Post by GLSHOOTER on May 20, 2018 15:16:25 GMT -8
This is a report of the two range sessions I had last week. I shot all Wednesday morning and all day Thursday. I may well be adding things off and on as it is late in the day so editing WILL occur!!''
A friend has been pounding his head against the wall out in Sooner Land for a good 69 grain SMK load and a good plinking load with bulk Hornady FMJ 55's. I had a box , VERY OLD, of them in the cabinet so figured I'd give the 55's a very fast whirl using some powders I suggested for Chris for his plinker loads. . I wanted to shoot a test of the 69's as the 223 I have has been neglected severely when it comes to range time. I've shot one test load of 69's years ago through it that worked nicely. Really I could have stopped with that laod but I need more than that just in case we hit a component shortage again. My box of 69's was pretty thin so I went down and picked up a pair from my local BR shop at a very reasonable price.
I had suggested TAC and H322 for the 55 FMJ loads. I could tell going in these bullets were going to be a challenge. As blind as I am I could see variation in length and ogive placement. The mic showed variations of up to 0.030 on bullet length and a movement from the tip to the ogive of up to 0.020. Not what I am use to for sure but then I've always relegated these to pure practice for 3Gun and training others to shoot along with a little rock&roller kept locked away..lol My goal was a COL of 2.200 but in the end I had stuff running up to 2.251 in length. Bullets being bullets and chambers being chambers I knew that the nut behind the trigger was going to be challenged. I loaded up the rounds using a decent level of charge weights and sat them aside a couple weeks ago.
Range day finally arrived with decent weather. Switchy winds but temps in the upper 60's and low 70's. Hallelujah I was shooting in weather just like Chris!! I was at a genuine gun club range for the first time in ages and with little delay I had my LabRadar set, my front and rear rests in place and a dozen targets down range on the board. I set up the BHW 24" bull barrel I build for 500 yard F-class and got down to work. As I said I used TAC and H322 for powders. I did four charge weights of each so I had eight five shot groups to make it or break it. The H322 was 'plinkable" but I don't like shooting groups that average around 1.8" normally with a scope at 100 yards. Speeds were good and as expected the primers looked well. Certainly adequate for play and realistically even my 3GUn stuff is not any more demanding then this.
The TAC started out with a 1.665 but four in 0.778 boded well. followed it up with a 1.912 and 1.446. The last batch only had three rounds as I had run out of the partial box I had handy. I just took a break and had a cold drink at that point. I was not smiling a lot at the patterns down range but hey sometimes chicken and sometimes feathers. Three in the magazine and and two minutes later I sat back and was smiling a tad more. The 1:8 twist could shoot 55's without any doubt and this one did..finally.
I happen to have some Winchester FMJ's on the shelf and I am going to drag them out and see what happens. As a prequel to this I had gone down to the range the day before and got this rifle on paper with Winchester White box 55's. Two at 25, and one more at 50 to get close and then three more at 50 for a verification. The next three went literally in one hole so I know that the 55's Winchesters can be driven accurately. Now the challenge will be can I do it? More in a week or so. I did note that the SD's were in the 30's with these and I am going to tighten up the bushing for the next outing and perhaps this will benefit the smaller, shorter pills. Long heavies like less tension as a rule so a bit of fine tuning is in order.
So time to take a break...I'll be back with the final segments of this in the AM. Don't worry..It DOES get better!!
Well time has past and I have my morning coffee and my ADL's out of the way so moving on......
As you know being an old man I grew up in the shooting world that relied on the Sierra 69 grain Match King as the Gold Standard of target bullets in the 223. I never wanted to shoot them as I thought they were too expensive and in all honesty I never had any need for anything that heavy. I shot up to 63 SMP's but they are different cat entirely that I might talk about some day. I built this upper to shoot PD's and long range matches. The 1:8 will handle up to 80 grains and that's all I would ask of it. I've shot some 77's and was happy with it so never thought much about it. Well with Chris getting into the game I had to go try some of the stuff he was shooting in parallel. If not the same loads then at least the same bullets. On the 55's I did shoot same same loadings. On the 69's I just went with what my standard procedure of looking at three or four manuals and deciding what I liked on the powder choices. On this one I did ignore RL10/RL15 but that will be cured soon. I also ignored Varget that many like but I have never been impressed with it in the small cases. Just my opinions and many a match has been won with that powder but I personally have never taken any Gold with it.
I shot the 69's on the first day and due to range scheduling had to shoot the last 20 rounds on the following day. Day 1 saw me turning loose with some H322, CFE and 8208XBR. The first one up was H322. This is a powder that has probably won more BR matches than all others combined over the decades. Not all guns shoot it but most will shoot it well enough.Across the board accuracy was good with three of the four groups below and inch. I think I'll revist it but it was nice and consistent in speeds. Some guys would have ben happy but I'm not one of those. I did shoot up to 23.5 grains and that was getting on te edge of warm.
