22br

[NigelM]

A couple of people have expressed an interest in my new 22BR so I thought I would start a thread on it's work up.

The spec is a Howa 1500 action that I bought well used a little while ago. A Sassen (Border) #2 profile 26" 9 twist stainless barrel. A Mad Dog carbon stock that again I bought well 2nd hand some time ago and has been sitting about doing nothing. Hardy 5 moderator. Mod, Barrel and Action Cerakoted in Tungston. Harris bipod with one of those clever little handles to control tilt - much better than trying to fiddle with that little knurled knob when you have cold fingers.

The scope is a Sightron S111 that I bought from someone on this site. I have found that the Sightron S111's work really well with my Starlight Archer NV that I've had for 10 years now, much better than Nightforce or S&B which I have also tried over the years. As the gun is going to have two roles, Foxing with NV and LR bunny gun it's a 6-24x50.

I deliberated over the barrel profile and twist for a while. In terms of profile I wanted the gun to be as light and well balanced as possible, but I wanted accuracy as well. The #2 profile at 600 thou at the muzzle in a .224 gives a 188 thou wall thickness. That's similar to my 280 in a #4 profile (183 thou) and the 6.5 in the same profile (193 thou). They are both very accurate so my conclusion was #2 should be good enough in a .224. Especially considering how little powder this will be using.

In terms of twist, I wanted to run bullets in the 55 to 70 grain region. My first choice is the 69 grain Sierra TMK. BC is .375 so it will buck the wind pretty well and I should achieve 3300 fps with it so trajectory will still be flat enough. If that plan doesn't work my back stop is a 55 grain Sierra BK. To stabilise the 69 grain a 9 twist is needed.

Pic of the gun below. I start working it up this afternoon. 100 sparkly Lapua cases are waiting to be primed with CCI BR4's and Varget which seems to be the go to powder for this chambering.

Let's hope I'm not disappointed!

 

[User00033]

Assume you've made your own brass from 6mm BR Lapua?
Have you weighed the rifle with all its accessories? Would be interesting to know the total weight.
I love long range bunny shooting, my favourite shooting of all, very challenging with the wind here. Have had great success with the Sierra Blitzkings.

 

[bobjs]

very nice,

have the slot for one and nearly had one but with my second 20 tac sat here doing nothing there is no need for another unemployed rifle,

best of luck for you with the new rifle,

bob,

 

[takbok]

Looks impressive! I also have the tungsten cerakote and it's really nice. It will be nice to hear how it shoots.

 

[NigelM]

Assume you've made your own brass from 6mm BR Lapua?
Have you weighed the rifle with all its accessories? Would be interesting to know the total weight.
I love long range bunny shooting, my favourite shooting of all, very challenging with the wind here. Have had great success with the Sierra Blitzkings.

Funnily enough that has been this mornings project.

Lapua 6mmBR brass. I went for Wilson bushing dies this time as they don't have an expander and with the Redding dies I have had to remove it as it does nothing for concentricity. Wilson have a good reputation so I thought I would try them.

248 thou bushing fitted and on the first pass (using Imperial Sizing Wax) I found there was a lip at the top of the neck measuring 248 thou and below that it measured 243 to 244 thou. Confused I buggered about with die set up tested a few theories and nothing worked. I then ran the sizes brass through the K&N expander die for the neck turner and then sized again with the Wilson. The result was perfect brass.

I can only conclude that something to do with the reduction from 243 to 224 was a bit much for it all. Anyway, 40 sized cases ready to go. They are all concentric at the neck to within 2 thou, at least half of them below 1 thou, so good result.

A spot of reloading this afternoon. Unfortunately it's blowing hard here at the moment and I not going to waste my time developing a new load in 25 knots of wind, so firing it might have to wait.

Not put it on the bathroom scales yet. Will do so later.

 

[NigelM]

Thank you Bob and Takbok. Fingers crossed!

 

[NigelM]

Assume you've made your own brass from 6mm BR Lapua?
Have you weighed the rifle with all its accessories? Would be interesting to know the total weight.
I love long range bunny shooting, my favourite shooting of all, very challenging with the wind here. Have had great success with the Sierra Blitzkings.

Total weight including Mod, Scope and Bipod is around 10 1/2 Lb. I think those three have about 2 3/4 Lb between them so a 7 3/4 Lb rifle. The Howa action is a heavy unit to start with.

 

[Selous]

You do have some interesting toys! I like that very much, keep us posted how it shoots

 

[User00033]

When you've made some progress with your load development and got some chronograph data to share, it will be very interesting to see how the .22 BR stacks up against the .222, .223, ,22-250, .220 Swift, .22WSSM and .22-243. Bit of an academic exercise but for those of us that like superfast flat shooting little pills it will be very interesting to see the relative drop and windage. My gut feel is that there maybe a surprise or two in store

 

[Selous]

My understanding is that a 22br snaps at the heels of a 22/250, we will wait and see.

 

[NigelM]

Wind has died down today so I got out to the range and started by putting 3 rounds through and cleaning after every round. I had cleaned it thoroughly yesterday after it's 3 proof rounds. No sign of any swarf on the cleaning patches and very easy to clean up, so I progressed on to a 5 shot ladder test.

The homework suggested Varget as the most accurate powder for the 22BR so not wanting to reinvent the wheel I went for that. The Sierra manual suggests that the max load of Target for the 69 Match King is 30.8 grains. Quickload suggests max pressure is hit at 30.6 grains, but I have found that Quickload always needs testing.

I weighed and measured case capacity on the first 3 fired rounds. All were within 0.1 grains at an average of 37.8 grains of H2O. Quickload had suggested 38.7 so a bit out.

The ladder test was run every 0.3 grains from 30.0 to 31.2 grains. I didn't get any signs of sticky bolt but primers were starting to flatten out at the top end so I knew I was getting there. Velocities ran from 3154fps to 3279fps. Interestingly the 30.9g and 31.2g were through the same hole, so I thought if I was lucky I might have found a node up there. Pressure was a bit high but that's often the way.

All bullets were loaded 60 thou off the lands. I have done quite a bit of playing with these slippery bullets and in my rifles and no matter what the chambering they have all liked to jump. The 280AI with 160 TMK's likes 120 thou, Berger type numbers.

So another thorough cleaning and 7 bullets loaded up at 30.9 grains, the bottom end of what I was hoping to be the node and only 0.1 grains over the Sierra manual maximum. 2 shots were to be used as clearing rounds after cleaning followed by a 5 shot group.



Gobsmacked! 5 shot 0.4" group and the rifle only has 18 shots down the barrel. I'll take that.

Velocities were 3235, 3227, 3232, 3235, 3248, Average 3235, ES 21, SD 7.7. The barrel did't get too hot, I left about 2 minutes between shots. I think this sort of vindicates my decision to go for a #2 profile barrel, the wall thickness looks to be enough for a .224 calibre burning so little powder.

In terms of Trajectory and Drift, zero'd 0.5" high at 100 meters, at 200 meters I should get 2.2" of drop and 3.5" of drift, at 300 meters it's 10.8" of drop and 8.2" of drift. Not sure how that compared to other 22's but I'm pretty happy with numbers like that.

Now to load up 50 more and see how the terminal ballistics are with those TMK's. Charlie look out.

 

[bobjs]

very nice

now you have me wishing I had tried the 22br I was going to buy

bob.

 

[User00033]

Well the new rifle has certainly delivered on the first premise which is the .22BR being an inherently accurate cartridge. Well done you must be very pleased. With the 69 grain TMK at 3200fps+ the energy curve looks good. Could do all sorts of things with this rifle in NZ...

 

[User00033]

With the factory .22-250s being limited by the 1:14" twist, I wonder how the .22BR energy compares down range with the 69gr and custom barrel.

 

[NigelM]

With the factory .22-250s being limited by the 1:14" twist, I wonder how the .22BR energy compares down range with the 69gr and custom barrel.

Now there's a question...

 

[NigelM]

Just done the sums.

22-250. 3500 fps with 55g BK. ME 1496. 300m Energy 640. 300m drop 11.8, drift 11.4

22BR Norma. 3235 fps with 69 TMK. ME 1603. 300m Energy 877. 300m drop 10.9, drift 8.4

I bet you could have some fun with that in NZ.

 

[User00033]

Just done the sums.

22-250. 3500 fps with 55g BK. ME 1496. 300m Energy 640. 300m drop 11.8, drift 11.4

22BR Norma. 3235 fps with 69 TMK. ME 1603. 300m Energy 877. 300m drop 10.9, drift 8.4

I bet you could have some fun with that in NZ.

Isn't the .22-250 MV a little conservative? I would have thought you'd be able to get 3,700-3,900fps?

The .22BR would make for a great goat / fallow rifle here. Would have to suppressed, would imagine the muzzle blast / sonic crack must be bloody loud otherwise.

 

[NigelM]

Isn't the .22-250 MV a little conservative? I would have thought you'd be able to get 3,700-3,900fps?

The .22BR would make for a great goat / fallow rifle here. Would have to suppressed, would imagine the muzzle blast / sonic crack must be bloody loud otherwise.

Don't know as I don't own one. I took 3500 from Ammoguide as a guide for the 55 grain bullet.

 

[ziggy]

I'd imagine it would be quite a bit faster as my .223 runs 55 grain bullets at 3600 without trying too hard. According to the chrony anyway.

 

[straightpull6547]

Who built the .22br ?