Accurate .224" bullet for AR 15 platform

[gzig5]

Looking for been there done that suggestions for an accurate cast bullet at better than moderate velocities in the AR. I'm hoping to shoot more this season and part of that is reducing cost by casting lead bullets for my AR match rifles rather than running jacketed. I'm recently retired so I theoretically have more time, but hasn't been working out that way. Anyway, I'd like to start with one or two designs that have the best chance of giving good accuracy results at 100 and 200 yards in .223 AR platform with 8" twist barrels. I shoot NRA Highpower and most of the matches are reduced course, limited to 200 yds and that is max at our range. I think they are all Wylde chambers and if not, should be close in spec. Krieger barrels. The bullets need to feed reliably and be accurate, 1 MOA or better is the goal. With jacketed match bullets the rifles will hold 1/2-3/4 MOA consistently. I need accurate feedback from the target and if there is one outside the 10 ring I need to be confident that is was the loose nut behind the trigger (or wind) and not the bullet/load. Velocity is a secondary concern but I'd like to run them between 2200-2500 fps if possible. I know the Bator design is well regarded but I think that blunt nose can have issues with feeding. Is there something equivalent to the 30XCB (310-165-FN) for the .224 diameter? I did search but there doesn't seem to have been much chatter in recent years on this topic. I will be powder coating and am resolved to the fact that I'm probably going to need gas checks, though omitting that step and giving up a little velocity wouldn't break my heart. Looking forward to some insight.

[sigep1764]

MP 227-75 NATO mold. I use it powder coated with W748 in an Axis 223 and my ARs. My ARs aren’t the most accurate, but one will keep it in a couple 2 or 3 inches. The Axis will keep into a 1.5 in group if I’m doing my part. 20-22 grains of powder with sorted brass.

[gzig5]

MP 227-75 NATO mold. I use it powder coated with W748 in an Axis 223 and my ARs. My ARs aren’t the most accurate, but one will keep it in a couple 2 or 3 inches. The Axis will keep into a 1.5 in group if I’m doing my part. 20-22 grains of powder with sorted brass.

Thanks, that is definitely one that I was not aware of. Can't seem to find a dimensional print for it on the site, how long is that bullet? I'm concerned with how deep it would be seated to fit in the mag. Probably fine loaded out for single loaded slow fire.

[Larry Gibson]

the best chance of giving good accuracy results at 100 and 200 yards in .223 AR platform with 8" twist barrels. I shoot NRA Highpower and most of the matches are reduced course, limited to 200 yds and that is max at our range.

1 MOA or better is the goal.

I need accurate feedback from the target and if there is one outside the 10 ring [at 200 yards on the 600/200 reduced?] I need to be confident that is was the loose nut behind the trigger (or wind) and not the bullet/load.

Velocity is a secondary concern but I'd like to run them between 2200-2500 fps if possible.

Let me save you a bit of money and exasperation, do a search of this forum for cast bullets in the 223/5.56 AR and see if any of the results meet any of your criteria. I doubt they will. You will need GCs and an alloy that can be HT'd to as hard as possible. The MP NATO design is such it has a long bore riding nose with the GC and lube grooves inside the 223 neck. Thus loaded it fits the magazine. The design attributes of the 30 XCB are not applicable to 22 caliber for use in ARs.

If we could meet the accuracy of HP shooting with cast bullets in ARs we would all be doing it. While some fairly decent Expert level scores can be had using cast bullets in ARs with faster twists on 100 yard reduced courses the group capability for 22 shots at 200 yards does not make for good scores. The best you'd come up with, if you did everything absolutely right in casting and loading would be so-so M193 ball equivalent loads. Thus, what I suggest is you try some Hornady 55 gr FMJBT bullets. They are much better quality than milsurp M193 bullets. Out of my Colt with a 9" twist they will hold a tudge better than 10 ring on the 600/200 yard reduced target.

My other suggestion is to build and upper with a 12" twist barrel just for practice using cast bullets. Even then, your accuracy criteria with the 600/200 yards target [22 shots in 2 moa or less] will be difficult to meet.

[gzig5]

Fair comments Larry. I didn't expect to fall into success, because like you mentioned, if it was easy everyone would be doing it. I am going to give it a try though, even if i have to reduce range to 50 yds to keep the groups reasonable. The time spent working on position, shot process, and trigger time should be worth it. Good idea on the slow twist upper. Actually it might be more efficient to build a dedicated .22lr upper. They shoot pretty well when a quality barrel and decent ammo is used. Lots of irons in the fire currently but hope to get to this one later in the year.

