Which Powder for Heavy .223 Mini-14

[sghart3578]

I shoot only jacketed in my Savage M12 but my favorite powders for .223 heavies are, in order:

Varget
Ramshot TAC
RL15


W748 shows promise, as does H4895, but haven't finished testing.

[RogerDat]

What, no AA2230?

Not having any I did not list it but isn't AA2230 very close to BLC(2)?

[RogerDat]

Nagantguy I went to send you a PM on your offer but your inbox was full.. Varget seems like the "go to" powder here. I'll try a few with the BLC and 8208 XBR just because I have it but would like to see how the preferred powder performs.

Might be able to use the 4064 in some of the other rifle calibers I'm getting set to try reloading. 303 British, 7.62x39 Russian, or 8mm mauser. Larger case opening & larger case might make these good candidates.

[CHeatermk3]

I had an Hbar 1/7 twist rifle I bought soon after Colt brought them out and went thru fits trying to find bullets it would shoot without them coming apart at around 50 yds.

I really didn't know what I was doing(still don't sometimes); I bought the rifle for IPSC rifle and wanted to use it for varmints too. I found that it would shoot the winchester 64gn bullet reasonably well out to 200(max range available at the local shoots) and really smacked the plates--even an edge hit would knock them down. Worthless in the dog towns--no splatter effect with the stout bullets and lost a lot of brass too.

Bought several kegs of 2230 because heck- with a name like that it must be good, right? Well it still works great in the 223, for any bullet and twist I've ever tried.

'Course having bought 6 kegs at once might have influenced my judgement too--H322 works a bit better for accuracy I think.

The BLC-2 is a bit slower than 2230 and is the go-to powder for 308 Win. It ought to work fine in the 1/7 twist; I got rid of mine when I went to the 308 for IPSC but 1/7 is king for heavy metal in the 223.

[RogerDat]

Picked up 2# of Varget along with some H335 and 4895. The first two because of suggestions here the last one because it was mentioned in another post and I found load data for 4895 in heavy 223 as well as several other calibers.

Thanks for the suggestions, that and all the other good information posted here as always was most useful.

[brassrat]

My 1-9 Mini loves 2230 and that, also elusive, X-term. 1/2" groups at 50yds. (couple times)

[RogerDat]

Mold: NOE 255-70 RN cast with approx. Lyman #2 alloy. Running close enough to the 70 grain bullet weight the mold specifies. OAL 2.140

Sized: Lee push through sizer .225 with gator gas check applied.
Powder coated using ASBB then re-sized. Case expanded with NOE 226 x 222 expander plug. Range brass, FL sized.

Loads: Varget 10 each from 22.5 to 25 grains in 1 grain increments.
22.5, 23, 23.5, 24, 24.5, 25 grains. Dropped from Lee Perfect Powder Measure and weighed.

Loads cycled the action except for one failure to feed at 23 grain, caught by bolt and slightly crushed as only failure. Grouping was generally ok at all loads on a 25 meter range. Best grouping was in the 24, 24.5, 25 grain range. Brass dropped approx. 1.5 - 3 feet away generally at about 1 or 2 o'clock

Barrel was lead free despite at least a few fairly fast 3 round bursts and barrel was certainly good and hot. Happy hot barrel Now I'll probably do a bigger batch of 25 - 50 each in loads of 24, 24.5, and 25 grain. Then test at a longer range.

I did this initial test at 25 meter range because I was fortunate enough to be a guest of brother in law at reunion of company F 425 rangers and they had reserved a 25 meter range for a few hours, good time on the firing line with some great guys. Lot of reloaders in the group which was nice.

[RogerDat]

I also had some BL-C(2) loads to test but I think I failed to properly clean up the crimped primer pocket and seated the primers with room to move forward on strike, several failed to take a good strike (no dimple) so I stopped after just a few failures. Now if I could just get that annoying guy at work to come over and seat those primers deeper in the loaded ammo for me I could test those loads without having to tear them down.

[Hardcast416taylor]

My 2nd year made Mini has had several 8 lb. jugs of AA2230 put thru it with jacketed bullets. My Savage 111 in .223 also seems to favor AA2230 with groundhog and crow HP bullets. Both rifles give very good accuracy with it at near max loading.Robert

[RogerDat]

My 2nd year made Mini has had several 8 lb. jugs of AA2230 put thru it with jacketed bullets. My Savage 111 in .223 also seems to favor AA2230 with groundhog and crow HP bullets. Both rifles give very good accuracy with it at near max loading.Robert

From what I read AA2230 is real close to BL-C(2) which I wanted to try. Little bit faster than the Varget I think. I need to go on my own to the range on an off day and just go through a bunch of test rounds at one time. Get this powder thing nailed down. Not to mention it would be fun.

