Wind, mirage, coffee shakes, and muscle aches: factors on the practical shooting side of the equation that separate the men from the boys. I think what a lot of guys who addressed this thread were doing was thinking in purely theoretical terms. We humans at our shooting benches are hard pressed to emulate a machine rest in a test chamber 50-100 yards long, wherein lies the only plausible way to settle the arguments surrounding weight and rim thickness sorting. I feel these activities have merit, but can't prove or disprove that feeling since I have no access to laboratory test facilities.
Speaking to the practical applications of sorting, I doubt there's any except for a top notch competitor who's looking to shave a couple thousandth's off of group size to claim 1st place instead of 2nd or 3rd - and he's got you and me beat right out of the gate anyway because he's a past master of wind reading.
Sort of in the same vein: how many take the trouble to do chamber casts of their .22 rimfires, to determine throat diameter/length, leade angles, etc. which to a large extent are what makes a rifle "like" certain brands/lots of ammo. We assign a lot of mystery to the "liking thing", when in truth there's a lot of measurable features that determine it.