Next was 8208XBR. This powder has a broad spectrum of application and the 223 is certainly in its wheel house. It wanted to go vertical on two groups. First group out of the gate was a 1.321. Not good but take in to account that this was the first group in powder transition and many guns need one or two to get the friction right as powder residue can and will make a difference. Go shoot a group with XXX today and followed by YYY. Tomorrow shoot YYY first then XXX. You will find that the group size will probably reverse. If you can't clean between powders at the range a couple of foulers in the sighter target are in order if you want to do it right. The second group settled in with a round look at 0.560 and I was happy. Bumped up again and we went back up to 1.065 up and down with four going in under 0.5. That leaker sucks!! Bumped up to MAX of 24.3 gave me a 0.993 effort at 3115 . BTW all these loads I am talking about on this thread were jumped 0.5 grains between groups. Not ideal as 0.3 is more in line for the Holy Grail search but I wanted raw data and went with it. I do like 8208 as a rule so it may get the full work up later. I would be looking hard at a retest if I were forced into a choice on this one.
Last test for the day was TAC. A good choice for varmint shooting and while not quite as velocity oriented in this instance it is a good one that I would be happy to use on any given day. Historically it has handled the heat well for me on the hot AZ days also. Four groups down the tube in 20 minutes an d a group average showed up at 0.693. For me and the way things were going this was mo betta'. I will be retesting this one on my next trip for verification . Proof is in the pudding on this one and it was nice and rich.
I suspect pilot error came into play a little on these but I wouldn't hesitate to use these at 500 any day even with me behind them. It might be worth tuning for length as these are at 2.295 and I do want a bit of a bump to see what will be. This really is a combination worth looking at with 0.3 between efforts.
As I said I shot the TAC last on Wednesday so on Thursday I got set up and went to work. I knew that a cold bore shot with any rifle may well be anywhere in the general area of the group and as I had not cleaned from the day before I was looking at the powder change over phenomena so what the heck. A swig of coffee to get my nerves up to normal wired and it's trigger whacking time!! First shot out of the bag was a perfect one hole group! I got this, lol. Well four more down the pipe and I'm setting there looking at a droopy smiley face. had to wait to get home to measure but I knew I was in the hunt with this one. I finished off the other three groups. with a 1.023, four in 0.479, a 1.074 and a final raggedy 0.868. speeds were nice and primers were muy bueno I intend to reshoot this one below after a warm up but I'll take it for now.
So that was all the 223 for my testing. 140 rounds down the barrel and I was pleased with the overall results. I shot 20 groups with the 69's. of that 20 biggest was 1.413. Smallest was 0.491. Six were over an MOA and thirteen were under one inch. The barrel is certainly up to the task and if a better trigger man had been at work with a bit less swirl on the wind they would have been even better. I am happy for an initial evaluation.
Greg
A friend has been pounding his head against the wall out in Sooner Land for a good 69 grain SMK load and a good plinking load with bulk Hornady FMJ 55's. I had a box , VERY OLD, of them in the cabinet so figured I'd give the 55's a very fast whirl using some powders I suggested for Chris for his plinker loads. . I wanted to shoot a test of the 69's as the 223 I have has been neglected severely when it comes to range time. I've shot one test load of 69's years ago through it that worked nicely. Really I could have stopped with that laod but I need more than that just in case we hit a component shortage again. My box of 69's was pretty thin so I went down and picked up a pair from my local BR shop at a very reasonable price.
I had suggested TAC and H322 for the 55 FMJ loads. I could tell going in these bullets were going to be a challenge. As blind as I am I could see variation in length and ogive placement. The mic showed variations of up to 0.030 on bullet length and a movement from the tip to the ogive of up to 0.020. Not what I am use to for sure but then I've always relegated these to pure practice for 3Gun and training others to shoot along with a little rock&roller kept locked away..lol My goal was a COL of 2.200 but in the end I had stuff running up to 2.251 in length. Bullets being bullets and chambers being chambers I knew that the nut behind the trigger was going to be challenged. I loaded up the rounds using a decent level of charge weights and sat them aside a couple weeks ago.
Range day finally arrived with decent weather. Switchy winds but temps in the upper 60's and low 70's. Hallelujah I was shooting in weather just like Chris!! I was at a genuine gun club range for the first time in ages and with little delay I had my LabRadar set, my front and rear rests in place and a dozen targets down range on the board. I set up the BHW 24" bull barrel I build for 500 yard F-class and got down to work. As I said I used TAC and H322 for powders. I did four charge weights of each so I had eight five shot groups to make it or break it. The H322 was 'plinkable" but I don't like shooting groups that average around 1.8" normally with a scope at 100 yards. Speeds were good and as expected the primers looked well. Certainly adequate for play and realistically even my 3GUn stuff is not any more demanding then this.
The TAC started out with a 1.665 but four in 0.778 boded well. followed it up with a 1.912 and 1.446. The last batch only had three rounds as I had run out of the partial box I had handy. I just took a break and had a cold drink at that point. I was not smiling a lot at the patterns down range but hey sometimes chicken and sometimes feathers. Three in the magazine and and two minutes later I sat back and was smiling a tad more. The 1:8 twist could shoot 55's without any doubt and this one did..finally.
