SmallCaliberCentral

when weight sorting brass ,what increments do you use for sorting (groups).By a full grain ,1/2 G or 1/10 G ? Squirrel accuracy only.

After doing a full prep, including deburring the flash hole, uniforming pockets, trimming length, cleaning up necks and chamferring inside and out, I can weight sort in to three groups. Spot on, minus .5 grain and plus .5 grain. The full prep really seems to shrink the variation of weight. That is with Winchester brass.

TrapperDan wrote:when weight sorting brass ,what increments do you use for sorting (groups).By a full grain ,1/2 G or 1/10 G ? Squirrel accuracy only.

For just squirrel accuracy, I personally do not believe in weight sorting brass. I do use only R-P brass in my 204. I cannot even guess what the weight of one piece of my brass weighs, let alone sorting by weight. If I do my part, this rifle will group under 1/2 MOA with my reloads. I do take the time to clean my brass, clean primer pockets , and because I only have one 204, I do neck size all my brass. If extraction becomes a bit stiff, I do use a bump die to take care of that. Most of my targets are smaller than a ground squirrel. The majority of my targets are Belding squirrels, known as Skippy.

For me, 1/2 moa is good enough for Squirrel accuracy!

Like my friend Futuretrades, I also shoot alot of ground squirrels, and feed four 204's and somewhere around 14 or so other varmint rifles. Each rifle has a dedicated 600 fully prepped cases loaded for our buddy Skippy, some rifles that I shoot alot have more. All my 204's shoot well under 1/3 MOA, my Coopers and custom rigs go an easy .25" @ 100 yds.

That said, none of my brass is weight sorted, none of it, never has been. Unless you're shooting paper and expecting to wring that last hundredth of an inch off your group size, weight sorting is purty much a waste of time, especially for the volume myself and other ground squirrel and PD shooters expend during a single rat trip.

A typical varmint groups shot with "unweight sorted" brass:



Unless you really want the last word in accuracy, and don't mind dinking about endlessly with the scale and are shooting a full custom rig, sort away. I'm perfectly happy with quarter inch and less without the hassle, but that's just me.

Well it's kinda like this.
it's been 14-15 below 0 out with a foot of snow'and still 1 month or so till the rats come out.I've loaded 325 rounds for 22-250,500 rounds for 204,and 500
20 vt brass prepped that I cant load till I get my 20 vt build from the gunsmith (13weeks to go).i,ve pollished every piece of brass in the house,and now reduced to weighing bullets and brass.After weighing 500 20 vt brass last night and ending up with 18 piles ,Hence the above question.now i'm faced with making 3 piles or throwing the whole bunch back in the box.Decisions-decisions.Thanks for the advice guys

I think you have either Cabin Fever or OCD!
Get loading more 204. Punxatawney Phil said early spring this year so his nephew Skippy should be waking up soon!

TrapperDan, if you have the time and desire to sort brass, go for it! While I agree with most of the comments above and respect the posters', I will make you one guarantee: Segregating brass by weight WILL NOT adversely effect accuracy. Will it help? Maybe, or maybe not. Most likely, it will not. For me, it is knowing for certain that my brass is absolutely as uniform as it can be. Gives me just a tad more confidence behind the trigger. I would not miss a hunt to sort brass. I would, however, miss a game on TV to sort it. Just a matter of what a guy enjoys doing. Have fun !

RAMOS wrote:I would not miss a hunt to sort brass. I would, however, miss a game on TV to sort it. Just a matter of what a guy enjoys doing. Have fun !

Good point Jon, however from my standpoint, I'd die of old age if I was sorting/weighing all my brass. Let's see, not sure, but somewhere around 16 or so CF varmint rifles, a minimum of 600 cases per rifle (most have more, all fully prepped) comes out to 96,000 cases, actually a lot more......can you imagine sorting over 100,000 cases by weight prior to rat season?

If a guy had one or two rifles and wanted peak accuracy, okay, sort away, but holy moley, no way for me!

Once for one rifle years ago, I sorted/weighed brass. Did a bunch of range tests, and with environmental conditions, human factor, phase of the moon, etc., I could not see any demonstrable difference on the targets by doing so. From then on I considered it a waste of time for what I do.....shooting ground squirrels and rockchucks. It may be worth it to some, just not for me and what I do with my rifles, as they already shoot "minute of rat".

If a guy had one or two rifles and wanted peak accuracy, okay, sort away, but holy moley, no way for me!


