Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

I have been waiting for 3 months to get some Speer gold dots in .327 Federal Magnum caliber. These are very hard to come by, but from what I hear the Speer bullets are far better than the Federal ones. Now here is my question and it will show my ignorance of loading data. The federal premium cartridge is a 85 grain round and the Speer Gold Dot is a 115 grain round. Why can I not see a size difference between the two? Is the grain number a measure of the powder, or is it a weight of the bullet? I was expecting a bigger bullet based on the 115 grain versus the 85 grain but I can't see any size variance at all. I have wondered about this before with my .45 bullets but now it's driving me nuts and I gotta find out what the grain relates to. Thanks to anyone that can help me out with this.

It's the weight of the bullet (projectile). The 115 grain bullet is probably sat deeper in the casing than the 85 grain bullet - so the cartridge overall length is the same. I have seen some 9mm ammo that has a less pronounced cone in the heavier weight hollow points, so the bullet length may be the same but it could just be my eyes playing tricks...

There's a good thread here that might help...