am i being to picky on my reloads

[42769vette]

im loading 243 and starting with 43 gr of h414 and 80 gr barnes ttsx bullets i havent shot any yet but when weighing my bullets out of curiosity they ranged from 79.7 to 80 sould i be woried or is that normal

 

[TGUNTER]

I have done alot of reloading before and I dont think you will even be able to tell the difference when you are shooting them at the range. You can pull bullets out of factory rounds and they will very more than that.

 

[VUPDblue]

the serious benchrest guys weigh every one and only load the ones that all are exactly the same

 

[42769vette]

at 100 yds any guess as to what .3-.4 gr diffrence in bullet wieght would do

 

[VUPDblue]

at 100 yds any guess as to what .3-.4 gr diffrence in bullet wieght would do

not enough to notice by the recreational shooter

 

[slow1911s]

at 100 yds any guess as to what .3-.4 gr diffrence in bullet wieght would do

At 100 yds, probably very little as the bullet has still not "fallen asleep", aka reached its optimum stabilization (that typically doesn't happen until past a few hundred.)

You may want to pose your question over at www.6mmbr.com

Good info on the .243 here, too - .243 Win + .243 AI Cartridge Guide along with a big endorsement from George at GA Precision.

 

[antsi]

the serious benchrest guys weigh every one and only load the ones that all are exactly the same

Or, as is often done by black powder cartridge competitors, you can weigh them all and keep them separated in groups by weight - so you know that within this box they are all the same, and the ones in that other box are all the same.

As the other folks responses have implied, the question "am I being too picky with my reloads?" has to be answered in terms of what the ammo will be used for. People who shoot in competition - particularly rifle competition - do all kinds of incredibly picky things to try to get just that extra slight edge of consistency. I've often wondered how much of these practices are really making a difference, versus how much is just the psychological edge of believing your ammo is "more perfect than perfect." If you're not competing, you can relax a bit. You won't notice the difference these minute practices make - if they make any at all - unless you're shooting in a highly systematic way like testing or competition.

 

[Old Syko]

The one thing noone has mentioned yet is the scale you're using. A Lee scale is much cheaper than others for a good reason, one of which you are experiencing right now. A good scale may cost more than you paid for your entire kit. Yes, all the responses you've gotten so far are pretty much on the money, but you won't see a benchrest shooter using a box stock Lee scale for a reason. There are some real horror stories floating around concerning Lee scales, most of which end up with a description of the shrapnel pattern after it hit the wall.

Consider a 5-0-5 the least you want to trust and go up from there depending on what you can afford. As long as you shy away from max loads you should be ok for now, but if you are looking for accuracy a good scale is a must.