Range Report with a 223

[runfiverun]

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above are the groups shot today at 100 yds with the ruger 223. stainless Bbl, blued reciever and wears a very old [yellowed lenses] 4x12 leopold vx-iic.
the alloy is my 4%tin and 6% antimony waterdropped alloy.
sized at 225 which just squeezes the gas check on and scuffs the sides.
the lube is one i do myself from soft wax candles, b-wax, moly, a bit of lanolin, atf, and white lith grease. a soft lube actually, which requires no heat at room temp.
the temp was 17* F.
and the wind was about 5-8 mph quartering in.
the cases were weight sorted lc-89
cci sr standard primers and 22.5 grs I-4895.
the boolits were the rcbs 55-sp,
and were scrutinized by eye then weight sorted before and after sizing/lubing.
they were also run through the star twice to insure the lube groove was completely full.
once i shot the vertically strung group i gave up as my hands were getting too cold to hold steady any more, plus i was dissapointed as that should have been a very good group.
anyways i did fire one more group of eyesorted only boolits of the same batch
that group measured 2.54 x 1.97 these were at the outside edge of weights
4 went high and 3 went low in a near straight row horizontally from each other
4 were directly above and two were directly below where the other groups would be if fired on the same target
and one was off to the left over an inch all by itself.
there was no cleaning of the bbl between groups nor before or after.

[swheeler]

Lamar some good looking groups there, 22.5 4895 got to be clocking 2900+-. SS barrel a 1:12 twist or 1:14? 17* dang heat wave, huh.

[runfiverun]

scott airc it's a 12.
i have used 2400 from 12 to 15 grs and a load of aa2230 20grs [same as iv'e used for jacketed.]
and they do okay too.
the real key is the culling and sorting.
i think i'll try the 4895 load in the armalite and see how it does in the 9 twist.
probably not as good i'll bet though.
this is as good as this rifle will shoot jacketed loads and select loads only.
it doesn't like 4895 speed powders with them though.
been picking at this thing all year, and it's right on the edge so i'll stop here and shoot it some more.

[swheeler]

Looks like a good place to stop and play awhile. 18 grs was giving me 2200fps with 55 gr IIRC so you gotta be cookin right along! I never found accuracy that good out of my rifle(especially with 4895), 9 twist Savage, but I never weighed any bullets, just a quick visual.

[Bass Ackward]

I always try to point turn people to other issues besides bullet quality for general applications, but it does seem to pay dividends the smaller you go in bore diameter. Especially when you want to go faster and still hold those groups.

What I am more impressed with is your lube on that tiny pill at 2600 fps @ 17 degrees. (2700 if that is a 24" tube.)

Here's to the people that go out and try. Congratulations.

Ain't it worderful what a lighter weight slug can do?

[Larry Gibson]

Runfiverun

That's the way to push it in a 12" twist barrel. What barrel is that? If you described the rifle in another thread let me know please. What are the group sizes with just visually inspected bullets, if you have it? Your groups are pretty much the same as I get with my 12 & 14" twist barrels and what I get out of my 12" twist AR with similar loads. When I weight sort I seat the GC and size then weight sort. After weight sorting I then lube. Doesn't seem to make much differenece either way judging from your results.

Larry Gibson

[deltaenterprizes]

WOW! Great shootin!

[x101airborne]

unless that was 17* celcius, youre not going to catch my butt out there. Really good groups!!

[runfiverun]

Larry it's the one ruger put on at the factory.
i bought their laminated varmint target the first year it came out.[91-92]
i shot a lot of jacketed through it trying to get it to group back in the early 90's.
i guess you could say it was my learnin rifle.
it then got packed up and moved around a few times, and sat for over 15 years, till i got a good deal on the mold from pat iffland.
greg sent me over some lymans he done up that shot pretty well but the rcbs seemed a better fit.
the saeco 258 is similar shaped and does as well in my 358 winchester. [ruger also]
there might be something to this style of boolit and their throats??
i learned a lot of how this works from both Larry and John [bass]
and i have learned where to choose my battles with h/v.
next i'll see how these do in the old 22-250 winchester [66 production]
these little boolits are hard n the fingers though.

bass: that was a pretty hard lube and was on the verge during the summer, the addition of a bit more white lith and the atf is what done it,usually my lubes seem soft then harden back up as i let them sit for a couple of weeks to observe them.
this is part of the lube testing that has evolved over the last two years.
we'll see how it does in the COLD weather in a month or two then through the summer.
hopefully it does well as i have enough premade stuff to blend up about 8-9 lbs of it.