Rick, I sort for two varmint rifles only. Right now I have about 300 pcs for 204R and 100 pcs for 20VT. No big deal, I sorted the brass as I acquired them and, only have to do it once. My shooting is low volume but pretty constant, except in the deepest part of Winter. Typically, I will shoot 10-20 rounds/week and reload in batches of 10 or 20 rounds. I do not name each case but, probably could! What I do, works for me but I fully understand that it would be completely impractical for you. I do not sort by weight for anything else as their targets are much larger.

I guess the question I was saw in the OP was how we do it, not if we should do it .

PS: Rick, in no way is this an offer to sort 100,000 pieces of brass for you, LOL!!!

No worries Jon, when I see 'case sorting', and remember chasing my tail years ago, sometimes I just can't resist....... and sorry to the OP for straying.....as I'm prone to do.

OT: On the rare occasions I do sort for a particular rifle, I usually go with the "1.5% Rule", meaning cases that all fall into that weight range variance are suitable for competition. This was learned many years ago from a BR competitor of note, and has proven true when applied.

Sinclair also did tests to this exact end, and the "1.5% Rule" came true after all the data was examined. This is covered in their excellent book "Precision Shooting and Reloading Handbook".....the one we're anxiously awaiting the 11th Edition of someday.

Jon.....if you get bored up there, how about just weight sorting HALF of my brass for me?

Rick, I will start on case #50,001 when you finish case #50,000 my friend! That should keep me off the hook...

I have trouble staying on-topic myself so here goes. I am currently on hold with Sinclair. I want to ask them if they would consider taking pre-orders for the 11th Edition to measure interest. I will let you know if I learn anything.

On Edit: I will try to keep this short! I talked to Patty and Bob at Sinclair. Bob has been with them for over 20 years and made the transition from Sinclair to Brownell ownership. The 11th Edition has much new information/pictures. Dated material has been removed.This, he has actually seen. Gravatt and Sinclair have sole ownership of the manuscript and have not communicated when, or if they will decide to publish. So, although it was a nice visit, I learned why we can't pre-order and nothing else. Bob did recommend "The Book of Rifle Accuracy" by Tony Boyer as the closest, current offering. That is all.

I've found through trial and error that sorting by case weight is a waste of time, as what your weighing is the brass obviously. I sort by case volume. I fill each case with a very fine grained powder and weigh the result. Whether it makes any difference in accuracy I have know idea, but it couldn't hurt. I figure the same weight of powder in cases with the same volume with bullets weighing the same to a tenth of a grain should make for near identical trajectories and hopefully one hole groups.

I used to, but not anymore. I found the variance with Hornady was scary, but nill with Nosler or Norma.

I can't recall the degree of scary or nill, but the scary stuff was excluded from my life for this one thing:

It excluded a variable to consider when developing a load. I stop short of saying it made a difference in group size, I don't remember. I just know I was able to "put it to bed" by just buying unform brass.

I sorted in 2 ways:
1) Weight sort, (Nosler had I think 1gn per 100 pcs variance ie., didn't even need sorting, I think the Hornady went OVER 10gn variance)
2) wall thickness veriance per piece, ie, how much variance in wall thickness EACH case had. Again, the Nosler/Norma had fantastic uniformity, the Hornady was... crazy.

As I recall, the wall thichness variance directly correlated to the brass weight variability.

I have a thread about this stuff here somehwere...

I'm tired, I know I;m gonna have to come back later and edit or clear things up, LOL!!

For hunting purposes I have never weighed a piece of brass. My guns group plenty well without it. Now if one wanted to be competitive in bench rest competition today? Now that is a different story. I building a shilen barreled rem 700 in 8 twist . This gun I may sort brass to help obtain utmost accuracy. I am building this gun for long range shots 800 yards or further. It ticks me off when coyotes hang up on a hill at 600. I plan to reach out just a tad further. When shooting great distance thats when the variables are more critical. I think the 115 g boron nitrate coated DTAC bullets will get the job done. Good enough for David Tubb good enough for me. I barley have enough time to reload as much as I like to! So that said no I sort bye caliber only from the tumbler and case inspection for safty!

I've weight sorted before and the usual varance IIRC is 1-2% of the case weight which maybe several grains. I would only do this after the brass has been prepped and only for firearms where you're really reaching out there. For example, a 500 yards and beyond "only" ground squirrel rifle, otherwise I wouldn't bother. Target rifles, absolutely. I do believe if you keep your brass sorted by LOT#'s one can alleviate a lot of varances. Also, if you do sort by weight, pick up a digital scale, it's a lot easier and faster.