I was reloading some .453, 200 grain semi-wadcutters and just happened to weigh some of them. I found five bullets out of 200 that were about 20 grains underweight.

Has anyone had the same problem?

JB

You might have got some 180 grain by mistake.

Possibly a bubble in the lead? This would create a void in the bullet and make it unstable. Sometimes there will be a hole in the bottom of the bullet.

20 grains is an awful lot for a casting defect. Is the profile the same as the others? I'm leaning towards a couple 180 grain SWC in the box, same as max.

I recently bought a box of "Ridge Runner" 158 grain FP .38/.357 cast bullets, and weighed a couple dozen, as I had not bought this brand of bullet before. Well, they turned out to average around 150 grains (149 - 152gr.)! I have never had this issue before, but not very happy...

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NRA Life Member

The original poster has one of only a couple of possible explanations for his problem. Dmar has quite another all together. What you have is bullet that are harder than normal. If you could see them as they dropped out of the mould, I would even hazard a guess that they were oversize by .001" or more too. From the same mould, harder alloy gives lighter, bigger bullets.
It depends on the caliber as to how much they will be different, but they will be different by alloy.

I'm with Max on this one. Mixed box. If you look at the bullets though, pay close attention to all of the corners of the bullet. Especially the grease groove. If they were from the 200gr mould and are actually too light, the corners will not be sharp. All of them will be well rounded with the base edges being very bad. I have never had nor heard of a void in a bullet using lead as an alloy. I have cut the sprue while the bullets were too hot and pulled material out that way but never has it been 20gr, never. Maybe 5gr but no more. Poor fill will be readily noticeable via the edges.

Can you post pictures of both bullets? That would help us help you.

Most of my 200gr commercial H&G 68 style bullets run 202-203, usually consistent in these ranges. I have seen 205 for a box full, occasionally right on 199-200.
To hit it right on all of the time the mold would have to be designed for the alloy and the alloy kept very consistent batch to batch. I doubt most people I buy from use virgin metal; they are like most of us at the mercy of their alloy supplier.
20 grains under I think is not possible with any lead alloy I can think of, IMO this is really a 185 gn bullet.

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Ipsis Rebus Dictantitbus

Bullets outside of +or- 1% should not be the norm. A 200 gr. bullet might vary 4 grs. for the batch. Bad bullets might be 6 or 7 grs. off, but 20 grs. would be real, real hard to do. Just my 2.

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Joshua 1:9

I agree. Even w/ a casting void, maybe 10gr on a 45cal bullet. COmpare length, make sure you have 200gr & not 185gr as suggested. I just culled a bunch of 215grLHP I cast yesterday. You often get variations due to the HP. The largest deviation was less than 10gr. Those went back to the pot.

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NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

The most deviation I've seen is 5 grains in 300 grain bullets. More than likely, the boxes they came in had been handled a lot being on clearance for not selling well.