production run, but there is no guarantee. Or is there a way to tell?

Yes, check the lot number.

As mentioned before, the order of consideration is generally:

Same brand
Same Lot number
Then weight sort.

Generally weight sorting will only make a difference in a benchrest quality rifle.
In a given lott of winchester brass, 80% is very close in weight, 15% is kind of close, and 5% are wild flyers.....sometimes I will quickly cull the 5%, and call it good.

I don't weigh cases but I do fire cull my brass. Say I order 100 new cases, I consider that a "unit" and I want to shoot them all before I get serious with any case prep. If during the 1x process, if I get a unexplained flyer that is well out, I toss it in the scrap bucket. After I've done my "rock and a rusty nail" case prep, as I load 'em up and shoot 'em, I mark any unexplained flyers. They get a second chance and if they fly on the second go, into the scrap bucket they go. This way I get to shoot more and the brass is winnowed based on it's ability to put a bullet in the bullseye.

beeman
Unless you examine the brass to determine cause of the flyer you don't really know if the case caused the problem. There are more things that cause flyers than just cases.

U r correct to a point. the key word is "unexplained" and also, don't forget that after the brass is prepped if it calves a flyer, it gets a second chance.

If I got a flyer with my target rifle the brass case went into the short range practice batch. Don't know if the brass was the cause of the problem, but it might have been, so it goes into the practice batch. Same with hunting ammo that might be used at long range. It's not like brass is made out of solid gold.

quote:

Originally posted by swampshooter:
If I got a flyer with my target rifle the brass case went into the short range practice batch. Don't know if the brass was the cause of the problem, but it might have been, so it goes into the practice batch. Same with hunting ammo that might be used at long range. It's not like brass is made out of solid gold.

True, but it is not the sole cause of flyers.
If your discard pile is large it may not be brass.

I bought 300 pieces of 270 Win once fired brass from a local supplier. It was all Federal brass. It had two different colored primers, some brass colored, some silver colored. I started by segregating by primer color.
Some had a red sealer around the primer, some a blue sealer. I then sorted by this sealer color. I ended up with about 34 of the brass primers with red sealer, 43 of the silver primers and red sealer. The rst was all the same. Blue sealer with brass primers.
I then full length resized them. Cleaned them up and sorted by weight.
About 100 weighed 201 grs, about 80 weighed 200 grs. about 20 202, the rest were under 198 grs with just a few over 202.
I then put them in 20 round boxes. I have 180 rnds at 200 and 201 grs. One box at 202. I figure that should keep me in brass for a long time.
The only reason I sorted then by weight was to just make me feel better.
Leo

Varying case weights generally translate in to different case volume, which basically shows up on the pressure end. Varying pressure can effect accuracy, but many things can affect pressure. Being as concentric as possible with components and what you do with them can make a difference in "ultimate accuracy"