.223 Barrel Blank Question...?

highspeedlowdrag

highspeedlowdrag

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Hey guys,

Looking at possibly buying a barrel blank for a project that I have in mind. It is a bolt action that will be in .223 Remington. I've been looking at the various barrel makers and their offerings - and am somewhat confused with the actual (calibre) designation for a .223 type blank. Some list them only as a 22CF blank (for obvious reasons), but others have them listed as .224?? Would I be way off in assuming that these are one in the same? Any help in clarifying this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
hsld.
 
The .223 Remington cartridge uses a .224" groove diameter barrel. Some makers might use the term .22CF, others, .224. Same thing.
You will want to consider the rifling twist, depending on the bullets weights you will be using.
 
The British are fond of making down the bore diameter (the size of the hole before rifling) on their guns. On a 22 rimfire, that is a .220 bore. Add 1 1/2 thousandths depth of cut rifling (equals 3 thou total, 1 1/2 thou per side of the bore) and you have a groove diameter of .223 inches. This is the size barrel generally used for rimfire cartridges, but is still used, apparently, on the CZ Hornet barrels as well.
That explains why the .303 British has a .311" diameter barrel.

On this side of the ocean the same bore diameter was used and the depth of rifling was set a little deeper, resulting in a .224 barrel, the standard settled upon for centerfire barrels, mostly.
Mostly is because there are also .227/.228 barrels out there (Savage High Power, for example).

The designation of .223 Remington, is a name given to specific Cartridge. Confusing, no? .222 Remington uses the same barrel. :)

And a .300 Win mag has the same .308 bore as a .308 Winchester.....

Cheers
Trev
 
North American naming/numbering systems went out of their way to confuse a person. The Europeans have long had a superier identification system for various chamberings, but these have never been adopted in N.A. Eagleye.
 
I think this is one of the most confusing things a new shooter has to deal with, and even worse for a new handloader. When I teach, I explain that the caliber name just a name, like Bill Smith, or Fred Black. Fred is not black, and Bill probably is not a gun smith, or gold smith and not even a black smith.

22 Hornet, 22 PPC, 221 Fireball, 218 Bee, 219 Zipper, 220 Swift, 222 Rem, 223 Rem and 225 Win all shoot the same 224 bullet. The name and numbers are just like a first and last name.

The first draft of the fed's Safety Course was a hoot. The book was written by two guys who had never handled a gun in their life. This was one section they screwed up, big time. Did you know a 303 Brit was a 30 caliber introduced in 1903?
 
Awesome... Thanks for all of the replies guys. Now that I know... I'm thinking about getting a .224 blank (to be chambered in .223 Remington) with a 1:8 twist for some of the heavier bullets...

Cheers,
hsld.
 
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