Ever weigh your loaded ammo and sort by weight to see if it has an effect on accuracy?

Yep. It's why I don't do it much anymore. Having a quality powder measure goes a long way in that regard though.

Bugger: Years ago (and did so for decades!) I used to weigh my brass and sort it by weight when new. Then I would simply sell the lighter brass in one lot and the heavier brass in another lot. Folks at the gunshow in the NW used to seek me out and buy my "seconds".
Back then I would buy my brass from Kesselrings Gun Shop near Bellingham, Washington they bought all manner of brass by the barrels full and sell them by the pound!
I would buy 200 or 300 brass at a time and then sort it keeping the middle 50% after weighing them and sell the rest.
I have since given up that practice.
Maybe my accuracy suffers a tiny bit nowadays but I am not a bench rest shooter I am a Varmint and Big Game Hunter.
I have never weighed my "loads" (it sounds like you are referring to loaded rounds?).
How about you - have you made a habit of weighing your loaded rounds?
It would be interesting to hear from someone who does.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I did that when I was climbing the HP classifacation ladder years ago. Loading 100 rounds for an 88, including sighters, round match. Found I was always short "good rounds" for the 600 slow fire stage, or had extras for the rapids etc. Finally just sorted brass by weight for the whole 100. Everything was more uniform..but I eventually found it a PITA..so droped the RP stuff and bought Lapua. No more sorting and weighing.
But having talked to some of the older Palma shooters, Boots Obermeyer was one I believe, where Military stuff was used, they sorted it by weight, looking for accuracy and consistency. They musta thought it worked.

If you are going to weight sort, sort the brass.

On a batch of 200 you will have a few extreme flyers you will want to cull, and rest just group by weight. It helps in top end rifles, and will eliminate some flyers.

Your time would be better spent checking round out consistency rather than weighingd loaded ammo

I used to weigh brass, polish the brass, trim the brass, anneal the brass, check for consistent neck thickness, ream the inside of the primer hole opening, weigh every powder charge with an electric trickler for getting exact weight etc. But that was when I was going for the last 'th of MOA. However, I don't play those shooting games I used too.

This last week, I loaded a couple hundred 17 Hornet ammo and didn't do due diligence weighing the power as I loaded - I did for a while and since it didn't change, I thought so I stopped weighing the powder regularly. I was loading 25 grain bullets and 11 grains of 1680 with Remington 9 1/2m primers with new Hornady brass. I happen to measure the last powder throw and it's rather embarrassing and concerning how much the charge had changed. It grew from 11 grains to 12.7 grains.

So, I weighed the loaded ammo. The loaded rounds went from 91 grains to almost 94 grains. To be certain, everything 92.9 grains and over will not be fired at the PD shoot this summer.I have the loads sorted. I'll be doing some checking before I go to far. I'm concerned.

I have an inertia bullet puller, which I assume is worthless with light bullets. I may sacrifice bullets.

I'm in the market for a better powder measure! At least one that handles small powder charges better. And I will be weighing every fifth round from now on, I will especially be more careful for reloading a small case like the 17 Hornet.


It has been thirty years since I did what I stated in the first paragraph and frankly I don't know how much the 17 Hornet Hornady brass varies in weight. I'm confident the primers and the bullets don't vary measurably in weight.

One more thing I think I will pull a bullet or two in each of the loaded ammo's weight range and weigh the powder charge. My understanding is that 1680 is heat sensitive and I don't need already overloaded ammo in a PD fire fight.

It's embarrassing to screw up this badly.

Did I mention, I'm in the market for a better powder measure! They stopped making the one I have long ago. I think Pacific bought out the company that built this powder measure.

Which powder measure do you use?

My FIL use to weight the brass and bullets. Cull the brass he felt was out of specs, and I dont know where or what the specs were. When loading, the powder loads would vary according to the weight of the bullet. For example, if the bullet weighed 99.9 gr instead of 100 gr, he would adjust the powder by a very small amount. He was always striving for that 5 shot 1 hole group at 100 yds, and he very nearly made it. You could cover up a 5 shot group with a dime at 200 yds. He could shoot and had the rifle to do so. I'm not nearly that good.

I use the Lyman 1200 DPS and have been very pleased with its performance.

Never have, never will...

Then look to Hornady as they bought out Pacific in the 70’s. They no longer support them, hell they don’t even support the measure I bought in 88.

I weigh every part of my loads and I separate them by weight. I load only components that match.

How many ended up being too heavy?




By all accounts, I use one of the cheapest measures you can buy. I have a couple RCBS Uniflows.


I will often weigh the 25th charge, but no sooner than that.


I have had the charge screw back out before, that caused an increase. I just make sure the stem is secure in the barrel and that the lock ring and spring washer are tight-ish.


I use a baffle and make sure there is always powder above it. I also try to run the lever in a consistent manner.

With the 1680 I load for the 17 Hornet, the charges are always right on..



I dont blame you for being cautions after your experience. With good technique and good equipment you will gain your confidence back.

I've not weighed a powder charge,on over 3 Decades and throw EVERYTHING.

Hint..............

Many handloaders weighste a lot of time.

If you're going to weigh anything, weigh the brass, and if really nitpicky, the bullets. But weighing an entire cartridge tells you nothing because you have no less than three variables not related to each other at all.
As for charges, again, weighing the entire cartridge might not work and tell you what you really have. If you have either a 20 or 22 collet puller, you can use a cut case neck from a 17 to make a "temporary" collet yanker.

Must have been a "fluffy" powder. I had "creep" like that a couple of times with pistol powders. It was a mild charge so the only consequence was some vertical stringing, so I just plinked with those messed-up loads.

Still, I didn't like what I'd done, so after dumping powder in the hopper, I always give the measure a few love taps on the side of the barrel, throw a quick, violent five into a cup, basically shake things down. And yep, keeping the baffle covered with powder helps be consistent. But once I've banged things around and settled, and I get the charge I want, I just concentrate on being as consistent as possible in the charging motion on the handle. If I blow a pull, I just dump that one and try again.

How did you manage that with AA1680? It meters like water and has always dropped within a tenth from a full powder measure to nearly empty, for me. Are you sure you didn't mess up the scale, or bump the powder measure adjustment? What powder dispenser were you using?

I can see that happening with a big flake powder like Blue Dot, or maybe a long stick powder like 3031, but with AA1680? In your shoes I'd have been suspicious about the measurements being wrong, either at the start or at the end.

Nicely done

I have not weighed the charges yet. About a third of the loaded cases are over 93 grains. About half are between 92 and 93 grains. The rest are under 92 grains.

I have never seen this happen before with any powder. 1680 looks to be a perfect powder for measuring, so I do not have a good explanation on how "I screwed up". It is unlikely it was the measure's fault. Probably a short on this side of the measure. Still this an old powder measure. And I no longer use an Herters "C" press and my old two beam scale is in the corner gathering dust.

Maybe it is time to buy another measure and maybe I can ignore where the fault really lays and justify a new one. - Back when I played golf, I saw a guy wrap his Ping no.7 iron around a tree and the fault of his 7 iron was about as likely as the fault of my measure.

Hard to say.


I did watch a guy chew out his dog once for drilling a post hole in the wrong place.

Ole Jake was supposed to be watchin!




Only time I have ever had something like what you describe happen was when the adjustment on the measure loosened up and started unscrewing.


What the hell......try a new measure!

No, I never have.

If I was inclined, I'd check the case weights empty and segregate before they were loaded.

I pulled bullets from a random sample of 25 of the heaviest loaded cases. the powder weight varied from 11.5 to 12.4 grains. Average =12.032 grains, SD = 0.197.grains

I'll be pulling all of the heaviest loaded cartridges. Then I'll pull a few of the next lighter batch. If it averages over 11.2 grains (or what criteria should it be?), they'll all get pulled.

The 25 primed cases: variance = 56.1 to 56.4 grains or .3 grains, average = 56.288 grains, sd= 0.097grains

I weigh all of my charges, but I don’t shoot that much.

I have weighed carefully prepped cases, bullets and powder charges. But, I don't see what weighing a loaded cartridge would tell you. A scientist would say that you were stacking your errors. A few tenths on the case, another few on the bullet, a little vacation on powder. I don't see that its going to tell you anything.

I've weighed 400 once fired and anally prepped brass for a 22-250 and 7mm Rm Mag keeping the 100 that were closest to average. Just about halved my group size in both instances. A one time deal, as I've not worn any of it out yet.

Actually, that would be a pretty good experiment, how much variation in case weight shows up on paper and group size. 1 grain? Two? Half percent? But I'm too darn lazy and not enough of a shot for verifiable results. Maybe a machine rest?
There was a time when I could hold in the upper threes most of the time off the bench or well-rested, but I'm so out of practice now I can't even rely on live group shooting to work up a load at the range.

