.223 + Varget + CCI BR4 primers + heavier bullets~why isn't it working?

Epoxy7 said:
I ran into this problem with my CZ527 Kevlar as well. It wasn't shooting well. It also has a 1:9 twist barrel at 24". Some reading and this wasn't uncommon. Seems the barrels for that rifle preferred lighter loads. I had some 52 Berger's around and varget so loaded some up. Not spectacular but around 1 moa. Much better than what I was getting from heavier accuracy rounds. More reading and apparently 45 hornady is a tack driver in these rifles. Sometimes you just can't tell what the barrel will favour. There may also be some heavier combinations that work great. But as it's a varmint rifle I'll stick with the lighter stuff.

Read up on the specific rifles and reloading. There's usually a trend with what they favour. Work around that.
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Hey Epoxy~thanks for the reply. Funny, I had myself so convinced the heavier stuff SHOULD be shooting well that I hadn't even considered buying bullets lighter than 55gr. A friend of mine from (from CGN) PM'd me back when I was doing the load testing and told me he was getting great results from 53s in his Savage. (same twist) Indeed, they shot the best but since I'm a little slow to see the obvious...I've been wondering IF lighter loads might actually shoot any better/any different. It's printing very small groups with the 53s...but I'm a tinkerer, so I might try even lighter.
 
I have a Rem 5R in 223, 1:9 twist. I was convinced that this rifle was made to shoot 69gr Match bullets.
I've tried about 6-7 different powders, it was shooting good, but not excellent, always seemed to have a few shots to open the groups, inconsistent grouping.
I've tried Berger 52 HP and Sierra 53 HP Match. And with 8208XBR, it's a .5 in./100y rifle, consistently. So I traded all my 69grs for 52grs and didn't look back.

Good luck
 
I had many problems with Varget in my Savage 12 223. I found after trying many powders that N540, very little neck tension, and playing with seating depth a real winner.

25gr of N540 in a neck sized only case is great at 600+yards. I found loading down worked better for me. I almost never resize the cases or have to trim due to the light load and it shoots SMK 69s awesome.
 
1:9 is plenty fast enough for up to 75 grainers and Varget should do just fine. My guess is that you are having some sort of issue related to your seating depth, or consequences associated with heavy neck tension.

First - Try not loading to magazine length and seat the bullets to jam the lands. That should get things moving for ya. Work up a load from there.

The second thing I'd have a good look at is your neck tension and runout of loaded rounds. If you have heavy neck tension and the necks are not well chamfered on the inside, you will get heavy runout. Have a look at that too.
 
.22lr, can you confirm that you did a proper OCW test with the 69gr bullets? Also, have you tried varying your seat depth in small increments and testing? Not meaning to be rude, but it sounds like you are trying just a few different suggested loads and expecting them to shoot. Accurate loads are not achieved this way. A proper OCW test IMO is a round-robbin of .2 grain increments right up to book max.

I am shooting a Remington .223, 1:9 and my "heavy" load is:

70gr Berger VLD
25.9 grs Varget
Seated to .01 Jam

As a note, this load actually groups better at 200 yds than 100 (moa) because it is not yet stabilized. Just something else to consider when loading longer bullets.
 
Jmiverson, that's what i was going to Say. Take it out to 200 yards and check groups. I think you'll find groups from 55's really Start opening up at 200 where heavier 62 and 69's Will remain consistent. I found the same thing with my sl8, 1:7, groups with 55gr vmax looked good at 100 yards but were opening up over 4" at 200 yards.
 
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