Takes a lot longer to do small quantities and change powder throw .5 grain then do a few more, repeat. I want to get this down to a load I like and just crank out the ammo without dinking with the powder throw every 10 rounds.

[Spadegrip]

RL- 15 24.2gr

[country gent]

My 1-7 ARs seemed to perform best with reloader 15 and Varget with 75-80 grn bullets I couldnt shoot both together during a match as the 2 loads mixed strings took a cleaning or a few rounds to settle down with the new load. If it can be found reloader 12 may work also. 2520 had swings with ambient temperatures for me.

[RogerDat]

My 1-7 ARs seemed to perform best with reloader 15 and Varget with 75-80 grn bullets I couldnt shoot both together during a match as the 2 loads mixed strings took a cleaning or a few rounds to settle down with the new load. If it can be found reloader 12 may work also. 2520 had swings with ambient temperatures for me.

Thanks for the heads up on 2520, don't need temp sensitivity if I can avoid it. Lot of people suggest the RL-7 and RL-15 for rifle in 223 and 30 cal. Never really looked into the RL powders, will have to consider at least picking up a pound to try.

[tygar]

My go to starting load for 75-80gr is 24-25gr RL15, it is better than a minute out to 500 for me, but in accurized ARs. 2nd is Varget & 8208. I also use them in my bolts. 7-8 twist.

Couldn't begin to say what a Mini would do as I've never seen one shoot better than minute of barn. But I would try the above & every one that others said works for them are also good. Depends on what you rifle likes.

[Geezer in NH]

So which of these powders would you pick for .223 Remington in a Ruger Mini-14 1996 1:7 twist using a heavy bullet?
Want to start with jacketed 75 gr. and eventually get an NOE mold in the 60 - 70 gr. range.

If you have a known good load with the powder you vote for by all means post it. If it is within published safe load range I may well give it a try.

Rifle range is harder for me to get to so the better I choose my test loads based on your input the sooner I'll have something I can use to load up a batch.

I have the powders listed available and if one is especially good for this I can pick up more when I get a chance.

Thanks for your input.

None of the above as I have 10 pounds each of Brigadier 3032 and 4065
and the factory loading book.

[Artful]

BLC(2) would be the choice of what you listed - H335, 748, 2230, Varget is what I would be on the lookout for.

[RogerDat]

BLC(2) would be the choice of what you listed - H335, 748, 2230, Varget is what I would be on the lookout for.

I went with Varget, many recommended it for heavy .223, and votes were high for 4064 which is long grain version of Varget. Ended up with around 10# of Varget added to my stash.
I am getting ready to try some BL-C(2) loads for a 75 gr. j-word bthp round. Doing a ladder up of 7 incremental loads see what works. I can use BL-C and Varget in other calibers so that is good.

I know the mini-14 does not have a reputation as a tack driver. Got a noticeable improvement using a heavier bullet. Shot off hand, mostly just checking for load cycles, and that it generally hits the target. Those conditions it was able to put most of 40 rounds into an area I could cover with hand at 25 meters. Looking forward to doing small incremental load increases in the range that appears most accurate (24 - 25 gr.) maybe in .2 grain increments.

RL-15 and RL-7 seem to come up a lot as a go-to powders for good accuracy in many calibers/weights.

[RogerDat]

Any reason I can't use reman brass that measure a bit short of specification? Down around 1.74 length post sizing. Have some even shorter I think.
I also wonder if I am possibly sizing a little tight. Pushing the shoulder back further than it needs to go due to having the die down a touch too far.

This is military brass, that has been reloaded/remanufactured. I pulled it out of some range brass. Nice in that I don't have to do all the primer pocket swaging and chamfering. Seems to take a primer tightly. But it all measures as if it was trimmed shorter. So is there such a thing as too short when using a Lee FCD for crimp.

[dkf]

I trim all my .223/5.56 brass to 1.740" for use in my X Die. I use a Lee FCD (collet) to crimp also, works fine.

[Artful]

Any reason I can't use reman brass that measure a bit short of specification? Down around 1.74 length post sizing. Have some even shorter I think.

That's OK

I also wonder if I am possibly sizing a little tight. Pushing the shoulder back further than it needs to go due to having the die down a touch too far.

This is military brass, that has been reloaded/remanufactured. I pulled it out of some range brass. Nice in that I don't have to do all the primer pocket swaging and chamfering. Seems to take a primer tightly. But it all measures as if it was trimmed shorter. So is there such a thing as too short when using a Lee FCD for crimp.

Yes, you can overly trim brass - but the other thing you have to think about your remanfg is "at LEAST" two times fired maybe more - so you should take a sharp object and check the stretch of the cases to see how close to failure they are - before you have head separation.

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You don't know the history of those cases - and if like most remanfg brass it was sized to minimum it will promote brass stretch as most semi-auto's have looser chambers than bolt actions.



So it becomes important to inspect your "found" cases.