Favorite .223 loads

[Hamourkiller]

I have used the following load since the early 70's with great results on deer and hogs. CCI Small Rifle Mag primer, WW 748 powder @ 24-25grs, Speer 70gr Round nosed bullet.

The 16" BBl velocity was @ 2800fps or less, in my 20" BBl velocity was close to 3000 FPS.

I was getting signs of bullet failure @ 3000 fps, so I went back to the 16" bbl and went back to getting expansion and good penetration.

For shooting deer and hogs with a 223 you will find it hard to beat this bullet @ 2800 fps or less. If you need more than 250yds of range, step up to a bigger rifle. Most of my shooting was 100yds or less.

I also found very good accuracy by loading the bullet as far out as the throat and or magazine allowed.

This bullet would break both shoulders of a deer and exit @ 2800fps or less. It also did a number on hogs, but I never shot a 300+ pounder with it, just normal 200 pounders or less.

I have killed 30+ animals with this load.

Hope the info and advice about 2800 fps helps

[NcongruNt]

So I worked up loads for both the 55grn FMJ-BT and 70grn semi-spitzer using Varget and have not been able to get accuracy that satisfies me. On top of that, the loads that I arrived at with either bullet don't hold the bolt back on the last shot. It seems that the pressures just aren't right to cycle the bolt all the way back for the bolt catch to operate properly. At first I thought something on the gun may be out of adjustment, but I stuck some Monarch factory loads in the same mag I'd used, and the bolt catch operated perfectly each time I tested it.

I wish I would have gotten the chance to read over this thread again before I rushed to the gun shop after work before they closed today. I would have added WW748 and AA2230 to my wishlist. I'd planned on picking up some Hodgdon Benchmark or Ramshot TAC, but they were out of the first and didn't carry the second. The store was closing, and the fellow at the counter suggested IMR 3031 for an AR in .223. I didn't have a lot of time to discuss it further, so I picked up a can and got out of there. Getting home, I found that data for this powder is not quite so plentiful as with others. It appears that it's only suitable for my 55 grainers, as I don't find data for anything above 60 grains in either my books or online.

So, my question is, have any of you used IMR 3031 for a .223 load? As usual, Hornady's numbers are way lower than most other sources. Their max load matches closer to the starting loads in my other books for 55 grain bullets.

I'm going to give the powder a chance and do a workup this week, but I think I'll try to make a trip down to Cabela's and see if I can get a couple of other powders on my wishlist to try out as well.

[NcongruNt]

So I stopped at Cabela's the other day and picked up some Benchmark and TAC.

I'm working up 55grn loads with Benchmark and 3031 and 70grn loads with Benchmark, 3031, and TAC. I'll get them finished in the next couple of days and will have them out to the range on Sunday for testing.

[Whiskey Thief]

I have had excellent results with AA2015. Several different bullets have yeilded thumbnail sized grops at 100 yards. It is a very short cut, extruded powder. Meters with great consistency thru my Dillon 550. Shot many prairie poodles with that powder.
I've also used AA2230 (and their "commercial" variant) 2230C, along with W748.
and had some SPECTACULAR results using Remingtons bulk 50gr HP. This was about 15 years ago. I could never understand why that HP bullet was "so much" more expensive, like $15/K vs. their bulk SP bullets. If only I had purchased an additional 20K bullets..........

[NcongruNt]

I stopped by Cabela's and picked up a Caldwell Lead Sled Solo to provide a steady platform for testing out my loads. I almost picked up some Accurate 2230 and/or Winchester 748, but figured I should see what I can do with the 3 new powders I've got first.

I've got my loads finished up, but it rained all day today, and word is it will be raining at least some of tomorrow as well. I should have bought some rubber boots while I was there. Maybe I'll hit Academy on the way over.

Anyhow, some observations on the new powders:

3031 looks just like Varget, except it's charcoal grey instead of OD greeen (which looks like tiny turtle food to me). Also, it seems to have a very slick surface, as it will flow out of a hand powder measure with the slightest tilt.

