New AR fodder

[smithgar3840]

Finally pulled the trigger on boolits for a couple of AR's. Bought an RCBS 55gr mold. My first from them. Cast them hot and fast as others have suggested. Plain ww dropped in water. Got the freechex maker and ran them thru a Lee .225 sizer to crimp the check. Used .011 thick flashing. Now all I need to do is lube and load. I'm going to use H4895 and hopefully work up a load that is accurate and will work the action.

[runfiverun]

start at 18 grs and come up from there.

[smithgar3840]

I was thinking about 20 but I'll take your advice.

[Larry Gibson]

Start at 16 gr with a 1/3 - 1/2 gr dacron filler if your barrel twist is faster than 9".

Larry Gibson

[Lizard333]

I got my RR to cycle well with 18 grains. BTW, if your using a dillon 550 to load those with 4895 you may run into some bridging. I had to go simple and get the powder funnel adapter and pour each load, one at a time.

[smithgar3840]

I'm still loading 223 on a single stage press. I use a powder dispenser but run each load over a digital scale. I bought an older Dillon at an auction for $15 and am in the process of setting it up for the 223. I have an extra Lee double disk dispenser that I'm going to try on it.

[Moonie]

My sons 5.56 mid-length upper cycles with 16gr H4895 with 55gr or 60gr boolits.

[45-70 Chevroner]

I don't think the guy you bought the Dillon from knew what he had, great buy. I tried 55 grain lymans in my Ruger 223 rifle and used 8 grains of Unique but it would not cycle. 4895 worked great though.

[smithgar3840]

Nobody at the auction knew what that press was so I picked it up for a song. It was set up for 38/357 and I tried that and worked great. I just wanted a dedicated 223 loader. I'm having a hard time keeping my teenage Seal wannabe in ammo. I got my first rounds loaded last night and get to try them out tomorrow. I'll post what I get. I think I'll start at 50 yards and move back if I have good results

[smithgar3840]

Took the AR out today and tried the new boolits. Not as good as I had hoped but a starting point. Best group I got was 2.5 inches at 75 yds. Started at 18 grs of H4895 and worked up to 22 grs. 19 was the best and was a nice round shaped 5 shot group. Just bigger than i wanted. All the others had vertical stringing. I think I will play with OAL as these were seated to the crimp groove. Closer to the rifling may help.

[Larry Gibson]

Start at 16 gr with a 1/3 - 1/2 gr dacron filler.

Larry Gibson

[GabbyM]

If you have a NATO chamber on your 5.56mm AR you can't get to close to the rifling. IMHO you don't need a crimp so just load the boolit to just cover your grease grove and it will probably still be under magazine length. I've never crimped target ammo for an AR since the seventies with full power J bullet loads. Cast boolit loads simply won't shake an AR at all.

I've two AR's one pencil barrel with NATO chamber. Other a bull barrel with 223 REM SAMI chamber. It's a toss up. The bull barrel has a 1:9" twist barrel and the old SP-1 has a 1:12" twist. While the Bull barrel will shoot cheap pseudo M-193 Equivalent Hornady 55gr fmj to about 1 MOA the SP-1 yields the more normal 2 3/4 inch or more from those bullets. SP-1 with 12 twist will shoot cast into half that size group at 100 yards. 1 3/4" or so with irons. SP-1 will consistently hold under 1 1/4" at 100 with Sierra MK's. At 100 yards and maybe out to 200 yards. Once you get off the bench any accuracy loss is hard to see. Both my 20" barrel AR's will function on 14.5gr of 4198. Just don't lock the bolt back or just grabs the mag follower.

Shooting the Lyman #225646 at just under 60 grains. Also have a Rem 700 VLS. For the SAMI chambers. I neck size brass, expand with Lyman M die then seat with a Wilson hand die. Dropping the hand die over charged case the .225" boolit will almost float down the die bore. Drop on the seating stem and stroke the ram. Makes for a round I'm proud of. In the big 26" barrel varmint gun with 24x scope accuracy is better than most sporting weight guns will put out using the highest price match bullets. Including my bull barrel AR. As it's a sub MOA at 100 yards with cast but with 53gr Sierra or 50gr BK it's a 3/8 MOA gun out to 400 yards. So yes the CB's are double group size but still under 1 MOA. At 100 yards the cast boolits are just as much fun to shoot in any of my 223's. More susceptible to wind changes due to low velocity but that's all the better for practice.

Any way you look at it my cast boolit loads out shoot any 22 WMR rifle and give the 17 HMR a run. Already have the load dies and rifles along with casting equip. So just a mold and size die is all it takes to load the cast for 223 REM. After that I can shoot my big 700 VLS with the very high priced scope incurring almost zero bore wear using the low intensity cast boolit loads. Not to many people have a 150 yard squirrel gun. I set the turret knobs to zero for may standard J bullet load. Then write on any other ammo boxes where to set turret knobs for a 100 yard dead on zero. With 100 round plastic hinge top boxes you've room to paste an entire ballistics graph on the lid. Big fan of the 100 round boxes for keeping brass in segregated lots.

Hornady brass makes for great CB cases. It's a little softer so not 1st choice for some shooters of full power J bullet 600 yard match ammo. But I like it for my Varmint loads anyways. I load to max book with no case life issues. Then go to one of my 243 AI's when I need more gun past 420 yards. Couple years ago before the rush I bought a box of 1,000 Hornady 223 TAC cases at auction and was the only bidder. Felt sorry for the seller. Also have good enough results with annealed military brass. Which includes primer crimp removal, primer pocket ream, flash hole deburr with #1 C-Drill tool, size with SB die or new SAMI die, cut about 1/16th inch off length then anneal for second time. Then you deburr inside and out of neck and run through a Lyman M die. Suddenly a case ready to load. About twelve to eighteen hours to kick out a batch of 1,000. But an easier way to look at it is around one minute per case. Most shooters are fully served with two 100 round hinge top boxes of brass. When you empty one reload the brass in a 100 round batch. if you are a high volume shooter just double that and label your 2 boxes in 200 round lot numbers. Or 4 fifty round boxes as one lot number. Adopt a system and keep records on your box tops. Your computer will disappear eventually leaving you with a bunch of gibberish on your ammo boxes if you only record on a puter. I've about twenty pounds of that kind of ammo post divorce. I eyeball it then decide what it is. Boxes will be labeled with something like lot #12. Then no surviving spread sheet to reference. Now days I also realize I may not live forever.

Sorry about the long post. Now and then I'm Gabby

[blikseme300]

Gabby, you preach to the choir here. I recently started the 223 quest and had no problems when following the advice from people like you. I really like the fact that the 223 uses so little alloy compared to my other rifles. More bang for the buck.

[GabbyM]

Gabby, you preach to the choir here. I recently started the 223 quest and had no problems when following the advice from people like you. I really like the fact that the 223 uses so little alloy compared to my other rifles. More bang for the buck.

I don't take much credit. Just followed what I learned here from those whom had gone before me.

[HMC710]

Hey all,
Loaded up some old 55gr RNCG my brother had laying around. I'm looking for a die in the 40 gr range. Any suggestions?
H

Just ordered the 225107 clone from NOE :)

[smithgar3840]

Just got done shooting 2 loads, 18.5 and 19 gr of H4895 with the boolits seated just over the top lube groove. Results were much better. Groups went from 2.5" and 3 inches down to 1.5. I can live with that but will continue to tweak it.

[b2948kevin]

How fast are you planning to take these? Interested to see what you end up with here.

[ErikO]

I'm watching this one closely. :)

[smithgar3840]

I'm not too concerned with velocity at this point but will definitely break out the chronograph soon. Group sizes really opened up past 21grs of H4895. My alloy is ww dropped in water. I'm shooting a 1 in 9 twist with a NATO chamber in a very light weight barrel. I built this gun to be a coyote rifle. My experience is that a coyote gun is carried a lot and shot little so heat would not be a factor.I never found one on the shelf that suited me. My goal was to have a rifle with scope at 8 pounds or less. This one has a full length 4 rail, tactical rings and a 2-7 Burris compact. I was really surprised when this hit exactly 8 pounds on my digital scale. I'll post a picture soon.The light barrel is a compromise and I think it would possibly group better with a normal M4 barrel. But if I decide to change it out, I'll get a much higher quality barrel. I plan on loading more and shooting it this weekend with loads that are at max length but still fit the mag. Then I'm going to try a harder alloy and push it as hard as I can. This is going to be an interesting experience no matter what happens.