243 20in barrel loads

terez

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Putting together a lightweight 20in barrel 243.

I know it'll be loud and lose a bit of extreme fps off the top but I'm building her anyway!! LOL

Looking for a proven/suggested handload to burn up the powder quicker and be effcient as possible in the 20in tube.
The barrel is a factory 20in youth sps sporter barrel as a new take off.

Will shoot whatever bullet weight/config does well out of it....shooting coyotes and other smaller varmints and possibly deer in the fall if a heavier bullet will shoot well out of it.

What twist are the 20in sps sporter barrels?

'preciate any help here....


Thanks
 
Try 42 grains of h-380 with an 80 grain nosler ballistic tip over top of it I'm getting 3240 out of a rem model 7 with a twenty inch pipe with this load
 
Any load that works in a 26 inch 243 barrel will work in a 20". I have an M600 Remington with the factory 18.5" barrel, use IMR 4350 and 100 gr bullets. Powder selection should be made by bullet weight not barrel length. In other words the best performing loads in a standard or long barrel will give the best performance in short barrels.
 
^Yup. Although as a side note, according to the testing done by John Barsness and his ballistic lab buddies, short barrels tend to lose less velocity compared to longer barrels when shooting heavy bullets and slow-burning powder.
 
44.5 grains H 414 and a Speer 85 grain bt out a 23 inch Gaillard barreled Sako action, clocks 3250+ fps and shoots around a half inch....This load has been very versitile for 2 decades, has killed many, many varmints out past 400 yards....And with proper shot placement also whitetail, caribou and a moose....Can't see why it wouldn't work well with your shorter barrel.
I used to mess around with slower stick powders, that were difficult to meter and switch between 70 and 100 grain pills but found the 85 grainer with easy to use ball powder was the happy medium that worked well for everything in the .243....
This load is warmish in my rig and primer pockets do get stretched out after 3-4 loadings but I like the performance and .243 brass is easy to find.
The standard twist in a .243 is 1/10.
 
I have a Rem 700 SPS Youth. 20 inch barrel with the 9.25" twist. For coyotes I shoot 55gr Sierra BK's with 760. For plinking at longer ranges I shoot 105 A-max's and they do stabilize for me. I believe I am using RL 22 for the 105's. I will verify that when I get home.

The only reason I bought the rifle is for its compact size. Shorter stock which works great in the cold of winter and even when sitting in a tree stand. Not as accurate as I would like but will resolve that with a rebarrel job at some point in time.
 
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