.223 at 1100fps loads for gophers?

TargetNorth

TargetNorth

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Hey all,
I'm looking for some gopher loads for 223 that are light and quiet, 55gr hornady sp's. I have some fields where the farmers only want rimfire, but would be OK with a lightly loaded 223. It'll be inside 100m.

I've experimented with red dot but accuracy is around 3moa at 100m. I'd prefer 1moa.

Anyway have any suggestions? I have red dot and unique on hand.

I'm tempted to just shoot eley 22lr ammo but I can load 223 for cheaper and then I only need to take 1 gun.
 
TargetNorth said:
Hey all,
I'm looking for some gopher loads for 223 that are light and quiet, 55gr hornady sp's. I have some fields where the farmers only want rimfire, but would be OK with a lightly loaded 223. It'll be inside 100m.

I've experimented with red dot but accuracy is around 3moa at 100m. I'd prefer 1moa.

Anyway have any suggestions? I have red dot and unique on hand.

I'm tempted to just shoot eley 22lr ammo but I can load 223 for cheaper and then I only need to take 1 gun.
Click to expand...

so the farmer says rimfire only and you still want to shoot centrefire even though the load is slowed down.

i wouldnt pi$$ off the landowner,rimfire it would be if it was me because the FARMER says so
i would be taking two rifles.
 
Hmmm, Why do you want to use your 223 so badly? I would think that a 22LR would do a better job on gophers than a 55gr SP going way slower than it was designed to go, I'm sure it would kill them but I doubt you would save any money and then you're still carrying a heavier rifle, less ammo due to size and weight, and also having to haul around your spent brass as well.

If you insist on running them then Hodgdon website says 4gr of Trailboss, 3.1gr of Titegroup, and 3.2gr of Clays under a Hornady 55gr FMJ all give 1060-1075 fps. These are max loads and there was no min load given.
http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/data/rifle
 
I'd want his blessing either way. I might bring the Second rifle with a factory hunting load and show him the difference, a varmint load should be less prone to ricochet than a FMJ and if he's concerned about liability this might help alleviate his concerns. Something light that isn't going very far. But if he still doesn't want centre fire I would have to respect his wishes.
 
So didn't expect this thread to focus on the farmer lol. Yes any shooting I do on others land I'm very open with them as to what I'm shooting. I won't "trick" anyone, I'll show them exactly what I'm doing. So far they guys with land I shoot on are interested in light centerfire loads as they would like to try something similar.

As for "why not just shoot rimfire", I do shoot a lot of rimfire and was thinking gof getting a 17hmr to augment the "stable". I shoot more 22lr than anything else for sure already.

Lastly as for the "why", a lot of what I enjoy about shooting is experimenting with different loads, lead casting, long range etc etc. The creativeness is the part of the hobby that I like and I'm always trying new things, even if they are not the most practical.


Thanks to those that pm'd me recipes.

Barry
 
I have loaded subsonic .223 I used bulk 55gn fmj over top of 2.8gn of titegroup. (This recipe works in my rifle your results may vary) It grouped very well but the drop at 100 was quite significant. All that being said it was fun to shoot just slightly louder than a 22LR.
 
17HMR or 22WMR are both awesome rimfires for gophers, I had my 22WMR out this spring and if you hit them right it sends them for a flip :)
Another option would be something like my 17 Fireball, it isn't overly loud and sending a 20gr .17 cal at 3700fps is very flat shooting to 300 yards and the projectile vaporizes if it hits anything guaranteeing no ricochet danger. Downrange performance on small critters is very impressive and it uses fairly cheap projectiles and a small powder charge.
 
40gr Vmax will blow up the gophers in a reduced load
I've shot many of them
Not sure why you would want to use a FMJ
 
I've experimented with unique under 55gr projectiles in 223. With 5 grains of unique my chronograph measured 1509 fps average. Also fairly accurate out of a bolt gun.
 
mikeelliot said:
40gr Vmax will blow up the gophers in a reduced load
I've shot many of them
Not sure why you would want to use a FMJ
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OP was going to use SP's, I mentioned FMJ because that's what the Hodgdon site referenced for the reduced loads. I'm not sure why anyone would want to neuter their 223 instead of just using a better rifle for the task at hand. You can buy a 17HMR or 22WMR for under $500 and it will be cheaper to shoot and more accurate than a reduced load 223.
 
There's plenty of fun tweaking centerfire rounds to serve different purposes and the 223 is great in that it can be made to mimic 22lr on up to a light deer round.

"The Gopher Load" by James Calhoon is excellent medicine for exactly what the op is searching. Albeit with different bullets and powder. Go to the articles section and look for "To Bee or .223" revisited
http://www.jamescalhoon.com/
 
TargetNorth said:
So didn't expect this thread to focus on the farmer lol. Yes any shooting I do on others land I'm very open with them as to what I'm shooting. I won't "trick" anyone, I'll show them exactly what I'm doing. So far they guys with land I shoot on are interested in light centerfire loads as they would like to try something similar.

As for "why not just shoot rimfire", I do shoot a lot of rimfire and was thinking gof getting a 17hmr to augment the "stable". I shoot more 22lr than anything else for sure already.

Lastly as for the "why", a lot of what I enjoy about shooting is experimenting with different loads, lead casting, long range etc etc. The creativeness is the part of the hobby that I like and I'm always trying new things, even if they are not the most practical.


Thanks to those that pm'd me recipes.

Barry
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Atta boy , way to turn it around ! I'm picking up some good info now too , thanks to all especially about the James Calhoun artical , now I have to find some 800x powder ( never heard of it before ) and blue dot
 
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I'm definitely going to have to try those 800X loads, I've got a few pounds of it for loading 10mm auto. 10-11 grains of powder will go a long way, reduced noise and still getting decent velocity sounds good :)
 
cr5 said:
OP was going to use SP's, I mentioned FMJ because that's what the Hodgdon site referenced for the reduced loads. I'm not sure why anyone would want to neuter their 223 instead of just using a better rifle for the task at hand. You can buy a 17HMR or 22WMR for under $500 and it will be cheaper to shoot and more accurate than a reduced load 223.
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I hear yards- everything has its place. That being said, I buy 55gr sp's for $130/1000, 5 cents per primer and a few cents for powder, and had a guy give me over 1000 cases that I'm still using. It's much cheaper than 17hmr. I load for about 20 cents per. 17mhr is 40 cents per here at best ($23/50).
 
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