Sorting bullets

[lostchild]

I've got a box of 147gr 9mm projectiles, it was a gift I found out that that about 1/8 of the box is also 124gr ( yes they are mixed). They are berrys plated any one have any ideas on how to sort them out? Thanks in advance lost....

 

[Yankee1986]

Weigh them.

 

[GeoDudeFlorida]

Weigh them.

Yup.

 

[Pat Riot]

Weigh each one, unless you can tell them apart visually.

 

[bearleft]

Stand them up on their base and look at them eye level, remove the short ones.

 

[tmd16556]

This is where a cheap digital scale really shines. Berrys bullets can sometimes use slightly different profiles for the same weight. 9 grains is a big weight difference for a scale but not in bullet shape.

 

[Ironicaintit]

Cases like this are the only time I ever use my cheapo Hornady digital scale. Not to know a precise weight, but to see comparative differences

 

[mdi]

While the 147s may be longer, I'd weigh them...

 

[Bfh_auto]

I had to sort .357 125s from 158s Looking at them was enough to sort them. But I can sort 380 from 9mm the same way.
I generally use my cheap digital for speeding up situations like this.

 

[kalielkslayer]

Heck, I just weighed 200 .223 loaded cases the other day because my granddaughter was helping me and I wanted to make sure I dropped powder in every case, kind a paranoid that way. Digital scale.

took me 30 minutes??? Maybe less.

 

[lostchild]

Thanks for all the replies, looks like a fun time with the scales, the box is 1k. Good thing they were free. Thanks again lost....

 

[Skgreen]

This is where a cheap digital scale really shines

Box of 1,000? Heck yeah!

Just a few options: https://www.midwayusa.com/powder-scales/br?cid=9211

Thousands more out there,,,, and any one of 'em would be a lot faster/easier than a balance scale.

 

[Shooterbob]

If they are mixed weight’s could they possibly be different diameter?

 

[ballman6711]

Can you imagine mic'ing 1K bullets?

chris

 

[Shooterbob]

I would at least mic a 124 and 147

 

[ballman6711]

I would at least mic a 124 and 147

I just realized that you meant the 124's could be .355 vs .356 for the 147's.

I can be pretty slow sometimes.

chris

 

[Shooterbob]

All good. I was just thinking if the different weights were not told to you there may be other inconsistencies. Worth a check. Bob

 

[Thomasss]

If you have an electronic scale, then multiply out and write down the lighter ones in doubles, triples, quads, etc. you can speed up the process a little by watching the weight change. When a weight doesn't fit your expected doubling, you know its a heavier bullet and put it aside. Weighing individual bullets is soooo boring, adding one at a time or removing one from the scale in a "time killer." This process will allow you to remove 4 identical ones at a time and also remove only the heavier weight ones one at a time.

 

[lostchild]

The bullets are all .356 Berrys plated. The 124gr is noticeably shorter than the 147gr. I tried a trick I use to check for checking for .380s in range pickups, an empty 9mm cartridge holder just dump and shake the short cases/ bullets stand out ( checked with a scale on the first few ). Thanks so much for all the replies. lost...

 

[JFrank]

I've got a box of 147gr 9mm projectiles, it was a gift I found out that that about 1/8 of the box is also 124gr ( yes they are mixed). They are berrys plated any one have any ideas on how to sort them out? Thanks in advance lost....

Sort them on a Electric scale, one at a time. No big deal..

 

[mdi]

I memmer an old timer once told me "There's only one way to eat an elephant, that's one bite at a time". If you look at a box of a thousand bullets and think "OMG! That's an awful lot of bullets, I'll never get that many sorted!", you probably won't. Do what you feel like at one time then walk away. Tomorrow, do some more, whether it's 50, 75, 100 or more at a time, just what you're comfortable doing. Before you know it 1,000 bullets will get sorted. BTDT!

 

[Rule3]

100 per day for 10 days
200 per day for 5 days
No big deal

 

[Bill M.]

Maybe not something you need to do all at once? I am a single stage batch reloader. I would just weigh enough bullets to get 50 of which ever I was loading at the time. Drop the other ones into a box.

 

[GeoDudeFlorida]

There's a couple of sellers on GoneBroker who sell reject factory ammo. During good times I bought about 1000 .40S&W from one seller, 250 at a time. It was all loaded with 165gr. plated (probably the old, pre-bankruptcy Xtreme) and what looked like it was maybe HS-6 powder. 4.7gr. for a 165gr. .401" bullet at an advertised 1150fps. It was all seated about 0.020" too deep and the crimp was over the ogive. Looked like setup runs, probably. I pulled them apart 50-60 at a time over the course of several months and reused the primed cases as-is, tumbled the bullets, loaded them back in the same cases with fresh powder (also HS-6, 4.6.gr. for 1050fps from my Springfield XDm 4.5), and used the powder to make sparklers. After the PlanDEMic got under way, the same reseller had the same deal but these were 155gr. loaded to 1200fps (advertised) and the powder didn't look at all familiar. These were seated but not crimped and from a different manufacturer, pretty obviously. I bought 500, then another 1000, and they came apart with the whacker almost without any effort. Some of the bullets fell out in transport. Some I could pull with just my fingers. It really depends on how they're crimped - IF they're crimped - how hard the whacking is.