Beer + time + 1,000 Hornady SSTs + electronic scale = A chart!

[FrankenMauser]

I snagged 1,000 of the "blemished" 6mm 95 gr Hornady SSTs from Midsouth last week. When I went to put them away, I got curious. So, pulled out the electronic scale, set up some trays, and started sorting.

I ended up with some of the most consistent data I've ever seen with Hornady bullets. ...which was especially impressive for blems.

Average weight was 95.1 gr (95.103).
Minimum was 94.9 gr.
Maximum was 95.3 gr.
I didn't calculate standard deviation or median, because I didn't feel like typing out the entire data set.

But... the min and max weights only deviate 0.2% from the average. With most bullets I've sorted ending up with about 1% weight deviations, on average, that 0.2% figure was impressive (to me, anyway).
(In contrast... I've seen really cheap bullets, like Winchester Power Points, deviate more than 5% from average.)

The count:
1,000 total (exactly 1,000 - no extras ).
94.9 gr - 26 (2.6%)
95.0 gr - 95 (9.5%)
95.1 gr - 715 (71.5%)
95.2 gr - 151 (15.1%)
95.3 gr - 13 (1.3%)


If you're curious... I think they're only 'blems' because each cannelure has a little booger in it.

[Nick_C_S]

. . . and I thought I was a patient man.

[McDAccountant]

I hope you had plenty of beer...

[Jim243]

impressive (to me, anyway).

Yes they are, you dog you snagged 1,000, I was only able to afford 250 of then when I bought them from Midway.

But I have switched my main 243 bullet from 105 gain A-Max to the 95 grain SST.

Nice bullet.
Jim

By the way, how much did the beer weigh?

[Gster]

[Quote]I hope you had plenty of beer...

Maybe you ought to go over those again.

[std7mag]

WOW.....

Talk about extra time on your hands!!!

[hooligan1]

How many times did you loose count?
Thats pretty remarkable the highest count group were overweight , but with the number of em you can have a nice load thatll last a while frankenmauser...


I cant count past thirty when I drink beers...

[flashhole]

You did good with that purchase. I tried the 30 cal 180 grain SSTs years ago and did the same exercise with 2 boxes of 100 bullets from the same lot. These bullets were new, not blems. They were awful. Several bullets measured only half the weight they were supposed to have. I sent both boxes back to the folks at Hornady with my measured data and never heard a word back from them, even after repeated attempts through their customer service department.

Just prior to the purchase of the SSTs I picked up 1500 of the 350 grain RN bullets for my 45-70 when Midway was doing a close out. That was in 2006 and I am still shooting them. These have been some of the most consistent bullets I've ever used.

Go figure.

[Clark]

Looks like a Gaussian distribution by Picasso.

[FrankenMauser]

The key to keeping track of large lots of cases, bullets, etc. is to not count anything in the process (especially if adult beverages are involved).

Instead, find something that will do the counting for you. In this case, I used 50-count trays from 9mm ammo boxes (labeled with post-it notes for the weight). When the tray was full, I would dump it into a labeled bag, and give the post-it note label a "+50".

For the record, this was only a 4-beer session. It didn't take too long, or result in loss of brain function.

Thats pretty remarkable the highest count group were overweight

It's actually quite common for a bullet's actual weight to deviate from the advertised/target weight. Being only 0.1 gr from the target weight is pretty rare for a 'hunting bullet', in my experience.

A "168 gr" .30 caliber bullet might commonly weigh 169.3 gr; or a "52 gr" .22 caliber bullet might commonly weigh 50.9 gr.
Generally, the more respected the company is for consistency, the closer to the target weight the actual weight will be. But, there's no guarantee. I have some .308" 168 gr CT BSTBTs* under my reloading bench that average 170.2 gr actual weight, even though most Nosler bullets that I've weighed have averaged no more than 0.3 gr from the target weight.
*(Combined Technology Ballistic SilverTip Boat Tail - a 'Lubalox' coated Nosler Ballistic Tip.)




Flashhole, that's too bad about the SSTs, and ironic about the 350 gr RNs.
My father bought something like 600 of them for use in his .458 Win Mag, about 10 years ago. By the time he was about half way through them, he declared them the "worst bullet he had ever paid for", sold the remainder to a local shop, and had me "dispose of" the 350s that were in loaded ammo by tearing apart a gong someone had left at the range.

