[quote=butchlambert1]Real competitors quit measuring rims in the olden days. [/quote
Perhaps that is so, but I'm not a competitive shooter.
I was looking for a way to squeeze better performance out of a pile of Aguila SE Subsonic ammo that had a propensity for fliers, so I bought a Bald Eagle rim thickness gauge. There were reports that people using the Bald Eagle rim thickness gauge to sort their ammo were claiming up to a 30% improvement in their group size.
Measuring the rims and segregating the ammo by rim thickness did improve the performance, by eliminating fliers, but so did sorting it by weight and sorting it by rim thickness and then sub-sorting that group by weight. When sorted by rim thickness, the Aguila fell into 8 different groups that showed a normal curve distribution, with the majority falling into 2 groups. In addition to the 3K rounds of Aguila SE subsonic, I measured the rim thickness and sorted 100 rounds each of several other brands and styles of 22 LR ammo ranging from the least expensive Federal to Eley Tenex. The Federal sorted into 4 different groups with the majority falling into 1 group and the other inexpensive ammo from Peters and Remington falling into 2 or 3 groups. The mid-grade Eley and RWS and the high grade Eley only had 1 rim thickness.
After doing all that work, I decided that except for plinking ammo, I'd rather pay a little more for mid-grade Eley or RWS and tossed the rim thickness gauge into a box that is probably sitting on a dusty shelf somewhere in the storage unit.