Larry: with just eyeballed ,and another [slower] load ,they hover around an inch and a half.
i measure outside to outside.
if i just eyeball them, i'll get a pretty good cluster going then one will be off low right and one will go directly left.
then i question my trigger pull ,or did i lift my head? lube purge? no way.
but i wanted to see what extra sorting would do, funny too, as the lake city brass outshot the remington brass, which done fair putting 10 shots in a .750 round cluster.

[outdoorfan]

Wow! Nice groups. I need to pick up the .223 again and continue load development. My next planned load was 4895 and that same RCBS bullet.

[rhbrink]

Thats some great shooting I have wondered about the RCBS boolit these are the first groups that I have seen anyone shoot with it. Have you looked at the postal that Bullshop is running I have shooting a Lyman 225415 in that and having a great time it has opened my eyes as to what a 22 cast boolit is capable of. I'm looking forward to see some more great groups.

Richard

[DanWalker]

DANG IT LAMAR! You're gonna make me have to go buy a 22 mold now!
Great shooting!

[swheeler]

Larry it's the one ruger put on at the factory.
i bought their laminated varmint target the first year it came out.[91-92]

R5R; I'm guessing that's a 1:14 26" barrel, be interested if you chronoed some loads.

[9.3X62AL]

Heck of a job, sir. GREAT groups, and at near-jacketed velocities.

[HighHook]

Been shooting the rcbs 22 in 223 for years with 7gr of unique for squirrel hunting in a bolt. Now your gonna get me to break out the mini again.

Last year at a gun show i bought a complete bolt assembly i was going to mill holes in it to lighten it up and then install a lighter spring for mild 223 cast. Then my buddy said all you need to do is forget and shoot some mill spec to ruin your day. That ended that.

[runfiverun]

scott:
haven't run them over the chrono yet.
anytime there's snow on the ground i get poor readings.
it is the 26" bbl, so 2700+ is not out of line with the velocity.
the more i look at the load the nicer it is.
i just change the powder in the dillons hopper to go from jacketed with aa-2230 to 4895 with cast.
the loads come out correct, and i seat out further for the cast.
so i set one die long in the tool head and back out the short one then screw in the short one for jaxketed.
same primers and all.
i am going to start looking at the lyman 36 gr boolit next, using one of bass's tricks i may be able to get full jaxketed velocities.
and keep the accuracy.
we'll see how the lube holds up, i have some 8 mausers for the rem classic and some 375's for the win and marlin ready to load.
hopefully this week i can get them loaded and shot.

p,s, scott liked you and joes banter on the A.R forum. :lol:

i don't recommend 22's to anybody, i gotta work my butt off to keep good boolits rolling from the mold.
timing of the mold is super critical and i gotta move fast.
they are aggravatingly small, they hurt the fingers putting gas checks on the bases.
i drop about as many gas checks as i get on.
i can't see the flaws without another light right on them.
and then they shoot good, just so you go through the torture again.

[swheeler]

That's great the powder dump works out that way, help speed the process from jacketed to cast. Only 22 mold I've got is the Bator 2 cavity, that was enough to give me a headache!!! Oh yes I just love sizing them, ha. Is your Ruger a tang safety model, I was thinking 93 they ditched the Wilson barrels and started hammering their own, but I can't find year now. No matter that's some fine looking targets.

