bullet weight

sir-lamp-alot

Well-Known Member
i have a bit of a conundrum which i'm hoping a few of the more experienced reloaders may be able to help with. have recently purchased a new .223 (remington sps tactical) for fox shooting as i quite liked the idea of a short more manoverable barrel especially when shooting from inside a truck. the barrel is 20" long and has a 1 in 9 twist rate. when i originally tried the gun i used 55gr fedral's which gave me a 4" group so i was back to the shop were the chap said try some heavier rounds as the 55gr may well be coming out to fast and he gave me some 79gr target ammo which shot a 1/2" straight off. now the rifle has gone off to be threaded but does anyone have any ideas what the lowest weight bullet the rifle will like (dont forget its a foxing rifle so it neededs to be as flat as possible) or is it a case of just buying a few differnt weights and giving them a try which is going to cost me a arm and a leg and take for ever.
 
with an 8 or a 9 twist go for 60gr ballistic tips, that 'll shoot pretty flat out to 150yds and more at 3000 fps and plenty of ft lb's whacking power, if you want 40 gr barrel burners you'll probably have to go down to a 1 in 12 twist
 
thanks callie i will give them a go you seem to have some experience with the 60gr heads what would you say the drop was with a 100yrd zero out at 200 yrds? i know each gun shoots differntly but i'm just interested in your experience
 
Federal 223 are now military spec for sending you know where. Look at the primer pockets, the primers are smaller and have a ring around them for use in automatic and semi's (So I am told from USA). So you cannot re use the brass with standard small rifle primers. (yours may be old stock and you get lucky)

Avoid.They used to be good but not now. I had same issus as you 4" group from 2 different rifles. Home loads were less than 0.5".

I would not go heavier than 55gn and for foxy I would go 50gn, but it is up to you. 55gn Nosler BT works well against charlie. I have some 69gn sierra bullets which I never used but posting them is illegal (or I would), if you are passing glasgow this winter let me know and you can pick some up. I am now on 55gn SP from speer and they take rabbit at over 100m no problem off the bonnet. Using Benchmark which is very good.

223 is not generally fussy until you get to heavier bullets IMHO even given your twist rate.
 
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your bloody right deiseldan you cant get a primer back into the case! guess i will be picking up a bag of brass when i pick up the rifle and thank you very much for the offer of your ammo but i dont think i will be any where near you soon
 
sir-lamp-alot, sorry bud missed your reply #3, very remiss of me, 60gr bullet with 22gr of h322 (min safe load) with a sight height of 2"from centre line of scope to centre line of barrel 2" low at muzzle, .4" low at 50yds, 0 at 100yds, 3.5" at 200 and a big drop of 14.4" at 300yds, I always use Hornadys ballistic calculator and it's always bang on, in fact between 50 gr v-max, 52 gr a-max and 60 gr v-max there's not a great deal of difference in point of impact....callie
 
I have the same rifle, and so far it shoots
50, 52, 55, 60 & 69g bullets really well (all reloaded except the 50g's which were Sako / Nosler BT's)
52g Amax
55g Vmax
60g Hornady HP
69g Nosler Custom Competition

I have found reloading (for accuracy) fairly easy using all combinations with Varget, H322 & RL15

Good luck
AndyCM
 
A game-keeper friend uses a .223 Rem. XCR Tactical [?] with 55gr Nosler BTs. I think his rifle has a one-in-nine twist.
He has also used 55gr V.Max. with great success.
He zeros in at one inch high at 100yds and blots foxes out to 250 yards.

As lift is much less than drop at any distance it is better to zero at ranges in excess of 100yds.

HWH.
 
cheers for your replies chaps i may try some 55gr and back the powder down and see if that works or not, after all i have only tried it with one type of 55gr ammo before i sent it off
 
Ref the "hard to reprime" Federal brass. If they are indeed being made to milspec, all you have to do is ream out the crimp from the primer pocket. Lee make a tool for this and it does a fair job of cleaning the pocket as well. The primers and primer pockets of military boxer primed brass are the same as what we use in our civilian rifles, but the primer is just crimped in, that's all. Easy fix, but tedious.
 
You should be fine with most bullets between 55 and 80gr, the latter may struggle to stabilise as you may not get the velocity out of your 20" without hot loads.
My 1-9 seems to like things in the 60-70 range and I use 69gn SMK for range work, 65gr GMK for long range bunnies, the 63gr SMP is ok but is flat based.

Some of the lead free frangible stuff is quite long and in the low 30gr so they may work, will be blown about a bit I'd think though.
 
finally got the rifle back today and gave it a try with some 60gr bullets which it seemed to like, just tried batches of 5 in various powder weights so i didnt get to try it out at range just upto 100yrds to see what weight worked and i managed a grouping of just over half a inch so hopfully 60gr might do the trick
 
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