new Rock Chucker Supreme

[ulen mn]

ok boys the man in the little brown truck was here and dropped off my new rock chucker supreme from cabelas, I finished de-capping 300 rounds of hornady brass and know I have read on here about weighing your brass and sorting out the weights my question is. Is that after all prep work is done ( de-capping, cleanning, sizing ect...) or before this is done???? And what is the reason for sorting weights???? This is all new to me and I have alot to learn thanks for the advice in advance...... Ulen MN

[Outlaws]

I am fairly new to loading, but as far as I have read it is weight just brass. Cleaned would probably be good.

The point is that when brass is properly sized, if there is extra brass somewhere, it is going to be inside. Meaning thicker walls. Basically less volume inside meaning more pressure, or inconsistent pressure.

[WHISTLEPIG]

Normally one would weight sort after all prep if you were trimming, doing primmer pockets, deburing flash holes, and neck turning. Basically after all metal has been removed from the cases. If you are not doing all that just load them and shoot them.

[Bayou City Boy]

I am fairly new to loading, but as far as I have read it is weight just brass. Cleaned would probably be good.

The point is that when brass is properly sized, if there is extra brass somewhere, it is going to be inside. Meaning thicker walls. Basically less volume inside meaning more pressure, or inconsistent pressure.

That's not always true...

Weighing brass is one way to sort brass, but as many old BR shooters dating clear back to Townsend Whelen will tell you, it only gets you part of the way to where you want to go. Weight variations can occur because of external features such as total case head size, rim thickness, depth of the extractor groove, etc., that stay the same even after brass is sized.

If pristine accuracy is the goal....the true way to sort brass is by measuring internal volume by weight. Water is one media often used by serious accuracy folks. Fine grained powders work also.

-BCB

[skipper]

ulen mn

If you are loading for the range then weight sorting and all that is justifiable. If you are headed into the field for a PD hunt, it might be overkill. First you have to decide what level of accuracy you can accept before you start loading. If I was loading 1000 rounds to take hunting I might not be as picky as I would be if I was headed to the range for a competition.

There is a great article on case preparation at the link below. The whole point to weight sorting is consistency. You would not want to shoot your heaviest bullet followed by your lightest. The same for your brass, you don't want to shoot the case with the greatest internal volume followed by the one with the least volume. You sort so that variations in weight are in small increments from shot to shot. At distances of 100 yards or so you might not be able to tell the difference much, but when you move out to longer distances your results will be more obvious.

http://www.6mmbr.com/jgcaseprep.html

I weight sort most of my components when I'm shooting groups. I weight sort bullets and brass. Then I go back and check bullet bearing surface. I weigh every charge with a balance beam scale, measure my seating depth with a comparator, check for run out and in general make every attempt to insure every round is exactly the same in every aspect. It's all part of what I love about shooting the most, putting one round through the same hole as the previous. If nothing else, my time at the bench instills confidence in my equipment.