[runfiverun]

no it's the 77-11. with the side swing
it's one of their first hammer forged ones.
it's early production,and was one of the first stainless bbls i'd ever seen.
and i remember the write ups in some of the magazines debating stainless vs carbon steel and the debate on cryo-treating right after also.
that all came out after i got it.
i remember the day i got it i swung by the shop and picked it up on my way to work.
took it in to work and put it on a shelf and promptly knocked it 7' to the cement floor right on the end of the bbl.
went and shot a box of winchester factory 64 gr soft points the next day, and thought i'd completely ruined the rifle as the groups were abysmal.
didn't have a clue about bullet weights and bbl twist rates.
so i went and bought the cheapest box of bullets in the reloading section to try
they happened to be 40 gr ones for the hornet.
i tried a load from the free pamphlet and immediately the groups shrank to under 2".
airc it was with 4198 mainly because my pop had some in the powder cabinet :lol:

[swheeler]

I've got two of the K77 MkII, bought 300 WM in 93 and 22/250 in 98, both boat paddle stocked. Your's will be a 1 in 12 twist, looks like you've got it broken in! Maybe they all should be dropped about 7 feet!

[JIMinPHX]

I've gotten over 3,000fps out of a .223 with no leading using Lyman Super Moly lube. Accuracy was poor when I got much over 2500fps, but the barrel stayed clean. My boolits weren't all that hard. If I richen up my alloy a little, I expect that I could probably do better. I don't really have the time to invest in that sort of thing right now though.

If you have not already read Beagle's 3 part series about cast in the .223 that he posted over on castpics, then I'd recommend that you take a look. There is a mountain of good info over there.

[runfiverun]

that article by beagle is what reminded me i had the ruger tucked away in the upstairs closet.
figured i should fetch it out and see if it was still in good shape.
i took some of the old loads down to the range and let little girl shoot it, she attempted to abscond with the rifle after shooting a jaxketed group similar to the ones shown.
i think she liked it cause she could shoot the 300 yd pins with it and not have to walk down and stand them back up.

[Crash_Corrigan]

I just load some Unique under my cast boolits and have at it. With the new Leupold Scope I can be accurate at 100,200 and 300 yds if the winds allow.

A mild loading of Unique is what I like. Low report, mid 1600's velocity and mild recoil. Add to that long brass life and low cost and this is round for me.

They do really well out of my CZ 527 FS bolt gun and they are a hoot to shoot.

[white eagle]

Funfiverun
haven't shot any yet but I know what you mean about being small
I need to put on readers to deal with the little buggers

[Beekeeper]

run5run,
Do you get complete powder burn using the 4895?
I have been trying to get a good load for my handi rifle in 223.
It only has a 22 inch barrel and using the same load as you I get some blackened cases and unburnt powder
Accuracy isn't that great either at 100 yards.

Jim

[runfiverun]

it seems to leave a bit of ash in the bbl.
i think thats why i needed the softer lube to make this work.
i tried a similar load in this rifle with jaxketed bullets and it stank up the place.
i am using lake city brass with reduced capacity though so i may be running a bit higher pressure.
i have a couple of different lots of lc brass and some has more capacity than commercial [win] and some has less.
a different primer could help you.
i have my boolit seated out to just touch the rifling also.

[Thumbcocker]

Have you experimented with orienting the boolit in the barrel? Frank Marshall was a fan of it. It doesn't cost anything. Just a thought.

[JIMinPHX]

i am using lake city brass with reduced capacity though so i may be running a bit higher pressure.
i have a couple of different lots of lc brass and some has more capacity than commercial [win] and some has less.


What headstamp of LC brass do you have with reduced capacity? I've measured the capacity of LC brass as far back as 73 & as far forward as 06. It's all come up pretty much on par with Win, RP, & PMC that I have measured. The only .223 headstamps that I have found so far with greatly reduced capacity were "RORG" & "PMP". .308 brass is a different story.

[runfiverun]

most of mine is of equal or even greater capacity also.
i have an old lot of lc68 that i was gonna toss in the garage but the citric acid cleaned it up very well, it is less not much but the brass is heavier and holds about 1 gr less aa-2230 when filled to the case mouth.
i also have some 78 stuff with a nato head stamp that is 1 gr under also.
this is after i size them all in my dillon size/trim die.
only way i could think to make things equal was to size them in the same die and trim them all to the same length.

[JIMinPHX]

Can you post a picture of the headstamp from the under capacity LC brass please? The format of LC headstamps varies a little. I suspect that there were different factories producing different lots of ammo that later got sold as LC. I'd like to see if I can learn to identify the odd ball stuff. I haven't gotten any of it. yet. I'd like to keep it that way.

Thanks,
Jim