Bullet recommendations for 1/9 .223

Crosshair243

Well-Known Member
I have a pro-varmint .223 with 1/9 twist 24" barrel and am finally in the position to fine tune a load for it.
I use Norma factory 50g Vmax to great success but now I'm pushing the distances out a bit on the crows and plinking I quite fancy the 55g Noslers.
It will be for literally everything from 5y squirrels through to 100y muntjac, 200y foxes and crows within eyesight :D

So I was just wondering which bullets you guys have found to work well in a 1/9.
 
The 1:9 twist was developed by FN, along with a new bullet design, to improve the M-16 after Vietnam. It went from a 300 yard rifle to a 600 yard rifle, and with the SS109 bullet, would punch the old "steel pot" GI helmet at 600 yards with a square hit.

My modern AR-15s are all vanilla, 1:9 twist rate, Mil Spec semiauto versions of those made for the USMC, even the same manufacturer, except for a PWA I built myself. They shoot 55, 60, 62, and 63 gr bullets very well. The new Winchester 60-gr hunting ammunition shoots one ragged hole. I would start with the 63-gr and 65-gr Sierra, the 64-gr Winchester Power Point, the 60-gr Nosler, and 55-gr Barnes TSX. I have not bought any .223 bullets in a long time, though, because I bought 5,000 FMJ long ago, 5,000 SS109, a bunch of Winchester 55-gr SP, and Sierra 63-gr.

If it shoots the 63-gr Sierra, try the 65 gr, which is made for deer, coyotes, etc. 23 to 26.0 gr Varget. The 65 has the less bearing surface than the 63, so use the same load. 25.5 gr with Rem brass, CCI 400 primers, 2.25" COAL. A friend loaded these and they run about 2,900 fps from our 20-inch barrel Bushmasters. He has been stalking a wild boar that was tearing up a horse pasture, and got it last night at 80 yards. Shot it behind the ear, using this load, broke it's neck, bullet exited. Boar weight 340 lbs.
 
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Im currently using 52g amax with 24.5g of bl-c(2) and cci br primers with ppu and hornady case's with my 1/9 twist cz,
Worked the load up and down and the 24.5g is best 100m-300m. The best factory loads are hornady tap 60g and the 55g vmax for fox. Tried 68g and 69g bthp's but no sub moa groups.
 
My 1in9 Remmy .223 loves 55gn Nosler BT's and 55gn VMax , both use 25gn of Benchmark and produce clover leaf groups at 100m. Set 20 thou off the lands.
 
Thanks all. In the end I've gone for 60g Nosler b/t and h335 (as couldn't get benchmark) with cci400 primers. Will hopefully have a play next week and see what they can do.
 
Ended up using the Nosler websites most accurate load which was the max load of 25g. From 2" with 23g I ended up with a 3/4" 5 shot group at 105y which is plenty good enough for me.

9F751707-02FA-4B65-8825-424659A79866_zps1sg1upme.jpg

Will try them at 400y in the next few days to true Strelok.
Can anyone work out a predicted mv to get me started?
60g Nosler b/t
25g H335
24" barrel
1/9 twist.
 
I used the 60grn Noslers with H322 or Benchmark and found them to be very good (1..9 twist 24" barrel).
I changed the powder to N133, which was far easier to get hold of, and they were as good.

I use the 55grn Dogtown from Midway (these are made by Nosler) with N133 sat 10 thou back (they open up a lot if they jump more than 20 thou), and they are better than 0.75moa at 100yds when I do my bit.

The most accurate loads I have are 60grn VMax with N133 and 52grn AMax or 52 grn SMK with N130.
 
Sorry to inform you but that group ain't anyway good enough, at 100 off a bench rest you should be sub 1/2 I think you should try some heavier bullets to see if it improves. If you use that at 400 they will be sprayed all over the target. Suggest you try 69grn sierra under N133. Also you might do well to get hold of Laurie Hollands series of bullet tests for .223 to give you some pointers.

D
 
It's not off a bench it's off of a Harris and a rolled up set of leggings ;)
There aren't many real world scenarios where .75moa isn't good enough and is still far better than the equivalently priced factory ammo. Ie Privi.
I'm not proud either so I'll happily post my 400y group shot from the same rest when I do it.
I shot well over 200 head of crows and rabbits on the cover plots last year with .223 and that load was good enough to kill every single one of them.
So, until I'm vying for the world bench rest title, I'll crack on with killing stuff rather than tightening groups to the nth degree.
Might try the 69ers when these run out though :D:D;)
 
Ok! I couldn't resist! Off out to true Strelok :)
400y. 0-8mph 2 o'clock wind and a mag full of bullets.
My rest was my drag bag on the l200 bonnet with my Ram jacket wedged under the butt.
I had to lengthen one leg on the Harris to get it level.
a8216ed5ae36932cc91ade79bb7b8158_zps5ee8c3e0.jpg

Mag set to 16x and parallax checked several times.
I wasn't optimistic so gave myself a big board :D

I couldn't remember the Nosler predicted MV so guessed at 3010fps.

I loosed off a mag full of four shots in about 1.5 minutes so wasn't particularly trying to read the wind- just wait until the crosshairs wouldn't budge off of the 3" black square and then squeeze the trigger!
It was vertical dispersion I was looking to measure.
Anyway, here is the result:
9b812c102a890cfff5055740acfa887e_zpsd2962d88.jpg


One in the bull! One more on the A5 and two similarly spaced but 2mao to the left. With good wind calls, that would have been four dead crows anyway.

I added up the height above centre of each round which was 0" + 2" + 5" + 2" = 9" /4 = 2.25" average height above predicted MV. Typing this into the Truing function on strelok, it gives a new MV of 3096 which is only 6fps off of Noslers prediction of 3102!!

Anyway, I'm still happy with that so I'm going to get on and load the rest of the bullets at that weight and go kill some stuff :)
 
I only bought 100 of the 60g as I didn't know how they'd turn out. I'm now down to my last 10 and am a bit undecided! On the one hand, they've proved more than adequate for their intended use. Despite the comment about .75" not being good enough, they've shot very consistently. The Strelok algorithm seems bang on for the ranges I've dialled. Furthest shot has been a 296y rabbit with a couple of 270y crows. They've really helped me fall in love with the .223 again and this morning I shot rabbits at 110 and 140, a crow at 170 and one at 191 but missed one at 283 with a bad wind call. For 75% of our fields they're still point and shoot (225y mpbr).
I haven't had a fox yet but they are very potent on the small stuff so I'm expecting good things.


However, the thought of buying a fresh batch of the same and just loading them up seems a bit boring so I was thinking of trying some 55's or even some 50's. But then its back to square one with load development and truing :D

Decisions!!!!
 
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