Scored a 221 Fireball

[Herb in Pa]

Did some horse trading and got a NIB Remington 700 Light Varmint Fluted Stainless in a synthetic stock for a CZ52 in 7.62X25 and extra 9mm Barrel +$100. Rifle came with bases, 2 boxes of Remington Factory Ammo, 50 unfired brass and a set of dies. Might be a cute little gun for cast....anyone tried the fireball with cast?

[mtgrs737]

Not yet but soon I will be. 221FB is a very effecent cartridge but I have heard that the 22 cal. cast boolits are a challenge to make shoot well. Keep us posted!

[yarro]

The hardest part of dealing with the .22 caliber bullets is getting the damn check on straight. Inpect the bullets well after sizing to make sure the check is on straight and uniformly.

-yarro

[Southern Son]

Herb, you did real good in that deal. What is your secret?

[BarryinIN]

....anyone tried the fireball with cast?

Yes, but very, very, briefly.

I have a Remington 600 that I had rebarreled to .221 FB. I had several other projects going on and had no intention of starting another, but I got a Lyman 225415 mould late last year and kept thinking the .221 would be good with it.
I was thumbing through The Fouling Shot about this time and saw someone had used an XP100 .221 in a pistol benchrest match. So I "borrowed" his load, reduced the charge some, and loaded ten rounds.
I only shot five rounds, simply because I squeezed it in one busy day at the range.

I don't have the results handy, but I think they went into around an inch or slightly over at 50 yards.
I'm not going any heavier on the powder charge because it was fast enough. Pushing 2,000 fps, I want to say.
This was with 15.5 grains of Accurate Arms 2015.

My chrono started getting screwy lately, so I'm sitting on some things like this until I get it fixed or replaced.

[flashhole]

Congratulations - I have one. A heads up that may save you some frustration and grief during load development. The synthetic stock is pretty flexible and makes it difficult to hold a constant point of impact. If you find your shots wandering you might try folding a business card into thirds and sticking it under the forestock. That improved the accuracy in mine quite a bit but the ultimate answer was to replace the stock. I bought a Boyd's thumbhole laminate and it turned the gun into a real tack driver with my handloads.

Can't help you out in the lead bullet department but if if you get them going too fast you will experience significant leading in the barrel.

My favorite load is a 40 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip (or Sierra BlitzKing) over 19.6 gains of Reloader #7 and CCI BR4 primers. I re-form 223 military brass into 221 Fireball.

You are going to love the cartridge. This is mine.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v69/GuideGun/NewStock2.jpg

[Herb in Pa]

I removed the pressure pads at the forend and gave the whole barrel channel a good sanding for clearance which improved the groups significantly with J bullets. Best load to date is with 15.6 grains of Lil Gun and a 35 grain Vmax seated .010" off the lands. A new stock is probably in it's future, perhaps an HS Precision with the bedding block. Between the Hornet and the Fireball I'll have some fun hunting woodchuck!

[Big Ryan]

Your gonna love that LVFS Herb. I bought one for my father about a yr ago, right out of the box with factory ammo the thing was pulling sub moa groups at 100 yards with a cheap 3-9x on it.