Tutorial

What’s in a Word: Accuracy, Precision, Repeatbility, and Tolerance

We expect that if our scale says a bullet weighs 202.4 grains then that’s it.

Ok, Ok, it’s a boring subject, I know. But it’s gotta be done so let’s get this out’a the way.

One of my passions is experimenting with antennas, wire antennas for HF to be precise. I want to be able to improvise and adapt to the situation at hand whether I’m at home, traveling on business, or hiking in the desert or deep forest.

Any split brass in that pile you are about to reload?

I’m cheap.

The less I spend on other things, the more I have for bullets. And as any Bullseye shooter will tell you, to get good, you have to push a lot of lead downrange and, as most of you know, lead is not cheap anymore. Gone are the days of three or four cent heads. Today, you’re probably looking at eight to nine cents for a 200 grain LSWC, and if you buy in 5000 unit quantities, that’s not small change.

Shiney brass makes for more Xs.

It works like this. A shiney piece of brass will press a smoother surface onto the sides of the bullet. When such a bullet is then fired, it becomes subject to external forces and one of those is the impact of photons being reflected from the target face.

For what it may be worth, I learned something unexpected in dry-fire. Whether or not I need to keep that lesson or if it was just a stepping stone along the way, I don’t know.

The Problem

After loading several hundred rounds of ammunition not too long ago, I then discovered that two primers had been seated sideways and one upside down. I removed the bullets and recovered the powder but decided to discard the shells with their damaged primers. But since the primers were still live, I wondered what should I do to deactivate them?