Well the primed cases varied by .3 grains max. The bullets less than .1 grains so the major variable is the powder.

Since I’m concerned about an overcharge and going by loaded ammo weights the 1.7 grain variation (~15%) I saw in the powder. It seems to me that weighing the loaded ammo to check for an over-charge might be worth it, since I’m damaging the bullets by the method I’m using. I plan on not using any cartridge that >11.2 grains for powder weight. By taking the primed case weight which is known 56.3 grains, the bullet weight 20 grains and the powder weight 11 grains, I should be able to ensure safe loads, I’d think and be pretty sure no loads are above 11.2 grains (1.8% over charge) with almost all loads below that 1.8% overcharge.
Any loaded cartridge that weighs more than 87.3 grains gets the bullet pulled and the powder will be poured back into the measure.
I gotta agree about the powder measure must have moved it’s setting. There’s little other explanation.

If making sure they all weight the same is the goal, you're on the right track.

I'd be more likely to segregate them by weight and shoot them to prove one or more of the following.

It makes no difference in my ability to hit the target repeatably.
It makes a huge difference.
It's statistically insignificant.
The shooter is still the major variable.

If you throw each load in a scale and trickle to exactly what you want for each load, at least you'd save the time of seating a bullet, weighing, disassembly, neck size and re-throw the charge, re-seat a bullet and re-weigh the cartridge.

Good luck in proving something meaningful to yourself, that's all you need to do.

I've been reloading for 60 years and just last year I bought an RCBS Chargmaster light and the only thing I can say is that I have been in a a cave for 60 years. It makes things so much easier. Sorting brass is a snap.

I'll be buying one of those RCBS Chargemaster light. Thanks Remington6mm. (The 6mm Remington is and has been on of the best cartridges I've owned. My first rifle was a 7.9x57 Mauser that was re-barreled by my dad using a Sharon barrel. That rifle was a 1/4MOA with 5 shots with Sierra, Hornady, Remington and Speer bullets - IMR4350.)

The only reason for the work I'm going through in pulling bullets on over-charge is over-charge and damaging the brass. The accuracy issue is secondary. Thanks to all who replied.

I weigh powder charges only, and only on my big game loads.

.223 I tend to load in bulk, so I throw those. I’ll weight one in ten or so, just to keep myself honest.





P

Whether or not I weigh charges depends on the powder. I weighed thrown charges from my powder measure and found the variation was too great with cylindrical and flake powders so I weigh them. It is quite repeatable and reliable with spherical powders. This often goes into how I choose a powder for a particular application. It's no big deal to weigh RL15 charges for my .308 for deer hunting. It's a pain in the ass to weigh Varget charges for my .204, though.

Tom

My experience with throwing was a disaster using RL22. Looking for a charge of 94 grains and was getting variation of plus or minus 7 grains. Had to weigh all of them and still do. Granted I'm not shooting volume like a lot of you guys. When I set up my own bench, I dont even have a thrower. I just use the rcbs chargmaster 1500 I think. Digital scale connected to the dispenser. Its fast and accurate. I have to tweak some of the charges, but its quick and easy to get all my charges exact. I have weighed some cases before loading and culled some that were way out. Need to do more of that.

In addition, I'm surprised how many guys throw loads for rifle rounds. It obviously works for you. But when doing load development trying for the sweet spot, .3 grains makes a difference on a 100 grain load, and the loads I tried to throw were no where close to within .3 grains. Maybe it's all in the powder being used?? I only tried with stick powder.

I don't know which stick powders you tried, but I've successfully loaded very good 308 Win. ammo with thrown charges of IMR 3031 and 4064. I use a Redding BR-30 measure and actuate the lever slowly and firmly. No tapping or the like. I set the measure by weighing five or ten charges together and taking the average. With thrown charges of 3031 I've managed a couple of 1/2 MOA ten shot groups firing the ammo out of my Rem 40X.

If .3 grains makes a big difference near a 100 grain grain charge level then maybe that sweet spot isn't.

If you really have to weigh charges of RL15 for 308 deer loads then I think something isn't quite right.

Mathman,
Yeah, I was using borrowed gear. If I recall it was a plain rcbs powder dropper. Had a little dial that you screwed in. Wouldnt go as high as I needed, so I had to drop 2 per charge. Was reloader 22 if I recall correctly. I basically gave up on it right away and just weighed them all and got into that habit. Like I said too, when I set my own bench up, I dont even have a powder drop, just the rcbs charge master. And I am not shooting like a lot of guys on here. I have to drive at least a half hour to shoot, and if I want any good distance, its a 2 hour drive each way.
All good info, thats why I hang around the site. Try to learn from guys with more experience than me.

