Len the dog
Well-Known Member
I recently came by a good supply of some Remington 55gr PSP ammunition going very cheaply so bought several boxes to try, mainly for plinking and crows if they were accurate enough. When I took a look at them at home I was initially quite surprised by the variation in the tips of the bullets so decided to check the whole batch more thoroughly. 140 rounds later and I found that not only did the COAL vary by as much as 40 thou' (0.040") but the occasional primer was a different colour, most bullets had a cannelure but some didn't, and the cannelures didn't seem to be at the same distance to the tip. One of the cartridges was completely crushed just below the shoulder, most bullets were soft points but the odd few were hollow points, but even the soft points looked like they'd been whittled with a penknife.
Regardless, I tried them out and found that they were grouping at 2 MOA or greater. The rifle is a Tikka T3X 1:14 20" Stainless Lite and as I found with the Norma 50gr Vmax, is certainly capable of 0.5 MOA, all groupings at a measured 100yds.
I then began to wonder if I could reload them using the same components in a more selective manner and get the accuracy closer to that of my own handloads. I went back to the RFD and between my son and I, bought the rest of his stock of the same batch and set about analysing what I had.
Initially I tried a kinetic hammer, but as they appeared to be crimped I was striking the damned thing with so much force I nearly put my shoulder out, and the bullet still hadn't budged. Off to buy an RCBS bullet puller and collet.
I pulled each cartridge and weighed both the bullet and the powder, being careful to get every last kernel out, these weights were recorded and the bullets kept in order so that I could extract a selection based on weight to reload. For the purpose of obtaining a reasonable sample I pulled 60 rounds. The bullet weights varied between 54.5 -57.6gr whereas the powder varied between 37.6 - 38.8gr. I have no idea what powder Remington used in this but at least it looked the same in the sample of 60 rounds.
The photo below is the lightest bullet alongside the heaviest of the sample, a difference of 3.1gr.
The charts below show the distribution of bullet & powder weights.
The bullet Statistics are:-
Min. 54.5
Max. 57.6
ES 3.1
Mean 55.7
Std Dev. 0.60
The powder Statistics are:-
Min. 37.6
Max. 38.8
ES 1.2
Mean 38.3
Std Dev. 0.25
Unfortunately by chance, the heaviest bullet in the batch was sat on top of the lowest powder weight.
Reloading
First of all I ran a bushing die over all 60 cartridges, although I must admit it didn't seem to be changing anything but I thought it may be worth doing just to eliminate another variable, then I deburred the case mouth because they had previously been crimped but since the brass was unfired & still primed I was unable to use my trimmer to uniform the lengths, finally I neck sized them.
By taking a bullet weight range between 55.4 - 55.7, I had exactly 50% of the sample (30 bullets). On previous testing I had found the velocity to be rather low so chose to refill them at the upper end of the weight range at 39.0gr but measured much more precisely with a variation hopefully of less than 0.1gr.
The bullets were seated and checked with a comparator against my regular handloads to match their length to ogive. I also loaded a batch with 50gr Vmax to the same powder weight and length to see how the Remington bullets faired against them.
Testing
Fortunately the day I had free was almost dead calm so off I went and set up a target at a measured 100yds. I fired a few tester shots so that my first shot of the group wasn't cold and then shot a 5 round group of the original factory rounds, followed by the reloaded Remington bullets and then with the reloaded Vmax. I then adjusted the scope 2 clicks to the right as the last time I was out there was a gentle breeze, the final grouping being just 3 shots and more than happy with zero (I zero 3/4" high at 100yds so that I can just point & shoot out to 240 yds).
The mean velocities were:-
Group 1 Factory load (55gr) 3410 fps
Sample of 5 rounds
Group 2 Reloaded factory bullets 3605
with 39.0gr powder
Group 3&4 Reloaded with 50gr Vmax 3662
Conclusion
I had expected the more uniform loadings using the pulled bullets to be better than the original factory loading by a bigger margin, but given the visual appearance of them I guess it is true that you can't make a silk purese from a sow's ear.
I was disappointed with the first Vmax grouping but it improved for the second, albeit only 3 rounds. I also expected the lighter 50gr Vmax to be quite a bit quicker but this may be down to burn rate, my barrel is 20" so may not be allowing all of the powder to be burnt, therefore adding more powder will achieve little.
I only tried one powder weight as burning through more cartridges just for a slight improvement on the factory bullets negates any saving from buying the cheap ammo in the first place.
With regard to the seating depth, I chose to keep it fairly simple by seating the ogive at a uniform depth across the sample, but as can be seen from the photo of the two bullets, this approach will mean that the bullet bases are seated at differing lengths accordingly, however I did select the bullets within a fairly narrow weight range so this shouldn't have too great an effect.
Out of interest I weighed a sample of the Hornady 50gr Vmax and they all fell within a 0.1gr variance.
You could perhaps expect to see more of a vertical stringing given that the reloaded bullets varied in weight by up to 0.3gr but the 22-250 produces near identical POI at 100 yds whether using 50 or 55gr.
The velocity using 39.0gr powder and a 50gr Vmax is near identical to my Norma 50gr Vmax factory loads. The fired cases were all visually checked on firing and there were no signs of over pressure and no difficulty in lifting the bolt or extracting the spent case.
If I continue this with the rest of the stock then based on a mean factory charge or 38.3gr and reloading with 39.0gr, I can produce 98 rounds for every 100 pulled.
