223 pet loads Lets see'em

[charlie b]

Yep, dry as a bone. Elephant Butte at one of lowest levels in history. Gila is flowing at about half what it should be. Hoping for a decent monsoon but not holding my breath. Supposed to get to 100 this week, which is about what it was in Phoenix this weekend (I was visiting my brother).

[wbm]

Did a variation of an rjtfroggy load with Hornady 60gr Vmax. Did not have IMR 4895 so I used H4895. Worked!
Just grabbed and old paper target this morning and headed out before the heat arrived....did three rapid fire
and ended up with a .345" three shot group. What? Not 5 shots? Nope. (The 1st shot hit whatever. It died. Then a second appeared! Bang, flop, it died....what!? a third came running out? YES. Bang, flop, it died.)

Savage Axis
24gr H4895
ADI Brass
Federal Primer
60gr Hornady Vmax
OAL=2.350"
09:30, Clear, 70, No Wind.

8078

[Dave Hoback]

I’m all set to do some more 223. Have LC brass, CCI 450’s and a combination of 55gr FMJBT, 68gr HPBT & some 75gr HPBT pills to play with. Problem is...I haven’t been able to find powder in 9 DAGNABBIT months! I desperately want some BLC-2...but I may just grab the first thing I can find. Of course, being disabled....no longer driving gets in the way. Oh well. This to shall pass, LOL!

[wbm]

Found some BL-C(2) in an Academy store in Greensboro NC last fall...had one 1 pounder on the shelf. Believe it or not I had never used that powder in 223! Anyway, I am a fan now. Wish I could find some 8208 and Benchmark!

Are the 68gr HPBT's you have Hornady? If they are, I found some I had forgotten I had....like got them years ago. Guess I will load some this week.

[charlie b]

eeek! The regular 68gn Hornady HPBT match bullets were some of the worst I shot in my rifle. On par with their budget 55gn FMJBT bullets. OTOH their ELD bullets, especially the 75gn, were almost as good as the SMK's for me.

[wbm]

I am really impressed with the 60gr Vmax.

Charlie you getting any rain down there?...we have had less than .5" here since March! Thousands of trees dead and dying in the Zuni Mountains! Nothing like this in my lifetime.

[Dave Hoback]

Found some BL-C(2) in an Academy store in Greensboro NC last fall...had one 1 pounder on the shelf. Believe it or not I had never used that powder in 223! Anyway, I am a fan now. Wish I could find some 8208 and Benchmark!

Are the 68gr HPBT's you have Hornady? If they are, I found some I had forgotten I had....like got them years ago. Guess I will load some this week.


Oh wow..really? I took to BLC-2 early on. Quick story: Many years ago, I loaded some 60gr Moly Vmax over a HEAVY charge of BLC-2 and gave two 1gen Pmags loaded with them to my brother in law, when he was deployed to Iraq.(USMC) On his return, he told me the first time he used them, several other Marines looked at him strangely because of the much LOUDER “BOOM” emitting from his M4...compared to each of their’s. Those loads were quite stout! I can only hope one of those Vmax’s caused some “Durka-durka” Terrorist a very painful death before going to meet his 70 virgins or whatever, LOL!

Yes, they are the 68gr Hornady. I’ve also heard the stories of bad accuracy. But I’ve used them & the 69gr SMKs to similar results. (Decent...not the best, but certainly not the worst). However, I’ve never worked up a 223 load for a Bolt gun. Just AR’s. So with magazine limitation on OAL & being an auto loader, absolute accuracy was never my main gig. Sub...to 1MOA accuracy with every AR I build makes me smile tagging a gong at 500yds over & over again.

[charlie b]

wbm,
We've had a pretty good monsoon so far. Two weeks ago we were setting temp records and we had not had any measurable rain all year. Then for some reason we started getting our monsoons. Just today we got almost 2". Probably 4" in the past two weeks. Most of the moisture has been coming to us from the NW across the Lincoln Nat Forest lands and then us. Won't be enough to make up for the lack of water in the water table, but, it will help a little.

Hope some of this ends up your way. We had a couple pretty dry years when we lived in Tijeras. Nothing like this though. Not sure if the ABQ area is getting much or not. They had some rain when we were up there a little bit ago.

Dave,
Yeah those 68gn Hornady's were good for about 1moa, just like the 55gn FMJBT's. After getting much less than that with the Sierra's I kinda got hooked on seeing smaller groups. :)

I also had some good luck with BLC2, I just liked Varget better because of the temp stability.

