Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Perfect Bullets

I recently cast some 244 gr. 35 caliber bullets and some 30 caliber bullets from a couple Saeco moulds. Visually, I sorted these and ended up with about 50% culls. Weighing plus and minus .3 grain I lost another 40-50% due to weight variations beyond my .3 grains. All the writers say to keep only "perfect" bullets and we all know that perfect is in the eye of the beholder. Do you guys think I am being too particular? If I kept only absolutely "perfect" bullets I would have only a handful after 3 or so hours of casting. How is your net result of good bullets after you cull out the less than perfect ones?

Rolly I don't know if you are being too picky or not. To what use are the bullets going to be put? Just shoot em ups/ plinking, hunting, target matches for money, rifle familiraziation?
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<br>I will say you are a lot more picky than I am. If the base is good and the lube groves are filled out and the weight is within a grain +/- I just shoot them and am happy especially on bullets 30 cal and larger. But then I just use lead for cheap practice and fun.
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<br>BCR

Rolly: I'm with Boggy on this one. My rejection rate is more like 3% and the bulk of those come from the first dozen casts. When I cast I usually spend a day at it and make about a thousand bullets. As I'm adding metal to the pot throughout the day I keep each batch separated as the weight may vary a bit if the added metal is not quite the same as the previous batch. So I may end up with five groups of bullets which are slightly different in weight between the groups but the weights within each group are very similar. In the 45/70 I can't detect a difference in accuracy caused by a 1 or 2 grain bullet weight difference. The cast weight of my 45 bullets can vary by as much as 10 grains depending on the alloy so sorting by the batch keeps them together. The point of impact on the target does not vary appreciably that I can discern provided the powder charge is the same regardless of the weight variations of the lots.
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<br>I cast my 30 cal bullets the same way but I usually weigh each bullet before sizing and lubing and they in turn are sorted into lots of near identical weights. Only bullets which do not fit into an established group are rejected as they usually have a more serious problem such as an internal void. The criteria I use is to weigh a bullet ; if the next bullet is within 1 grain +/- it joins it. If the third bullet was 2 grains lighter a new pile is started and bullets that weight or up to 2 grains lighter than the third bullet joins it and so on. For plinking , hunting and informal target practice it's still probably overkill but it makes me feel warm and cosy having done it. For match purposes, if you are involved in that discipline, I would set a standard as weight to keep for that purpose and use the balance for informal purposes.
<br>besto.
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You are the onliest one who can determine how picky you are. I'm sitting here at my desk at work looking a boolit I cast over the weekend - 358009 Improved from a David Mos custom mould. This boolit is perfect, or so it would seem. For my most demanding jobs I weigh my boolits, looking for the light ones, those with air bubbles and voids that cannot be seen. Now, if I cull anything outside a grain leeway for a 180 gr 30 cal that would be about one half of one percent (let's say the boolit weight is 200 grains). Then at three hundred grains (280 for this big honkin' 35 cal boolit) I should go 1.5 grains. Actually, one percent is better, 2.8 grains or +/- 1.4 of norm. as long as the light ones are segregated out. At 180 grains, a 1.8 spread should be okay. Normally you should get a bell curve when weighing a run of boolits. Find the peak and back out of it some number, say 1 percent and cull the light stuff for plinking, barrel warmers, etc. Well, it works for me anyway. Any excessively heavy could be culled also. I won a mil bolt match two weeks ago with boolits culled in the manner. My procedure of culling the light ones and visually imperfect has reduced the unexplained flyer to virtually zero. sundog