Do any of you guys weight sort your bullets before you shoot them? If so, what is the normal grain (weight) variance you guys get. I ask because after talking to my buddy, i cast some 140ish grain HP's today and wanted to check the weights of each bullet to see how much variance i got. I also want to see if in the near future if it affects accuracy. Now, normally i do not weight sort any projectile that i shoot especially cast bullets cause its simply too time consuming between casting, then sizing, then weighing and organizing into baggies, and i seem to get decent accuracy as is. But here is what i got tonight and i know that weight will vary depending on what you put in the pot and i know that you have to stir the molten lead often as HARDER lead sinks to the bottom of the pot is not stirred often.

My bullets weighed from 146.6 grains up to 148.3 with the VAST MAJORITY going into the 147 grain weight category. So what i did was to seperate them into 3 weight categories, anything in the 146'ish weight, then 147'ish weight and finally anything in the 148'ish range. ROUGHLY (CAUSE I DID NOT COUNT THE TOTAL BULLETS) 90% went into the 147 grain bag and 4% into the 146 grain bag and 6% into the 148 grain bag. Basically any bullet in the 146.1-9 gr weight went into 1 bag, and any 147.1-9 gr weight went into its own bag and so forth and so on.

In your experience, do my variances seem NORMAL or are they HORRIBLE or are they EXTRAORDINARY? I would really like to know.

I'd say your variences are pretty darn good. I'm assuming these slugs are all #1 grade and you tossed the #2s back in the pot. If you tossed out all the 147.1s and 147.9s from the big bag, you'd have what we call match grade. It was a pretty arbitrary figure but we settled on plus or minus .3gr for the 30cal class as match grade. If you compare that variation to what you see in factory pellets, you'll see as a percentage of weight, our standards are very tight.

I don't recommend the match grade as the slugs we sell are all #1 and come out pretty uniform as it is and cutting a very tight variation to a super tight variation probably is not justified given the cost. Of course, if someone pays us to weigh every slug, they don't have to!

Hello Cedric,

If you want to do better than shoot thru the same hole at 100 yards, you are going to have to clean up your act Bro!

No - I don't sort by weight. As Jerry pointed out, your eye is going to tell you if it was a good cast. If it's clean and crisp. If the mold didn't close right, then there will be indications - flashing around the parting line being the most obvious.

The biggest variable in shooting is going to be the shooter's technique. Seems like you have that down pretty well. I'd sort as I size the slugs. You can "feel" how the slug passes thru the sizing die. Tight, loose, ... normal. You might sort those three piles. You will find, that the degree of compression a slug had to take to become the correct size, will effect the flight. You can shoot slugs of the same size ... some were very tight in the die, some very loose. Same size ... but I guess the density will have changed.

Gary

The other quick rejection criteria during casting (that allows the remaining slugs to be consistent) is a smooth base. Just a hint of a pock mark on the base (or nose for nose pour molds) is cause for rejection. What looks like a tiny little pin prick in the base is usually the tip of a void that causes imbalance and weight variation. I'd much rather shoot a wrinkled slug than one with a tiny void in the base.

Ahhhhhhh, just the GREAT info i expected from this forum. Thanx Jerry and GB. Jerry, i really liked the way you explained MATCH GRADE or what YOU call match grade. It makes total sense.

For some big bore bullets i kinda thought the numbers were good enough. There cant be more than 20 in the 146 gr weight class and 30 in the 148 gr weight class and over 100 and something in the 147 grain class. So im just gonna test them per bag. And GB your right, when i cast, i pay attention to so many things that i can JUST TELL that the bullets are coming out good. Guess cause i'm getting more and more experience everytime i cast. But those little things just say so much.

Jerry, your also right about the Factory pellets. I remember the first time i ever weight sorted pellets it was with some BEEMAN KODIAK MATCH. To my surprise, the standard Kodiak pellets had tighter weight variances. Go figure bro. Its funny that they can just label ANYTHING MATCH and folks eat it up. And to be honest, i've always only shot the PLAIN KODIAKS with hole in hole accuracy. I did not like the match Kodiaks and neither did my gun. They were all the 25 caliber Beeman Kodiaks.

Thanx a ton guys and when i get a chance to shoot my weight sorted bullets, i'll be sure to post results

STAY TUNED!!