More reloading questions? Boy this stuff is fun!

While shooting at the range the other day one of my shooting / reloading buddies and I were talking about how to improve my groupings. I measure every powder charge with a scale. He asked if I ever weighed my bullets. I told him no. He said try it and see what you get. Today I was reloading ..223. I was topping them off with 60 grain Nosler Partition. When I weighed my bullets some were right on 60 grains. Others were 4 tenth's more some 2 tenth's less. All the bullets come from the same box. Not a big deal but more than a half a grain spread between some of them. Has any one else tried this? What are your conclusions about sorting your bullets and putting all the same weights together. Do you think these old guys are on to something here?

If you want you can put each and ever one on a scale if you want but powder charge, primer, seating depth of the bullet, crimp and bullet diameter to me is more important than bullet weight especially when you are less then 2 grains differant in weight. Have fun rolling your own.

I know that the black powder cartridge shooters do that, and even index the bullets into the gun according to the spru mark from the molds they use. Also, the 1000 yard guys do it. I think it is one of many things you can do that isn't really effective in a hunting load. But, add enough of these small tweaks together, and you have a noticeable improvement. In my hunting guns, I got the most noticeable effect by moving my bullet out closer to the rifling. This is limited by the length of your magazine though. My .264 rounds have about a sixteenth of an inch between the cannelure, and the rim. This makes the cannelure useless, and makes a funny looking round, but it has helped me group better. Particularly with cheaper bullets. I have rifle rounds that I load from a charge bar, with no special effort except to make sure the length is right. I also have some that I have reamed all the pockets, turned the necks, trimmed, electronic scale, check runout, seat bullet out to within .0020' of the rifling, etc. No one thing seems to do much, but if you are particular all the way through, it seems to be worth it, especially at longer range. I would also say that buying good brass, and using the same brass all the time is a must. (Mixing brass can be a real disaster.) I like to use Norma brass, or Lapua. Norma also manufactures Weatherby brass and it is good stuff. Good luck

If you really want to go to the max, weigh your cases and primers also. When I'm loading bench rest ammo, That's what I do and it does make a difference. Although, you have to have a very precise firearm to see the difference between most mixed and matched loads.