[jdgabbard]

I haven't cast for .223 in some time, but found accuracy was only so-so at 100yds with how I was loading at that time. I was using the NOE 225-60, the latest version is this mold here. (https://noebulletmolds.com/site/shop/bullet-moulds/224/225-62-rn-a4/225-62-rn-a4-4-cavity-gc-saeco-221/) I was lubing and sizing on my Lyman 4500 with Carnuba Red. I didn't get any leading to speak of. But what I did notice is that the bullet sized a little off center. I attributed this to excess play in the top punch. The top punch on my 4500 gets slightly shifted off center when tightening down the screw. On pistol bullets this never posed much of an issue. But on rifle it definitely caused an issue.... Accuracy at 100yds was greater than paper plate sized. This was using 1200R.

I did recently break out this mold to get ready to start loading some more with it, now that I PC and size using Lee Push Through Bushings. I feel I will get more concentricity with this method than using the Lyman 4500. Hopefully resulting in better accuracy. But I don't intend for this to be more than plinking, SD training ammo. In other words, I have limited the scope of my intentions to be non-critical applications where it doesn't matter if accuracy is great.

Some of the accuracy could definitely be the weight of the bullet in the rifle I shoot in. Some could even be my old eyes. But it definitely is something I am re-approaching with caution.

[Larry Gibson]

Fair comments Larry. I didn't expect to fall into success, because like you mentioned, if it was easy everyone would be doing it. I am going to give it a try though, even if i have to reduce range to 50 yds to keep the groups reasonable. The time spent working on position, shot process, and trigger time should be worth it. Good idea on the slow twist upper. Actually it might be more efficient to build a dedicated .22lr upper. They shoot pretty well when a quality barrel and decent ammo is used. Lots of irons in the fire currently but hope to get to this one later in the year.

Excellent idea and is what many do for off season practice. With reduced targets at 25 or 50 yards or even 50 feet it is excellent practice. I did a lot of indoor practice with an M16A1 w/M261 device at 50 feet [had an indoor range where I was stationed]. Used a 1" bull at 50 feet which simulated the 600 yard bull and was close enough for the 200 and 300 yard bulls. Part of my daily PT regimen was to shoot the 50 shot NMC. Paid dividends when the actual shooting season started. With the match grade 22LR uppers these days it would be excellent.

[dverna]

Another bullet you may want to consider to reduce costs is the Hornady 55 gr SP or HP:

https://www.armorally.com/shop/hornady-22-caliber-55gr-spire-point/
https://www.armorally.com/shop/hornady-22-cal-55gr-hp-bulk-oem/

At just over $110/1000 in bulk they are affordable and have a much better chance of achieving 1 MOA than a cast bullet. GC's will cost $30/1000, linotype (60-65 gr bullet) will be another $25-30/1000 plus your time to cast, sort, and lube/size all to save a nickel a bullet.

I have seen some "wallet groups" with cast .22 bullets but they will not provide consistent accuracy at the level you wish.

Reducing range to 50 yards will help. If you decide to go the .22 LR route, look at the posts by OS OK on his work with affordable .22 Benchrest rifles. Getting 1 MOA accuracy is not that easy and requires decent .22 ammunition. BTW, I liked the work OS OK did because he did not cherry pick. All his groups were posted and evaluated.

[Jim22]

I dunno - I think that accuracy requires weighing each boolit. I have tried using boolits that did not appear to have casting flaws but the groups were nothing special. Finally I tried segregating the boolits by weight. I found most were under weight but some were over weight. The bulk of the acceptable boolits were within one percent of each other. With 200 grain boolits I found I had two rows of acceptable boolits: those were within one percent of each other. So I further segregated the boolits into a batch that weighed within half a grain (One grain with 200 grain boolits). So I found I have two batches of acceptable boolits but I decided to keep them separate and load thim into separate batches. I have not compared them to see if the separation by half-grain increments was better than the one-grain ones.

With smaller boolits the one percent vs two percent boolits would be much smaller increments. I cannot comment on how they might perform but I believe the rule is valid. The difference in group size with such sorting is telling.

In using professionally cast boolits I would do the same. Professional casting companies use several multi-cavity moulds and they have their pass/fail standards. My technique works for me. It may be more anal than many are willing to follow but it works.

Just look at what producers of quality jacketed boolits do to ensure their products are acceptably accurate.

Jim

[mehavey]

I'm going suggest the SAECO #221 (https://www.buffaloarms.com/225-60gr-spgc-saeco-2-cav-sae62221.html) (gas-checked which will be gas-port reqm't), and ALOX (not PC).
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?368459-223-cast-bullets-w-ar15&p=4472544&viewfull=1#post4472544

[gzig5]

I'm going suggest the SAECO #221 (https://www.buffaloarms.com/225-60gr-spgc-saeco-2-cav-sae62221.html) (gas-checked which will be gas-port reqm't), and ALOX (not PC).
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?368459-223-cast-bullets-w-ar15&p=4472544&viewfull=1#post4472544

Any specific reason not to PC? Seams a lot of people are doing it with no negative affect on accuracy. Not dead set against using lube but my understanding has always been that the lube has significant affect on accuracy when exceeding 2000fps. Looks like your combo is working well though. Hard to read the data, but is that at 2,487fps?

