Precision Rifle Bullet TLC

[Ttwwaack]

It is surprising where technology has gotten to today. I've been loading for about 25 years and being a perfectionist have spent some foolish money on the latest and greatest. The below questions are in referance to the 600m - 1000 neighborhood.

Is base to ogive sorting worth it?

Is weight sorting worth it?

Is metplat trimming advantagious for group size reduction all conditions being equal?

If you are trimming metplats, do you repoint? If not, why?

The past couple of months I've been playing with base -> ogive sorting have gotten alot more consistant OAL (Ogive-Lead) perticularly with a couple boxes of 175 SMKs. Then the other day I got ahold of a box of 2006 M118 LR and pulled them apart to reverse engineer and discovered a few things (Its written, just have to post it in the A.M.

[jstone]

I have tried sorting, none of my rifle are accurate enough to really gain anything. One type of sorting have been thinking about trying is, sorting by bearing length. From what i have read it is one of the most effective methods of sorting.

I have had better luck with case preparation. Once you have the basics down reloading techniques vary from loader to loader greatly. What some swear by others dismiss as trivial. Once you start sorting by case weight you find another way to sort. Its a never ending cycle. If you get real anal about sorting you will spend more time loading than shooting. While i love reloading i still prefer shooting over reloading any day.

Right now the only thing i sort is the cases by manufacturer and date. I never load mixed brass not even for pistol. I may try the bearing length in the future, but for right now i spend enough time sorting the cases by manufacturer.

You have a decade on me for time spent reloading. Do you sort, and if you do how? Have you noticed any gain in performance with the sorting base to ogive? Id like to hear your take on sorting.

I measure all my loads at the ogive. I only see .001-.002 in oal difference at the ogive. That is without sorting. I just find the longest bullet i can, and set the die with that bullet so i should not have any longer than my chosen oal.

[308sako]

In regards to precision loading: everything we do contributes something to the consistency (or lack of) in our loaded rounds performance.

When discussing the bullet and it's relationship to the lands several factors become involved. I must agree that bearing surface should have the greatest affect as it has a frictional coefficient factor. Thus affecting the powder burn and barrel time.

The amount of jump as we term it is possible to remove by a technique called soft seating, where the amount of neck tension is slight and the bullet is seated to a cartridge length which ensures bullet contact with the rifling. This can enhance uniform ignition of the powder charge.

The actual shape of the bullet will determine it's own individual ballistic coefficient, so no two are exact! Thus pointing helps by aiding in consistency, as does concentric loading of the ammunition so the bullet leaves the bore as stable as possible.

[jstone]

I just have not noticed a difference when sorting. It may be me being behind the trigger or none of my firearms are accurate enough. My most accurate gun is .75 moa at the ranges i shoot. On occasions the groups get better, sometimes worse. If i do my part they will be right at .75 moa. With my limited sorting experience they were in the same ballpark.

I have read about the soft seating recently. I just stumbled onto an article that talked about it. I have been reading about techniques used by top competitors in shooting disciplines like bench rest. The techniques are very foreign to me, but are very interesting. When i read about people seating bullets hand tight i was dumbfounded. It contradicts everything i have done before.

The sorting by bearing surface is something i want to try.

[jpipes]

I personally believe that your time is better spent working on the range, than on building perfect ammo. That's not to say that you shouldn't pay attention to loading good ammo, but that all the perfect ammo in the world isn't going to get you results down range if you don't know how to properly handle the trigger, the follow through, and how to read wind.

I load to a reasoanble consistency, doing the below, and then spend the rest of my time working on fundamentals:

(Assuming 223 bolt gun, which I shoot the most)

1) point the bullet (82 berger) BTHP, don't trim the meplat - worth it for the 9% BC boost that I get. I choose the BTHP so I don't have to screw with chasing lands.
2) prime with Wolf SRM on a RCBS hand priming tool.
3) drop powder (8208xbr) using a Prometheus Gen 2
4) Seat with a redding Comp die

Brass Prep:

1) Initially, I just prime/charge/seat/shoot. I don't even bother with any neck work.
2) After initial shot, I FL size with a Redding Die sans the expander ball.
3) tumble in SS media
4) trim on Giraud for consistent trim length and immediate chamfer and deburr.

I do all of the above with my .308 and .243 as well. I shoot BTHP's because I feel the BC boost isn't worth the loading hassle of VLD bullets. I don't feel that sorting and weighing cases and bullets is worth it compared to range time and experience.

[markm]

This type of sortation on a non-depth sensitive bullet is insanity to me.

Life is too short for this crap. :blink:

[taliv]

assuming you are not talking about benchrest competition, but rather precision, practical shooting...

Is base to ogive sorting worth it? no

Is weight sorting worth it? no

Is metplat trimming advantagious for group size reduction all conditions being equal? no

If you are trimming metplats, do you repoint? NA

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that was easy...


seriously, as was said above, you can get a slight advantage from pointing. i shot most of the competitions last year with pointed 140g berger VLDs and the pointing was worth .2 mil at 1000 yards. doesn't make them more accurate, just flatter. (though it helps with the wind too)


otherwise, i'd recommend you focus on:
consistent neck tension
minimizing runout
seating your primers