My final conclusion from all this is that I shan't be bothering to re-use the factory bullets and as I already have ample stock of 50gr Vmax I shall stick with them, so if anybody wants a couple of hundred Remington 55gr SP's, you can have them FOC (I'll even pay the postage). Or alternatively, if you think you would like to have a crack at this yourself you can have the factory rounds for what I paid, £10 a box (12 boxes).
Regardless, I tried them out and found that they were grouping at 2 MOA or greater. The rifle is a Tikka T3X 1:14 20" Stainless Lite and as I found with the Norma 50gr Vmax, is certainly capable of 0.5 MOA, all groupings at a measured 100yds.
I then began to wonder if I could reload them using the same components in a more selective manner and get the accuracy closer to that of my own handloads. I went back to the RFD and between my son and I, bought the rest of his stock of the same batch and set about analysing what I had.
Initially I tried a kinetic hammer, but as they appeared to be crimped I was striking the damned thing with so much force I nearly put my shoulder out, and the bullet still hadn't budged. Off to buy an RCBS bullet puller and collet.
I pulled each cartridge and weighed both the bullet and the powder, being careful to get every last kernel out, these weights were recorded and the bullets kept in order so that I could extract a selection based on weight to reload. For the purpose of obtaining a reasonable sample I pulled 60 rounds. The bullet weights varied between 54.5 -57.6gr whereas the powder varied between 37.6 - 38.8gr. I have no idea what powder Remington used in this but at least it looked the same in the sample of 60 rounds.
The photo below is the lightest bullet alongside the heaviest of the sample, a difference of 3.1gr.
The charts below show the distribution of bullet & powder weights.
The bullet Statistics are:-
Min. 54.5
Max. 57.6
ES 3.1
Mean 55.7
Std Dev. 0.60
The powder Statistics are:-
Min. 37.6
Max. 38.8
ES 1.2
Mean 38.3
Std Dev. 0.25
Unfortunately by chance, the heaviest bullet in the batch was sat on top of the lowest powder weight.
Reloading
First of all I ran a bushing die over all 60 cartridges, although I must admit it didn't seem to be changing anything but I thought it may be worth doing just to eliminate another variable, then I deburred the case mouth because they had previously been crimped but since the brass was unfired & still primed I was unable to use my trimmer to uniform the lengths, finally I neck sized them.
By taking a bullet weight range between 55.4 - 55.7, I had exactly 50% of the sample (30 bullets). On previous testing I had found the velocity to be rather low so chose to refill them at the upper end of the weight range at 39.0gr but measured much more precisely with a variation hopefully of less than 0.1gr.
The bullets were seated and checked with a comparator against my regular handloads to match their length to ogive. I also loaded a batch with 50gr Vmax to the same powder weight and length to see how the Remington bullets faired against them.
Testing
Fortunately the day I had free was almost dead calm so off I went and set up a target at a measured 100yds. I fired a few tester shots so that my first shot of the group wasn't cold and then shot a 5 round group of the original factory rounds, followed by the reloaded Remington bullets and then with the reloaded Vmax. I then adjusted the scope 2 clicks to the right as the last time I was out there was a gentle breeze, the final grouping being just 3 shots and more than happy with zero (I zero 3/4" high at 100yds so that I can just point & shoot out to 240 yds).
The mean velocities were:-
Group 1 Factory load (55gr) 3410 fps
Sample of 5 rounds
Group 2 Reloaded factory bullets 3605
with 39.0gr powder
Group 3&4 Reloaded with 50gr Vmax 3662
Conclusion
I had expected the more uniform loadings using the pulled bullets to be better than the original factory loading by a bigger margin, but given the visual appearance of them I guess it is true that you can't make a silk purese from a sow's ear.
I was disappointed with the first Vmax grouping but it improved for the second, albeit only 3 rounds. I also expected the lighter 50gr Vmax to be quite a bit quicker but this may be down to burn rate, my barrel is 20" so may not be allowing all of the powder to be burnt, therefore adding more powder will achieve little.
I only tried one powder weight as burning through more cartridges just for a slight improvement on the factory bullets negates any saving from buying the cheap ammo in the first place.
With regard to the seating depth, I chose to keep it fairly simple by seating the ogive at a uniform depth across the sample, but as can be seen from the photo of the two bullets, this approach will mean that the bullet bases are seated at differing lengths accordingly, however I did select the bullets within a fairly narrow weight range so this shouldn't have too great an effect.
Out of interest I weighed a sample of the Hornady 50gr Vmax and they all fell within a 0.1gr variance.
You could perhaps expect to see more of a vertical stringing given that the reloaded bullets varied in weight by up to 0.3gr but the 22-250 produces near identical POI at 100 yds whether using 50 or 55gr.
The velocity using 39.0gr powder and a 50gr Vmax is near identical to my Norma 50gr Vmax factory loads. The fired cases were all visually checked on firing and there were no signs of over pressure and no difficulty in lifting the bolt or extracting the spent case.
If I continue this with the rest of the stock then based on a mean factory charge or 38.3gr and reloading with 39.0gr, I can produce 98 rounds for every 100 pulled.
My final conclusion from all this is that I shan't be bothering to re-use the factory bullets and as I already have ample stock of 50gr Vmax I shall stick with them, so if anybody wants a couple of hundred Remington 55gr SP's, you can have them FOC (I'll even pay the postage). Or alternatively, if you think you would like to have a crack at this yourself you can have the factory rounds for what I paid, £10 a box (12 boxes).
I'm not sure I would have gone through all that effort.