[gzig5]

Excellent idea and is what many do for off season practice. With reduced targets at 25 or 50 yards or even 50 feet it is excellent practice. I did a lot of indoor practice with an M16A1 w/M261 device at 50 feet [had an indoor range where I was stationed]. Used a 1" bull at 50 feet which simulated the 600 yard bull and was close enough for the 200 and 300 yard bulls. Part of my daily PT regimen was to shoot the 50 shot NMC. Paid dividends when the actual shooting season started. With the match grade 22LR uppers these days it would be excellent.

Off season around here is usually below freezing so several years ago I invested in a used Crossman MAR177 PCP upper.
https://www.accurateshooter.com/gear-reviews/ar15-177-air-rifle-conversion-upper/
I can shoot this in my basement and it allows me to use my service rifle lower with Giesselle trigger. It's great for slow fire standing and prone practice. Not usuable for rapids but because it has to be cocked each shot, it does reinforce position discipline. From a rest it pretty much stacks them through a two caliber hole at 25-30 feet.
Wife frowns on me shooting rimfire in the house so I'll still have to go to the range if I do the rimfire upper, but it will be very realistic practice for rapids and 22lr helps you to read the wind.

[mehavey]

I'm going suggest the SAECO #221 (gas-checked which will be gas-port reqm't), and ALOX (not PC).
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...=1#post4472544

Any specific reason not to PC?Because PC adds diameter to the un-sized portion of the bullet nose, many bullets which have a long/shallow ogive (to better fit the bore) find themselves having to be seated way too deeply if they're going to successfully chamber.

Thin-film ALOX (https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?409249-Sizing-lube-when-using-Alox&p=4992475&viewfull=1#post4992475) is perfect for these instances.

[Bigslug]

I would second your thoughts on practice with a purpose-built .22.

When I was seriously shooting Highpower, it got to be almost like a second part-time job: match every other weekend; practice with a smallbore equivalent to my bolt action on alternate weekends; load ammo and dry-fire practice at night during the week.

You're already sinking a lot of TIME into producing ammo for the actual matches. Practice ammo is going to be more of the same with either a dedicated set of dies or constantly resetting the one, and that's assuming you can make the cast bullets behave. As I've found out with the .30XCB in hunting rifles, the big bottleneck is that our rifling twists are too tight for truly fast cast. Then there's constantly fiddling with the sights for what are likely to be VERY different loads, bore cleaning and prep between jacketed and cast, etc...

Highpower doesn't really tax the accuracy capabilities of a good rifle - it's much more about shooter technique. Almost all of building and maintaining that can be done at 50 yards with a decently accurate .22, and the ammo's ready-made.

[charlie b]

Because PC adds diameter to the un-sized portion of the bullet nose, many bullets which have a long/shallow ogive (to better fit the bore) find themselves having to be seated way too deeply if they're going to successfully chamber.

Thin-film ALOX (https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?409249-Sizing-lube-when-using-Alox&p=4992475&viewfull=1#post4992475) is perfect for these instances.

Very good point.

Also, lube and gas checks allow velocities up almost to 3000fps. I've seen people have trouble with other things at the higher end of that with common lead alloys, but, the lube still works fine.

What does not work is a fast twist at those speeds. The twist and caliber can limit vel, eg, a 10 twist .308 is usually limited to around 2300 or 2400fps depending on bullet design and cast quality, especially at longer ranges.

[405grain]

I don't cast anything smaller than 6.5mm, but there were some points in this thread that I'd like to comment on. First, weight sorting the bullets is one of the best and easiest ways to shrink a group. By casual observation I have noticed a reduction in group size by as much as 50% when using weight sorted bullets, this with all other factors being unchanged. (ie: a 1" group at 100 yards as opposed to a 1.5" group) The bullets that are either too heavy or too light I use for plinking and practice shooting offhand. (offhand shooting is good practice for hunting situations)

As far as powder coating, I powder coat the driving bands, but leave the bore riding nose uncoated. I swirl lube these bullets with a light coat of 45-45-10 and get both good accuracy as well as reliable chambering with them. With .224" bullets I can see where this would be beyond tedious, but it is one of many possible methods at trying for cast bullet accuracy. One final thought: high velocity with cast loads may sometimes become counter productive to good accuracy. If you want accurate high velocity 22 caliber loads then shoot jacketed bullets. If you want the "best you can get" accuracy with cast bullets you're better off using more moderate velocities.