9mm brass weight variations

[Rcher]

I'm a bit of a hoarder, so I'm collecting brass for a while and getting ready to start reloading sometime
Now I collect, de-prime, clean and put unsorted 9mm brass to plastic jags for storage.
Recently I decided to sort brass depending on brand and weight, used cheap electronic scale for weighting.

Speer and S&B brass weight is consistent 60 gr with some cartridges being 59.8 gr.
Blazer Brass is 59.2 - 59.4 gr.
And one cartridge which I collected occasionally is Winchester NATO (WMA headstamp) which weights 61.2 gr.

I'm wondering what variation in de-primed brass weight others see?

[painter]

I've never weighed brass. I guess I'm not that curious.

[M1A4ME]

As a reloading exercise I've only weighed 7.62X51 brass and sorted it, while trying to make my M1A shoot to suit me (almost 40 years ago).  Gave up as none of that worked (to make it shoot like I wanted it to shoot).  Lots of variation in Lake City brass.

Never saw the need to weigh pistol cases.  The only center fire semi auto pistol I've ever shot past 50 meters is my old 1911 Colt.

In those days I did keep my brass sorted/segregated by head stamp and tried to keep it together by box.

If I was going to weigh brass I'd do it similar to the rifle brass mentioned above - resize it, trim it to length, chamfer/deburr the case mouth.

The rifle brass got one more step - I used a forster case trimmer to turn the necks down to consistent thicknesses prior to weighing.  My idea was that if it's resized, trimmed/chamfered/deburred the only wall thickness not correlating to internal volume was the neck wall thickness.  Uniformed neck wall thickness, to me, was necessary to make the case weights mean something when I segregated by weight.  But I was shooting 600 yds.

[noylj]

The 9x19 has the largest variations in case wall thickness and powder capacity of any cartridge. Try weighing them some time.
At 600 yds, case volume could actually have some effect...

[Wobbly]

While it is true we will use one brand of brass for a special test, special SD ammo, or competition rounds it is not customary to sort brass by weight. It really won't get you anywhere. I'd be content to sort by brand only, but I don't even do that for plinking.

Really, the only thing you've proved by this exercise is: > Don't weigh finished cartridges trying to determine if you left the powder out of any of them. < There is more variation in the brass than any other component.

If you want to sort for critical testing, then measure the volume of water each will hold, because it's the volume under the bullet that makes the most difference. But as has been said, in pistol it really won't be worth you effort.


On another note... What are you plans for a press ? Have you been buying components, because there are really excellent deals out there right now ? I've got a line on a Dillon Square Deal and a Hornady LNL AP with case feeder.

[Rcher]

Really, the only thing you've proved by this exercise is: > Don't weigh finished cartridges trying to determine if you left the powder out of any of them. < There is more variation in the brass than any other component.

^^^^^^
!!! THIS !!!

That's exactly my conclusion. Good to learn this in advance.

[timetofly]

Really, the only thing you've proved by this exercise is: > Don't weigh finished cartridges trying to determine if you left the powder out of any of them. < There is more variation in the brass than any other component.

^^^^^^
!!! THIS !!!

That's exactly my conclusion. Good to learn this in advance.

I'll add a "me three" ^^^^^^^

[Wobbly]

About every 6 months or so, a first-week novice will get distracted and build several cartridges he's not sure there's powder in them. Then he weighs the cartridges and decides 3 or 4 don't have powder based on finished weight. You just saved yourself asking that embarrassing question. 

[recoilguy]

I have never weighed brass...….I am trying to think of a reason to do it.
I'm not even curious enough to do it now that I ve read this thread.

When you reload you notice the variations in brass that will probably cause the weight difference.

Good luck with your loading
RCG