Rifle Brass Sorting Experiment - Part Two: Microstamping

[ammolytics]

Hey folks!

I published the second article in my series about sorting rifle brass. In this installment, I explain how I microstamped my brass to keep track of it over its lifespan, even through 24 hours of tumbling with stainless media. This method allows you to sort once by weight or other method and keep it sorted, so that you can track per-case performance data instead of randomizing each time you reload.

https://blog.ammolytics.com/2020-06-07/brass-sorting-part-two.html

As always, I hope that it's high quality enough to justify the time you spend reading it, and how much time it took me to create it.

I'd love to hear your feedback and answer any questions!

-Eric @ Ammolytics

[Divernhunter]

you have way too much time on your hands.

[Dano3467]

Are you trying to circumvent the roster w/this method ?

[rsrocket1]

Well, that's 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

Honestly, hat's off to you for doing something that you find gratifying in this HOBBY. It's a whole lot more productive than watching CNN and throwing your shoe at the TV.

[MarikinaMan]

I skimmed through a lot of it.

What I gathered was that after ID'ing your cases, you found a higher velocity on average in a subsequent firing, but also, you did so on a quite warmer day.

If you are handy with math, you can possibly smooth out the data down the road.

1) Identify a baseline ambient temperature.
2) Fire one other set and log the temperature
3) Use the 3 data sets, and possibly the temperature sensitivity numbers from the powder manufacturer to find temperature standard deviation.
4) create a new smoothed data set weighting the velocities for the deviation.
5) overlap the data and analyze smoothed data set.

The numbers may become more useful that way. You may find or not find any meaningful significance to minute case differences, but, who knows until it is tested.

Regards,

JT

[LynnJr]

Eric
I don't think open surveys will do anything in regards to the utmost in accuracy.
Those that know generally don't talk much and those that take surveys without disclosing a name might not have any relevant knowledge to share.
That said.
Most of the guys I used to compete with kept very good track of there brass. Two 50 round MTM boxes of perfect brass usually means several hundred culled cases.
I have never seen people headstamping brass most would just make a note of how many firings or simply drag a file over the rim like notching a rifle stock after successful hunt.
Your Shooting Discipline matters most when trying to sort through what works any why it works.
In some forms of competition you will see lots of 223's and 308's on the firing line and when you change disciplines you won't find any on the line even though they are allowed.
Good brass prepped for the type of match you will be shooting.
A very accurate powder charge.
The correct primer for your load.
The most consistent seating depth you can obtain.
Great bullets and a great barrel will shrink your groups to the highest degree.
Your discipline may not require the highest degree of accuracy.
A full length die properly fit to your chamber will run over $400 so while it gets discussed here very often very few shooters actually own such equipment yet they tout it's use as a everybody has one myth. Most shooters are using off the shelf dies which oversize the shoulder area resulting in variations in extreme spreads unacceptable to ultimate accuracy.
They work perfectly fine for tactical events PRS type matches general plinking and most forms of shooting.
Your goal determines how you tend to do things.
Internet myths are here to stay from what I have seen and well intentioned posters rarely shoot as good at matches as they do on the internet.