I’ve been playing a lot with a new 223AI, the purple lightweight I posted about recently. It has a PN #1 contour, 22 ½” super match tube. 3 groove, 8 twist.
I tried the 50 V-Max, and wanted to compare Ramshot TAC with H335. I use WW brass and CCI400 primers, bullets seated to touch the lands. The powder for the individual rounds was not individually weighed, just thrown from my old RCBS Uniflow once the measure was set for each charge.
Here’s what I found. TAC is definitely a wee bit slower burning in this case, probably 1 grain or so. 29.0 grains of TAC is 50 fps slower in velocity than 28.5 grains of H335.
These were fired today at 100 yards. The rifle is perfect, but the trigger is a bit heavier than I like. That is not the fault of the smith (Bill Leeper), the weight is exactly what I ordered. But the stock, especially the foreend is very slim, and I would like the pull to be lighter. There was no parallax in the scope at 100 yards. And I don’t profess to be a benchrest shooter.
If anything I wanted TAC to be more accurate. Less temperature sensitive, less fouling, it’s supposed to be great. I had sorted the brass and even hedged the bets in TAC’s favour. Those 15 brass had a neck diameter variation of less than 1 thou, the 15 used for the H335 had a variation of up to 1.5 thou.
I fired the target with TAC first. After the first group, I adjusted the POI to the right 1” and down ½”. Great weather conditions the first two groups, the winds got gusty for the final group.
Without cleaning the barrel I then shot the H335 loads. No fouling shots for the new powder.
It’s interesting, the first group fired. The first two shots were the extreme spread, then the next 12 rounds would have gone into a ragged hole about 0.45”. The top right target, the third group shot…the first four went into the same hole and I absolutely pulled the final shot low. Too busy thinking about how good the groups were I suppose.
I did not adjust the POI throughout the H335 groups, of course it needs to be adjusted for a final zero but I was looking for consistent POI.
The individual velocities are posted on the targets, I’ll leave it up to the statisticians in the crowd to dissect the velocities.
About the whiteout on the targets: I managed to screw up and get the targets mixed up. I wrote the load and velocities on the opposite targets, then realized my mistake, whited them our and put the numbers on the correct targets.
What does this little test prove? Not a thing, except that in the 223AI case with 50 grain bullets, my lot of TAC is about a grain slower burning than my lot of H335. Also this little rifle seems to prefer H335.
Please be gentle. I will probably be shunned as I’m posting groups that don’t show every bullet going into a slightly ragged hole, but here it is…
And here is a shameless brag photo of the ugly stick.
I tried the 50 V-Max, and wanted to compare Ramshot TAC with H335. I use WW brass and CCI400 primers, bullets seated to touch the lands. The powder for the individual rounds was not individually weighed, just thrown from my old RCBS Uniflow once the measure was set for each charge.
Here’s what I found. TAC is definitely a wee bit slower burning in this case, probably 1 grain or so. 29.0 grains of TAC is 50 fps slower in velocity than 28.5 grains of H335.
These were fired today at 100 yards. The rifle is perfect, but the trigger is a bit heavier than I like. That is not the fault of the smith (Bill Leeper), the weight is exactly what I ordered. But the stock, especially the foreend is very slim, and I would like the pull to be lighter. There was no parallax in the scope at 100 yards. And I don’t profess to be a benchrest shooter.
If anything I wanted TAC to be more accurate. Less temperature sensitive, less fouling, it’s supposed to be great. I had sorted the brass and even hedged the bets in TAC’s favour. Those 15 brass had a neck diameter variation of less than 1 thou, the 15 used for the H335 had a variation of up to 1.5 thou.
I fired the target with TAC first. After the first group, I adjusted the POI to the right 1” and down ½”. Great weather conditions the first two groups, the winds got gusty for the final group.
Without cleaning the barrel I then shot the H335 loads. No fouling shots for the new powder.
It’s interesting, the first group fired. The first two shots were the extreme spread, then the next 12 rounds would have gone into a ragged hole about 0.45”. The top right target, the third group shot…the first four went into the same hole and I absolutely pulled the final shot low. Too busy thinking about how good the groups were I suppose.
I did not adjust the POI throughout the H335 groups, of course it needs to be adjusted for a final zero but I was looking for consistent POI.
The individual velocities are posted on the targets, I’ll leave it up to the statisticians in the crowd to dissect the velocities.
About the whiteout on the targets: I managed to screw up and get the targets mixed up. I wrote the load and velocities on the opposite targets, then realized my mistake, whited them our and put the numbers on the correct targets.
What does this little test prove? Not a thing, except that in the 223AI case with 50 grain bullets, my lot of TAC is about a grain slower burning than my lot of H335. Also this little rifle seems to prefer H335.
Please be gentle. I will probably be shunned as I’m posting groups that don’t show every bullet going into a slightly ragged hole, but here it is…
And here is a shameless brag photo of the ugly stick.
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