222 Remington questions

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phinton81

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I have a Sako made Browning Hi-Power in 222 Remington. I love this gun and it is a family heirloom, however, I just can't seem to get this gun to group how I feel it should be capable of. The gun has a heavy contour barrel(not sure of the rate of twist), a great trigger and very solid Sako action yet I can't do much better than an inch at 100 yards. I have just started handloading for it and I am using 50gr V-Max with 22 grains of 3031. Thats just about max pressure according to IMR website. Does anyone have any recipes for their 222's, I know this gun is a .5 moa gun, I just haven't found the recipe to get me there. Cheers,

Patrick
 
My best to date is with Nosler 50gr. BT and 21.5gr. H-322, it is the only load to break the 1" mark so far, this is with a new Tikka Varmint .222 Rem. Sierra 40gr. blitzking and 53gr. match shot poorly with about any powder combination. I expect much better accuracy soon or this gun is toast. It shot 1 1/4" with cast bullets, still nothing to write home about!!
 
It's been a long time but I used BLC2 and 52-53 grain match bullets and shot in the .300" most of the time...
 
I have a 788 in this calibre and wnning loads for me are:

19.0 grains IMR 4198 under a 50 grain Hornaday SXSP
25.0 grains WW 748 under a 46 grain HP

These two were gleaned from Ken Water's book 'Pet Loads' and worked very well in my rifle. Deliver sub-MOA for me using a Leupold M8 6X42 scope.
 
Try 21-23 grain of H322 under a 50 Ballistic Tip, or 25 grains of W748. I have had super success in the 222 with old Reloder 12, but sadly, it is out of production. [But I still have a few pounds socked away] Regards, Eagleye.
 
Thanks very much for the replies so far. Just a note though, the gun does not shoot 55gr bullets at all. Its an older gun (1967), and I think I want to stick to the 50gr bullets as I am using it for coyote hunting at a family farm. I think I am going to back off the 3031 down to 20-21grs and see if that works. If it doesn't, I will be trying some of these recipes for sure. Thanks everyone, keep em coming,

Patrick
 
I have a Sako 222 and it has always shot well with BLC2 and WIN 748. I perfer ball powders for my 222 just because they meter nicely when reloading. Like Brutus, I like shooting the 50 gr Hornady SPSX. These bullets work great at the fairly modest velocity the 222 is capable of. I also like the Nosler 50 gr BTs, but they are a bit more money than the Hornady SXs are.
 
phinton81 said:
I have a Sako made Browning Hi-Power in 222 Remington. I love this gun and it is a family heirloom, however, I just can't seem to get this gun to group how I feel it should be capable of. The gun has a heavy contour barrel(not sure of the rate of twist), a great trigger and very solid Sako action yet I can't do much better than an inch at 100 yards. I have just started handloading for it and I am using 50gr V-Max with 22 grains of 3031. Thats just about max pressure according to IMR website. Does anyone have any recipes for their 222's, I know this gun is a .5 moa gun, I just haven't found the recipe to get me there. Cheers,

Patrick
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Have you tried loads that are under max. I have had a couple of rifles that would not shoot under 1" with max or near max loads. Once I backed them off a bit and gave up a bit of velocity, the groups tightened right up. One example is my .257 Wby. At max loads around 3300 it is a 1.5" gun. Back it off to 3200, and it tightens to 5/8". I will take the loss of velocity to have the accuracy any day.
 
Check the bedding - likely it has not been epoxy bedded and with time the stock will shrink making the inletting generous.

Check that the barrel does not hit the forend. A simple matter of running a sheet of paper folded twice along the barrel channel. Any tight spot/resistance needs to be relieved.

Check the actions screws are firm hand tight and that the stock is not crushing due to overtightening. Pillars might be in order, again due to the wood stock.

Anything loose with your scope base or rings? how is the scope - quality, clarity, magnification? You can't hit what you can't see.

What type of dies are you using? If you can measure runout of the fired cases and after each stage of your reloading process. You want no more then 5 thou in your finished ammo measured on the 'fat' part of the bullet about 1/8" infront of the case mouth.

H322 was the powder I used but Benchmark will also work well. CCI 450 primers. How old is your brass? How many firings? Trimmed, deburred, etc?

Go up in 2 tenth increments. My 223's and 222's have all responded to as little as 1 tenth grain so measure your powder don't dump from a powder measure.

How clean is the bore? Any pitting?

How long is the throat? Just seat a bullet into the case so it doesn't fall out. Measure the OAL. Chamber and hopefully, the bullet is pushed into the case. Measure that OAL (B). Adjust your seater so that the loaded ammo has an OAL 10thou shorter then the B OAL. If feeding from the mag, try for as long as possible to get to length B.

If the bullet is not pushed back into the case, the throat has worn too long and there is precious little you can do to improve the accuracy through reloading except maybe a heavier bullet. Set the barrel back or put on a new one.

Jerry
 
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