Weighing projectiles and POI changes

[puffnstuff]

Hi,

Haven't done this yet myself but I understand from reading others comments that bullet weight can often vary by .3 or .4 of a grain.

I'm mostly hunting and punching paper for fun, nothing serious so a little variance isn't the end of the world. Just curious how much of a change if any to the point of impact this would make?

If I can shave a little off my paper scores it wouldn't hurt

[puffnstuff]

Forgot to say, shooting .308 and usually 150gr or 165gr bullets.

[veep]

I think that's more of an F-Class practice. It won't mean a thing hunting.

[Warrigul]

I think there needs to be some tangible benefit for any anal(lets face it some of the things we do are outthere with fussiness) reloading practice to be worth undergoing.

I do batch target projectiles based on weight as it did tighten my groups up a couple of years ago using a brand of pills that were a bit inconsistant at times. I don't bother for hunting.

[Chronos]

I am the opinion bearing surface length of a given bullet has more effect of muzzle velocity than a .1 or .2 grain weight difference

If I'm using quality target projectiles I'm yet to see any great weight variation worthy of weight sorting.

however I recently purchased a 1000 pack of hunting bullets and measured nearly 1.5gr of difference between the lightest and the heaviest so I did sort them into bags at .2gr increments so I know I won't ever grab 2 rounds with a big weight variation.

I don't believe many of the practices used in Benchrest shooting always translate into better scores directly buy the mental confidence they provide allows the shooter to identify other problems that may cause a flyer or two. This is backed up by shooters like peter van Muers who claim they no longer bother weighing cases or bullets for 500m benchrest shooting.

For most shooters an improvement in technique and wind reading will make the biggest difference in their scores for most disciplines

Chronos

[Farmjer]

I toyed with it a little while ago but I'm only target shooting for my own enjoyment, not competition stuff.

At 100m I found my groups to be bugger all better, 1-2mm maybe. This was from putting through a box of 50 rounds in batches vs just shooting 50 all together without order.

Not exactly scientific but that's result I got from a little casual testing. At the end of the day that benefit could just as easily have been me shooting better on the day, and obviously for hunting doesn't mean anything.

If you were doing 1,000m shooting that might translate to a big difference, but personally I couldn't be bothered continuing to batch bullets after trying it once.

[Blackened]

I think there needs to be some tangible benefit for any anal (lets face it some of the things we do are outthere with fussiness) reloading practice to be worth undergoing.

I do batch target projectiles based on weight as it did tighten my groups up a couple of years ago using a brand of pills that were a bit inconsistant at times. I don't bother for hunting.

I'd second that.

A lot of people get far too hung up on arguably beneficial (or not) practices and seem to spend more time fussing over this that have no impact on their actually shooting.

Target shooting's one thing. If the whole point of the exercise is to get the best group possible then maybe those extra hours of prep or work are worth it for the shooter to shave a mm or two off their group if they want to take it to that level.

For hunting though - Worst case, if you're only shooting 1.5MOA which a lot of people would say is "crap" that's still a 4.7" group at 300m which is obviously more than enough for deer, pigs, goats, foxes etc.

I think just about every rifle brand these days guarantees 1.5MOA or better, so assuming you're not doing something terrible wrong, just about any rifle will do for hunting really.

Realistically though, It's probably fair to say most people are getting closer to 1 MOA anyway. With that level off accuracy spending hours measuring case capacity and weighing bullets is a waste of time in 99% of cases as it doesn't add any appreciable difference.

I can't remember where it was, some US shooting forum, but I read a post a while ago from a guy in Canada or North American who was deer stalking in his local forests (and at the ranges that implies) who was in a huff because his new rifle would "only shoot 0.8 MOA" and he expected better