ICC Bullet Comparitor.

[Tony Z]

I have had a number of PMs recently asking about the value of this machine so i decided to answer all in the one post.

This is purely from a long range BR and FClass perspective. Short range BR users may have a very differing view and my own results do show that the ICC is worthwhile. 22 cal bullets like Seirra 52/53 Match can be selected and shot to instantly see the difference in bullet jacket variance. Now that in itself may give you a clue as to why there is a big question mark over these units. The short bullet and the sensor match up well and give a good average of the measurement. Long bullets get only the shank or very little of the ogive and point to read on. That is the crux. LR needs very uniform points/ogives for tight groups. The ICC won't give you that. That needs other stuff. I have tried, like a lot of others have, to read at multiple points on longer bullets. That too is inconclusive.

So simply, you will have to try one for yourself. When you work it out, maybe post it here for us to discuss. As for myself, i won't disclose what i know about or how i use the machine, or if in fact i do use it as in the end it really means SFA. I have had good results with the system of bullet measurement we as a group have been using. What i can tell you is that this machine is not responsible for any small groups or aggregates coming out of the North with regard to our 1K matches. Jeff Rogers has only just very recently measured some of his BIBs and did shoot them according to what it read off the dial. Long story short he doesn't waste his time with it any more as the BIBs could be used to calibrate the machine as can some batches of 200 SMKs. Those bad bullets, if they do have a flaw, don't show up on the ICC and it has been tested where a bad BIB still spins up perfect at a couple of units or usually less. Eric G has never seen or used an ICC and he looks like going under 5 inch for the six match group aggregate here on our home range. I have measured his bullets and they are very ordinary on the ICC, but extraordinary in the ogive uniformity and meplat when measured mechanically.

It is more a case of when we find a bullet that is shooting like crap that we use it to maybe gain some insight into why, or if a bullet shoots great, it sometimes shows good on the unit. But there have been bullets that spun perfectly that shot huge groups at 1K, and then there have been bullets that spun poorly, whatever that means, and shot great.
Take from this what you wish. The unit i own is from a very well known custom bullet maker in the US, and when asked, he said that he was selling it because he could not decipher what it was saying. Neither can i and i doubt i ever will.

Long before this unit was here, we had good and bad shooting bullets of all brands. I keep a very large selection of batches of every brand and type of bullet that i can so that i can correlate between what we do and don't know about a particular bullet brand or type. When all these batches of mine and those of others were spun, there was nothing i found that i could say with 100% absolute certainty could distinguish the good from the bad. They were just all different.
The glaring example was the Hornady 162 Amax. Batch No 00-326 will drill tiny holes and is probably the winningest batch of 7 mill bullets there was in the country. Jacko, Dave G and others used this bullet to win lots of matches. Batch 04-717 spins the equal if not better than the 326 batch, yet it sprays the target at all ranges. A visual inspection of the polymer inserts and mechanical measurement of the ogive profiles instantly shows the bullets flaws, the ICC doesn't.


Just to end on, if you want one of these units to find a great batch of bullets for long range, you might be disappointed. Short range, probably is a good investment though some do argue that point and i too have seen some anomalies. The biggest single mistake here is to take an ICC unit and then judge all bullets according to what that scale says. That would be a large error of judgment.
Best of luck.