I happen to have some Winchester FMJ's on the shelf and I am going to drag them out and see what happens. As a prequel to this I had gone down to the range the day before and got this rifle on paper with Winchester White box 55's. Two at 25, and one more at 50 to get close and then three more at 50 for a verification. The next three went literally in one hole so I know that the 55's Winchesters can be driven accurately. Now the challenge will be can I do it? More in a week or so. I did note that the SD's were in the 30's with these and I am going to tighten up the bushing for the next outing and perhaps this will benefit the smaller, shorter pills. Long heavies like less tension as a rule so a bit of fine tuning is in order.
So time to take a break...I'll be back with the final segments of this in the AM. Don't worry..It DOES get better!!
Well time has past and I have my morning coffee and my ADL's out of the way so moving on......
As you know being an old man I grew up in the shooting world that relied on the Sierra 69 grain Match King as the Gold Standard of target bullets in the 223. I never wanted to shoot them as I thought they were too expensive and in all honesty I never had any need for anything that heavy. I shot up to 63 SMP's but they are different cat entirely that I might talk about some day. I built this upper to shoot PD's and long range matches. The 1:8 will handle up to 80 grains and that's all I would ask of it. I've shot some 77's and was happy with it so never thought much about it. Well with Chris getting into the game I had to go try some of the stuff he was shooting in parallel. If not the same loads then at least the same bullets. On the 55's I did shoot same same loadings. On the 69's I just went with what my standard procedure of looking at three or four manuals and deciding what I liked on the powder choices. On this one I did ignore RL10/RL15 but that will be cured soon. I also ignored Varget that many like but I have never been impressed with it in the small cases. Just my opinions and many a match has been won with that powder but I personally have never taken any Gold with it.
I shot the 69's on the first day and due to range scheduling had to shoot the last 20 rounds on the following day. Day 1 saw me turning loose with some H322, CFE and 8208XBR. The first one up was H322. This is a powder that has probably won more BR matches than all others combined over the decades. Not all guns shoot it but most will shoot it well enough.Across the board accuracy was good with three of the four groups below and inch. I think I'll revist it but it was nice and consistent in speeds. Some guys would have ben happy but I'm not one of those. I did shoot up to 23.5 grains and that was getting on te edge of warm.
Next was 8208XBR. This powder has a broad spectrum of application and the 223 is certainly in its wheel house. It wanted to go vertical on two groups. First group out of the gate was a 1.321. Not good but take in to account that this was the first group in powder transition and many guns need one or two to get the friction right as powder residue can and will make a difference. Go shoot a group with XXX today and followed by YYY. Tomorrow shoot YYY first then XXX. You will find that the group size will probably reverse. If you can't clean between powders at the range a couple of foulers in the sighter target are in order if you want to do it right. The second group settled in with a round look at 0.560 and I was happy. Bumped up again and we went back up to 1.065 up and down with four going in under 0.5. That leaker sucks!! Bumped up to MAX of 24.3 gave me a 0.993 effort at 3115 . BTW all these loads I am talking about on this thread were jumped 0.5 grains between groups. Not ideal as 0.3 is more in line for the Holy Grail search but I wanted raw data and went with it. I do like 8208 as a rule so it may get the full work up later. I would be looking hard at a retest if I were forced into a choice on this one.
Last test for the day was TAC. A good choice for varmint shooting and while not quite as velocity oriented in this instance it is a good one that I would be happy to use on any given day. Historically it has handled the heat well for me on the hot AZ days also. Four groups down the tube in 20 minutes an d a group average showed up at 0.693. For me and the way things were going this was mo betta'. I will be retesting this one on my next trip for verification . Proof is in the pudding on this one and it was nice and rich.
I suspect pilot error came into play a little on these but I wouldn't hesitate to use these at 500 any day even with me behind them. It might be worth tuning for length as these are at 2.295 and I do want a bit of a bump to see what will be. This really is a combination worth looking at with 0.3 between efforts.
As I said I shot the TAC last on Wednesday so on Thursday I got set up and went to work. I knew that a cold bore shot with any rifle may well be anywhere in the general area of the group and as I had not cleaned from the day before I was looking at the powder change over phenomena so what the heck. A swig of coffee to get my nerves up to normal wired and it's trigger whacking time!! First shot out of the bag was a perfect one hole group! I got this, lol. Well four more down the pipe and I'm setting there looking at a droopy smiley face. had to wait to get home to measure but I knew I was in the hunt with this one. I finished off the other three groups. with a 1.023, four in 0.479, a 1.074 and a final raggedy 0.868. speeds were nice and primers were muy bueno I intend to reshoot this one below after a warm up but I'll take it for now.
So that was all the 223 for my testing. 140 rounds down the barrel and I was pleased with the overall results. I shot 20 groups with the 69's. of that 20 biggest was 1.413. Smallest was 0.491. Six were over an MOA and thirteen were under one inch. The barrel is certainly up to the task and if a better trigger man had been at work with a bit less swirl on the wind they would have been even better. I am happy for an initial evaluation.
Greg