Rifle Brass Sorting Experiment - Part One

[smoothy8500]

I have Hornady 308 brass that weighs 155, 165, and 185 grains.

I have been using and buying once-fired Hornady Match brass for quite a while and it has always been 165ish grains. Perhaps the standard Hornady varies?

[J-cat]

The first Hornady 308 Match weighed 155 grains, then it increased to 165. Standard Hornady 308 weighs 165. Lately I have been finding “dot Hornady dot” weighing 185 grains.

The point is you can’t assume. You have to know. This isn’t just Hornady. Winchester is just as bad. A few years ago when Starline came out with 308 brass they were real heavy. On Wed I found a Starline 308 case that weighs 174 grains. So it looks like they’re changing too. CBC has two different 308 cases: 185 and 177. FC is consistent at around 176 grains. But in the 90’s they made 165gr cases. You still occasionally find those at the range. LC varies from 172 to 183 depending on year. WCC varies from 150 to 180 depending on year. Etc, etc.

[smoothy8500]

I agree that mfr can change products from lot to lot and we must confirm rather than just assume.

[FLIGHT762]

Are you disputing my claim?

I have Hornady 308 brass that weighs 155, 165, and 185 grains.

I have found the same thing. I have Hornady 308 brass that weighs 155, 165 and 174 grs, The brass has gotten heavier over the years.

I found the same thing with Winchester 308 brass.

I also have some Federal 308 GMM brass from the 1970's that weigh 163 grains. Current GMM brass weighs in around 182-184 gr. and has for a number of years.

I have segregated the Hornady and Winchester brass in their weight ranges. The older 155-158 brass does have more internal capacity than the newest 170+ cases. I know this for a fact.

I was lucky to work at a Police range for 30+ years and collected the once fired 308 brass for reloading. Over the years, we used Federal GMM, Winchester Match and then Hornady TAP when that became available.

[fguffey]

I have found the same thing. I have Hornady 308 brass that weighs 155, 165 and 174 grs, The brass has gotten heavier over the years.

I have found I have trouble taking a reloader seriously when they declare they are THE EXPERT on brass.

Again I have brass in large lots; out of the large lots I sort cases into 20 case groups because 20 cases fit into 20 case boxes. When I go to the range I dumpster dive for containers with the approval of management.

I keep cases together through their little short lives, It is much easier to rumble and then sort by separating cases by head stamp.

And then there is the 'fire one case' and then zero the scope for the other 19 rounds.

I know that makes no sense but I load as many as 6 different loads using 6 different cases with different head stamps. After tumbling I get all of the cases back into the box they started in.

F. Guffey

And then I made a tool for sorting cases by height, the tool allows me to be able to sort the cases as fast as I can pick them up. there is no need in explaining how the tool works because it would take years to convince a reloaders it works.

F. Guffey

[JagerDog]

I separate casings by tensions.

[fguffey]

And then there was the article written by a shooter/reloader back in the 60s. He purchased 500 cases from one manufacturer; the manufacturer claimed the cases were considered 'from the same lot'.

He sorted, separated, measured, compared, fired and fired again. After all of that work he went back and fired the culls; out of the 500 cases he settled on 47 of the cases that he claimed to be perfect and matched.

With a lot of work he could get the same accuracy from the culls but it took a lot of work. After reading the article I have not found it necessary to rediscover the art of sorting and culling and I only use about half of the criteria he used.

F. Guffey

[J-cat]

I have found I have trouble taking a reloader seriously when they declare they are THE EXPERT on brass.

Who is that?

[LynnJr]

He posts under the name FGuffey and he claims he knows more than all the engineers at the various ammunition manufacturers and reloading manufacturers daily.
He does all of his accuracy testing with a 30 year old barrel and brass sized with a feeler gauge shoved in his press.

[fguffey]

And it seems I am the only reloader that read the article, those that did not read his article want to claim his work for theirs.

F. Guffey

[J-cat]

Who is claiming the OP’s work for theirs?

[smoothy8500]

[OneFunGuy]

SO is there any summary conclusion to this? Some of us more casual shooters don't latch on to the really granular points.

If you don't want to do the alcohol volume measures, is just weighing okay?
Will that get the average Joe some medium to offset flyers?

BTY, I get that the companies change their product from time to time, so nothing about shooting ever stays the same.

Would love to hear a summary.

[fguffey]

If you don't want to do the alcohol volume measures, is just weighing okay?

The problem, you will need to find a way to get reloaders to take their hands off of the keyboard. They read military brass is heavier and then they decided if a case is heavier it is thicker. Before the Internet I knew thicker did not mean heavier.

When it came to assuming it did not stop there. I believe the volume test is cute it is not absolute, but reloaders swear by it as they believe it is the only way.

Many years ago a shooter, reloader, bench rest type shooter purchased 500 cases from a manufacture that claimed the cases were from the same lot. He shot, sorted, separated and sorted and shot again; when finished he settled on 47 cases out of the 500. He got fantastic results from his culled cases as long as he kept them together and indexed the cases in the chamber.

Reloaders today want to be the 'go to guy' to accomplish that they have to spend a lot of time at the key board.

I have worked with cases, you will not believe how much trouble I had moving the shoulder back. I found it was impossible to move the shoulder back with a die that supported the case body.

Reloaders today find moving the shoulder back is so easy they can 'bump' it back. Not a one of them understand that 'bump' is a function of the press. All of my bump presses bump twice, they bump because they are cam over presses.

F. Guffey

[J-cat]

Thicker does not necessarily mean heavier, but heavier means less internal volume and therefore higher pressure.