Suggestions for a .223

Well I just got back from the g-show.

Pickings were a little slim with the options you guys put on here.

I did mangae to pick-up 5000 Federal small rifle Match primers @ $45/K

I also picked up 1000 50gr Nosler BT and 3 lbs of Benchmark.

As soon as I have some brass (soon I hope) I will start to work up a load.

Hodgdons load data web site says: 24.0gr min and 26.5gr. max with a OAL of 2.210.

Usually I work up a test batch by going in .3gr increments, but that is usually in rifles with 45 to 55gr, of powder "large" centre fires...... Is the process any different with "small" centre fires?

Cheers!
 
A friend of mine bought an SPS Tac this summer in .223. He had no luck at all with light bullets (they shot ok, around 1")...going up to heavier bullets really helped. 55grn Bergers shot well(3/4" or so)...now he is shooting 69 grn Nosler HPBT and it is shooting really well, he found that with the light bullets it was really picky and going +-.1 grn made a noticable difference in group size. Going up to the 69 grn Noslers it was much more forgiving and several loads shot really well.
 
Only thing "wrong" with the 40s is that they are tiny little bullets. You have very little choice of where to seat them, and very little room to tune their overall length. You're virtually guaranteed that they'll be jumping quite a bit to reach the rifling (which is not necessarily a bad thing; but if it is, you don't have any way to fix it).

I was going to recommend Nosler 50 or 55 grain Ballistic Tips, and I see you've since picked up a thousand. I expect they will do wonders for you.

Assuming your rifle is a 1-9" twist, that means you will be able to fire some of the good long range bullets (e.g. 75 HPBTs), but they're probably not worthwhile for casual prairie dog shooting (without a rangefinder); having something fast, flat and accurate (pretty much any 50, 52 or 55 grain bullet) will be better for that. On the other hand for serious P.D. sniping (long range shots, with the use of a rangefinder, doping the wind, trying for a first-shot hit), one of the heavier long range match bullets would be preferred.
 
I had it out on Sunday. I was flipping through my Nosler manual and saw that Nosler says Benchmark Powder was the "most accurate" Powder tested and that "25.5gr" of powder was the mosta accurate load in the their test rig.

I decided on Saturday Night that I would make up 8 test bullets using their combo.

On Sunday at the range, I broke in the barrel (I know most people belive its a myth..... But I need to "make" brass any way.... and it gives me more confidence in my rig, imamgined or not) After I was done that I sighted in at the 25yrd target, them moved to the 100 and then 200. Wind was quartering from L to R at 25 to 35 KMh.

American Eagle FMJ 55gr. did pretty well. at 100
AE55.jpg


And the Nosler load I pulled out of the book.... at 100
NBT50.jpg


I am not going to post the target from 200...... The groups REALL opened up at 200, I think the smallest was 4" but that was also side to side not much up and down stringing.

So obviously I have to build up a ladder test, but I have found a starting point I think. So what next, Do I just go to the manual and build up a full ladder test, or is there a shortcut I can take now that I know 25.5gr is .6" @100?

Cheers!

All in all I am pretty impressed with the rifle, I was told to expect 2"(ish) sized groups at 100 at the best of times with the AE ammo, and I am at 1.4" with a 30kmh wind.
 
i have been watching this thread as i just bought a sps tactical in 223 aswell, today i tried some 75 grain hpbt hornady, moly coated
here we go
win case, trimmed to 2.260
wsr primer
imr 4895
pressure tested up to 25grains(1 grain over max load as per lyman book), primer showed cratering,
coal= 2.315, roughly .010 jump
5 shot groups at 115 yards
22gr .75''
22.5 .91''
23 .91''
23.5 .85''
24 .5'' .
so i quess my 1-9 shoots the 75ers well enough, i am gonna tweak the load around 24 grains this weekend, next i will try some 69 hpbt and 55 grain vmax,
 
notsorichguy, you are not measuring your groups correctly. Groups are normally measured center-to center, you are measuring outside-to-outside. The good news is that you can knock 0.224" off of your indicated readings, to get what you would have gotten on a centre-to-centre basis. Which puts you well under half an inch (congrats!), which is an awfully nice start(!).

BTW you are not the first Remington owner I've seen who chooses to shoot 4-shot groups... ;-)

As you fire groups with larger numbers of shots in them (5, 10 or even 15 or more) you'll find that they tend to be bigger (of course), but you'll also probably find that "crap ammo" often shows fairly wide flyers, whereas good ammo shows very few flyers (preferably none). I'd say that most 10-shot groups of American Eagle will probably be more than 2" at 100 yards, but I'd suspect that you'll probably be able to keep the vast majority of your Nosler-50-BT 10+ groups well under an inch at 100 yards; welcome to good ammo!

matty86suk, sounds like your rifle and ammo are also shooting very nicely.
 
Jerry are these "plinker-grade" bullets (e.g. perhaps it is fair to expect 2-3" 100 yard groups from them), or are they comparable to high quality hunting or match bullets (e.g. Nosler Ballistic Tips)?

(BTW I don't mean to suggest there is anything at all wrong with plinking-grade bullets; in fact plinking-grade ammo is likely good enough for 99-44/100% of .224" bullets that are fired!)
 
I have not had a chance to shoot any but feedback has been positive. Now I am going by what others are saying but they are getting in the MOA, sub MOA type accuracy at 100yds with factory rifles and loads.

Match bullets, no. Min of evil attacking PD's - yeah, I think they will do the job quite nicely.

Heard one shooter was having a hoot smoking PD's with the ARMSCOR 62gr FMJ's. I queried him as I don't think of FMJ's as varmint bullets. Kind of small hole in and out and bullet bouncing over the real estate.

He said they 'opened' up the PD very nicely. Didn't get any info on loads or firearm but he has bought a whole bunch more so must be happy.

Maybe they are yawing/tumbling on impact and breaking up??????

Both PRVI and ARMSCOR are a nice looking bullet and look very well made.

I am sure they will do the job and do so without breaking the bank,

Jerry
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom