So do you weigh your cases pre case prep? Also what is an acceptiable varence in weight. (how do you sort them). How many cases do you buy at once? What about bullets do you sort them by the .1 of a grain? I have a batch of hornaday 350g round nose bullets (.45-70). I weighed a few of them the weight varence was 349.7, 349.8, 350, 350.1 and one that was 348.

Thanks.

I just try to use components from the same lot. That seems to be adequate to achieve sub-MOA.

I just try to use components from the same lot. That seems to be adequate to achieve sub-MOA.

Sounds like a plan to me.

ZAPZOO
I have always weighed bullets.I seperate each batch into 3 groups;light,medium and heayy.The main reason is to not put the heaviest bullet in the same batch of cartridges as the lightest one.While weighing,you may find one or two bullets that are far out of range with the rest.Mark them with 'magic marker'and consider them as second rate.
Lately,I've got into weighing cases.I grade these the same way.
Frank

To be consistent, you should only weigh the cases AFTER doing all the prep work (resizing, trimming, primer pocket and flashhole reaming, chamfering,etc).

The one grain +- on the bullets is something to cherish! Most boxes will vary several grains, especially those with exposed lead noses. You've got some keepers!

Dave Scovill has an interesting article in this month's Handloader magazine, where he has measured cast bullets for weight variance and statistical sampling methods. The gist of it is that you don't need to worry about a grain or two difference in them.

For general information, the density of cartridge brass is about 8.5 times that of water. Most rifle powder is more like 0.8 to 0.9 times that of water. The result is, it takes roughly 10 grains difference in case weight to create a volume difference equaly to about 1 grain of powder. So, if your cases weigh within 0.5 grain of each other, you probably can't see the difference downrange even in a benchrest gun. If, like some Winchester .308 brass I've got, you see 4 grains of difference from case to case, that is enough to change pressure 5000 PSI and velocity 50 fps loading Varget under the 175 grain Sierra MatchKings. Too much variance for match shooting.

For best accuracy at 600 yards (Service Rifle matches, not benchrest), I try to keep powder within 0.1 grains and cases within 1 grain of each other. The latter is after prep, as Kdub said. Prep for me includes sorting first by web concentricity and rejecting everything with more than 0.001" web runnout, uniforming trim length, primer pockets, and deburring flashholes, then, finally, sorting by weight into +/- 0.5 grain groups. Finally, I sort with a ball-end micrometer to match neck thickness.

You will need to choose your own practices and see by trial and error what what actually makes a difference in your gun and to your bullet and powder combination? For example, I mentioned that I deburr flashholes, but have found it only makes a difference I can see when shooting ball powders. If I am shooting Varget or other stick powders, I can't see any difference. I still do it just because I don't know whether I will recycle those cases to use a ball powder at some point in the future or not? I decided it can't hurt to process all my cases the same way. Lao Tzu said: "knowing constancy is insight" (circa 350 or 550 B.C.; not agreed upon). The only exceptions are Norma and Lapua brass I've bought that have no burrs in the first place. They also don't vary much in any regard, and I find I can leave them pretty much alone after trimming.

Nick

I agree with Nick about the Norma and Lapua brass. Though I mostly use Lapua because of price, Norma is just to ****ed expensive! I still like Winchester brass for my 45-70, as in the large calibers I don't weigh anything but the powder. I also like Sierra match bullets because I've weighed a box of 100 and all were within .1 gr. I don't know if this was a fluke but I was duely impressed!

Zapzoo, I figure you are looking for accuracy in your 45-70. First and foremost you are going in the right direction by wanting consistancy in your reloads. For straight walled cases I resize to minimum, I also trim the cases uniformly even if it means minimum length, this is to make sure you have a good crimp and the bullet is square to the case and leaves that way when fired. The rest of the stuff on weighing bullets, and cases the narrower the gap, the more consistant you will be. I've had good luck as far as accuracy is concerned with the 45-70 with 300 - 350gn bullets using RX7 powder with starting loads, 33gns for the 300gn bullets. When going for the most accuracy prepping cases I buy in lots of 500 cases, and weigh after trimming ect, and try to make sure I have a friend with the same cal to share the labors and brass. 45-70s are fairly easy on cases. If you get three different weights high, mid, and low with a variance of +- .5 gns you've done well and are very lucky.

Loading for accuracy leads to the question of what kind of accuracy. If your bench rest shooting and are trying to squeeze the last few thousandths of an inch out of your rifle/handloads then there's a bunch of steps to making the most accurate ammo you can.

If your target shooting and use a lot of ammo then your not going to need component control at as high a level as a bench rest shooter.

Handloading for the varmit/big game shooter whom wants the most accuracy from his game guns again does not need as high a component control as the target shooter.

Another question comes in here. Do you have equipment that will get the accuracy out of these high quality handloads? If the equipment your shooting is not capable of say 1/2 inch ten shot group accuracy at a hundred yards and only capable of 1.5 inch groups at that distance it won't matter how much care you put in reloading you can't beat the inherent accuracy of your equipment unless you upgrade that equipment.

How about letting us know what your shooting with and what kind of accuracy your getting now and what your expecting. This should give us a much better idea on how to help you.