[pathdoc]

All the weights are within 0.2gn of the mean. Is anything short of a benchrest rifle going to be able to tell the difference?

[Jay24bal]

I do not know if if matters much (if at all) for the shooting I do (and I doubt it does), but I also weight all my bullets for all rifle loads besides AR fodder. Your experience is right in line with mine, and I use Sierra MKs in most of my loads. There is a .4 grain spread regardless of the bullet that I use. The 69 gr. .224 bullets range from 68.9-69.2 (with 90% of them in the 69.0-69.2 range), the 175 gr. .308 bullets go from 174.9-175.2 (also with 90% of them in the 175.0-175.2 area), so on and so forth for all my bullets.

I also weigh my brass, and every 5 shot group is the same exact weight (down to .1 gr). I also weigh each powder charge (also to .1 gr).

Even if it does not matter, I like knowing that I did everything I could to make the most consistent ammo I can. That way, when the last shot ruins an incredible group, I know I am to blame and not the gun and/or ammo. This is the same reason I recently switched over to FL sizing. Since consistency is the key to accurate ammo and NS does not treat every case the same, I switched to FL sizing and have seen a minor improvement in average group size.

[ballardw]

If you are interested the standard deviation for the weights and counts given is 0.0633641. Given that your data is most likely rounded to the nearest decimal we should probably think of the standard deviation in bullet weight as about 0.06 grains.

Also a number of tests say that the data is very likely normally distributed.

I spend way too much time doing stats at work and used this as a short exercise in analyzing pre-summarized data.

[FrankenMauser]

Thanks, ballardw.
I haven't calculated the weight SD for many bullets, but my experience has me leaning toward 0.06 gr being pretty decent.

[Mike / Tx]

Well it looks like you done real good there on that buy. If I didn't already have probably more than either of the .243's we shoot will probably handle before needing a new barrel I might have picked some up myself.

I found that they shoot REALLLY good over a dose of H-4350, lit with Win WLR primers.

Good luck with yours.

[FrankenMauser]

I found that they shoot REALLLY good over a dose of H-4350, lit with Win WLR primers.

I haven't fired my ".243" for a couple years, for reasons mostly unrelated to shooting/reloading. So, I'm not 100% certain what powders I was even working with, last time I showed the rifle some love.

I think, however, that IMR4064 was giving me the best performance.
I guess I'll find out soon enough. I ran across a big stack of old targets, last week, that I never had a chance to analyze and note in my load history, after the last trip with the rifle.


I'm hoping I can find a way to get these to work with a 6x45mm build that's on the table, but I'm not holding my breath. I think the plastic tip is going to push the OAL too long, and I'm hesitant to try trimming them like some shooters do.

[Unlicensed Dremel]

Very nice - ha ha. Got a kick out of this.

[buck460XVR]

Now you need to do another study to determine the difference in accuracy resulting from the difference in weight, using different powder charges and if that difference is directly related to the weight variation.

[flashhole]

What about differences in primers? They have to be thrown into the mix.

[Kimber84]

Originally Posted by flashhole

You did good with that purchase. I tried the 30 cal 180 grain SSTs years ago and did the same exercise with 2 boxes of 100 bullets from the same lot. These bullets were new, not blems. They were awful. Several bullets measured only half the weight they were supposed to have. I sent both boxes back to the folks at Hornady with my measured data and never heard a word back from them, even after repeated attempts through their customer service department.



Just prior to the purchase of the SSTs I picked up 1500 of the 350 grain RN bullets for my 45-70 when Midway was doing a close out. That was in 2006 and I am still shooting them. These have been some of the most consistent bullets I've ever used.



Go figure.

Am I reading this right? Half the weight? Did they forget to put the lead in them?

[flashhole]

Yes, you read it right. I never found out the reason for the drastic differences in weight but it was so obvious you could tell just by holding them, didn't have to put them on a scale to know there was a serious problem. They never got back to me and they kept my bullets to boot. I suspected they had a bad batch and the implications were they would have to issue a recall. Ignoring the problem is not the best solution in my opinion. I never purchased another Hornady bullet.