[Texas10]

A 69 grain match bullet over about 24.5 gr of Varget can produce some amazingly small groups out of a 9 twist savage. I've shot Lapua Scenar L's and SMK's out of my Savage and they seem to do better than the 73 to 77's. But that's just my gun, yours may enjoy a different diet, and that's half the fun.

[Robinhood]

I wish we could send you some water and cool temps we had in June and July along the coast. We had 35 plus inches of rain in June and the first part of July. It was enough to fill all of your reservours.

[charlie b]

I wish we could send you some water and cool temps we had in June and July along the coast. We had 35 plus inches of rain in June and the first part of July. It was enough to fill all of your reservours.

I wish you could too. We did get a pretty good monsoon this year, but, not nearly enough to average out the year. Lakes are still almost empty (except for Navajo).

In the middle of our draught the wife and I travelled to Jacksonville FL and Columbia SC. Going across OK and AR all the rivers were well above flood stage. It's kinda like a curtain across Texas that blocks all the moisture from getting to us.

It would be pretty nice if we could pump the water from the drenched areas to the dry areas/ But, that would just lead to huge government controls, fat contracts for a few, and we'd still probably not get any water :)

[Robinhood]

It's kinda like a curtain across Texas that blocks all the moisture from getting to us.

Edwards Plateau and the Llano Estacado

[charlie b]

Yep. And the lands of Mexico. We are about the furthest from the moisture of the Pacific, Gulf of Mexico and Baja. And just south enough that the jetstream fed moisture rarely gets this far.

[wbm]

Rained here once. I think.

[wbm]

Hornady 60gr V-Max and H4895 Again..."Rolled another one just like the other one"

8-14-21 1730 76F

This bullet shot well for me in both 223 and Savage Heavy Barrel 22-250 1-12 Twist.
Took it out this afternoon for the third go with the H4895 powder combination
So far no three shot group has gone over .50" and the one below is the best so far.
ed
Axis 223 22" Barrel Weaver Scope
ADI Brass
Federal 205 Primer
Hornady 60gr V-Max OAL=2.35"
H4895 24gr
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[Dave Hoback]

Hornady 60gr V-Max and H4895

8-14-21 1730 (tel:8-14-21 1730) 73F

This bullet shot well for me in both 223 and Savage Heavy Barrel 22-250 1-12 (tel:22-250 1-12) Twist.
Took it out this afternoon for the third go with the H4895 powder combination
So far no three shot group has gone over .50" and the one below is the best so far.

Axis 223 22" Barrel Weaver Scope
ADI Brass
Federal 205 Primer
Hornady 60gr V-Max OAL=2.35"
H4895 24gr

Nice results WBM. I actually just picked up some Accurate 2495..it’s really close burn rate to H4895 & I’ve read they have very similar burning characteristics, BESIDES just the burn rate. Don’t know how true this is. Had a few choices in Accurate. They had Accurate 2460 & 2520. But I couldn’t pass up the price of the 2495. And I haven’t tried any of them anyway. Also, this is for my AR so obviously SUPREME accuracy isn’t really top of the agenda.

[wbm]

I hear ya about the AR...but years ago I did have a Bushmaster Varminter that was very accurate...only thing was you had to have a "gun bearer" to tote it around for ya.
What with the powder shortage. I have loaded powders for 223 and 22-250 that I never fooled around with much. Like once I was out of 8208XBR and Benchrest I went to others like IMR 4064 and H4895. Had Varget of course but I have never been a big fan of Varget in 223...why? Idoknow.

[Dave Hoback]

I’m sorry, I didn’t the rifle itself. The ARs I build are extremely capable. However, I load the bulk of ammunition for magazine length. If I’m testing the accuracy, I’ll load single. So OAL is not a factor.

[GaCop]

77 grain TMK over 24 grains of CFE223. Bullet seated .010" OTL. 2843 fps in my rifle. .618" at 200 yards 5 shots. 83 degrees with 82% humidity. No wind to speak of. Fired from Factory stainless 26" barrel, fluted. Load is a bit warm in my rifle at the current seating depth but not close to max.

[wbm]

Pet Factory Loads

Hornady's Frontier 55gr HPBT Match 223 ammunition is available again so I got a couple boxes. Took them out this morning for another "test run". These have done well for me in the past. Always looking for factory ammunition that I can pick up, shoot in a clean barrel and expect decent results. The Frontier 55gr Match stuff has always done that for me. FWIW: These are done by Lake City for Hornady.
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