Functionally do you know what the differences are between that BR-30 measure and an RCBS Uniflow? I always though they basically worked the same way, but figured the BR-30 for tighter tolerances and better build quality. Is that correct or off base?

Most of my experience with 3031 and 4064 has been with the Uniflow, and I avoid using those powders because of it. I agree with your last line that .3 grains is a small enough variance to not matter in a good load, however, my experience with either of those powders is that thrown charges have varied by more than 1 full grain. That is in no way acceptable to me with something in the 308-30/06 capacity range, regardless of the load. Maybe it's my technique; I'd like to be able to get your .3gr max tolerance with 4064 for 308 175gr SMK loads.

I have heard about polishing the bottom cone (metal part) of the measure, and of course using a powder baffle. I haven't tried polishing the Uniflow yet though.

I don't know what the throw to throw variation really is.

Polishing up the inside of the Uniflow does help. I've always used a baffle in the Uniflow and the Redding. I prefer the "stroke direction sequence" of the Redding. I prefer the Redding "micrometer head" over the corresponding RCBS version. The BR-30 is sized for mid-size rifle cartridge charges, so maybe it's geometry is better for 40ish grain charges.

I've cloned the Mk 316 Mod 0 load with 4064 under 175 Match Kings using thrown charges and had no problems getting half moa, five shot groups. I just dialed the Redding until ten charges weighed together showed 418 grains and called it good. Individual charges were not weighed.

And yet that variation is the fundamental problem a lot of guys struggle with. Your particular measure and technique might have small variation, but I know I'm not the only one experiencing large variation with long stick powder. I don't really care if the total of ten throws averages exactly right, if one throw is only 41gr and the next is 42.5 or something like that.

I don't think it's useful to tell people that weighing charges doesn't matter, unless you also have tips and techniques to share that will reduce variation. With high variation between throws, it does matter.

In earlier conversations about thrown charges I have mentioned how I do things. I fill the hopper and throw at least ten charges to get things normalized, for lack of a better term. I don't tap the measure myself. I don't let the throwing motion tap at either end of the stroke. I grasp the whole handle in my hand, not just the part that sticks out for the fingertips. I use a slow, high torque motion. If grains want to get cut, then they get cut. They don't hang up my throw. Because I'm using "overwhelming torque" the troublesome grains don't cause a lot of vibration to upset the way the powder is settled in the measure. If I do feel a really rough one then it and the next throw are returned to the hopper.

I did enough testing early on to know I don't get variation over a few tenths either way. Because of that I quit checking, and that's why I say I don't know what it really is. The fundamental problem, and early on it was a problem for me too, is getting over the idea that a few tenths matter to what you'll see on target provided the load is well developed in the first place.

To be clear, I'm not talking about long range benchrest and the like. At those distances the variations in MV from charge variations that don't affect short-mid range groups will start to show up as vertical.

No, I think most of us here understand that.

The fundamental problem with not measuring thrown charges that I see is the large and inconsistent variation that many of us experience. With powders like Benchmark, etc or any ball powder, that will drop within a couple tenths each time, I don't bother to weigh every charge either. It's with the long stick powders like 3031 and 4064 that I and most others feel the need to weigh each charge.

A couple tenths variation is one thing, in a good load. A full grain or more variation is something else entirely, and is not acceptable in anything I shoot, except a black powder mortar.

The targets tell me whatever variation there is when I'm throwing 3031 or 4064 certainly isn't spoiling things. I outlined my throwing technique. I don't believe it's that special.

Every reloader will have his preferred methods, I throw all my charges whether ball or stick powder. Clint Smith from Thunder Ranch did this comparison several years ago and found no measurable difference weighing vs throwing charges. I agree with Clint...

This discussion just shows how factors can stack, or not. I think the threshold for concern is, of course, adverse results either on paper, or on extraction, or whatever factor trips your "trigger."
I'll agree with Bugger that he did a smart thing and analyze his situation to his satisfaction. Then pass on what he figured out. Most of us know that charge variations matter the most in small, hot cartridges, this just affirms it. If throwing works, then it works. But if it honestly doesn't, and that happens sometimes, ya do what ya gotta do.