Benchmark looks like shrunken and faded varget, more of a light sage green. Also, it is the best-metering powder I have ever used. Once I had a powder charge set, it was dead on from then on. It also seems to be designed with .223-like loads in mind, as the higher end of the load data for it is right around the optimal 90% case fill. By contrast, the higher end of the 3031 and Varget charges are compressed.

TAC is the prettiest powder I've ever worked with. It looks like tiny obsidian pebbles, very dark and shiny.

Hopefully I can get these all shot at the range tomorrow, and I can report back.

[NcongruNt]

So I tested out all my load workups, and got significant improvement in grouping from a couple of the powders. I've got a full evaluation over on my blog, and I'll post some highlights here. All groups were shot at 50y.

I was braced for disappointment with the IMR 3031 with the 55 grain FMJ-BT bullets, and the lower end of the workup met my expectations. I'd done some adjustment of the tightness of my riser rail and sight before I hit the range, and found my POI was a little low and left. Before the last string int this workup I did some adjustment, and ended up over-adjusting. I pulled the second shot in a string of 5, and ended up ricocheting the bullet off the bottom of the steel rail above and behind the target. This made a mess of the target, and put tears all over it. I finished out the rest of the string, and moved on to the other workups. I got home and started looking at the chronograph data and found that the last set of 3031 charges had a nice and tight velocity spread. Average velocity was 3089.05 fps with an ES of only 53.33 and a SD of 20.17. I pulled the target out of the stack, and holy cow! The other 4 shots were in a 1/2" group!



This particular charge was a compressed load at 24.8 grains and an OAL of 2.230", and the grouping difference between it and that lower charges was quite pronounced. This 3031 load, in fact, outperformed all others that day. Data for the load was from the Lee manual.

I also got decent results with Benchmark at 24.9 grains and an OAL of 2.235. I got this data from Hodgdon, and adjusted this from 2.220" to 2.235, as their data only lists soft point bullets in 55 grains. I ended up getting a grouping of 1" for that load, though there was considerable lateral deviation, so part of that may have been me.

On to the 70 grain Speer Semi-Spitzer bullets that I'm using to develop a hunting load, I tried 3 different powders: IMR 3031, Hodgdon Benchmark, and Ramshot TAC.

I tested the 3031 loads first. These gave very good velocity spreads, with the best spread at 9.77 fps and a standard deviation of only 4.35. Unfortunately, grouping wasn't nearly as good, with the best being around 1 1/2". I realize this might by improved by adjusting OAL (I had these at 2.150"), but these loads are being developed for hunting, and I don't think 3031 can give me the velocities I'm looking for. The hottest load out of the group at 21.1 grains (max listed by IMR is 21.2) only came out to a velocity of 2503 fps.

Next up was Benchmark. I actually got some pretty decent grouping with the low end load at about 3/4", but this was somewhere under 2300 fps. The higher the velocities went, the more the groups spread out, until the last string, where it tightened back down some at 22.6 grains at a velocity of 2650 fps. The top end of the data from Hodgdon uses 22.8 grains. At some point, I may see if I can find 5.56 NATO-spec data for Benchmark and see if it tightens down some more at higher velocities. OAL was also set at 2.150", so OAL adjustment may make a difference here as well. Either way, the loads need faster velocities for hunting. Velocity spreads were also very good with Benchmark, and were similar to what I saw with the 3031.

Finally, I tested my Ramshot TAC loads. This was actually the second time around with TAC. 3 weeks ago, I went to try out all these loads and arrived at the range only to realize I'd left them all at home except for the TAC. I'd done a workup from the data published by Ramshot. It seems to me that Ramshot may be subscribing to the Hornady method of overstating load velocities, because the .223 spec loads had such a disparity in velocities that I don't think the barrel length difference was enough to explain it away.

So... I did some googling and found a fellow who corresponded with Ramshot about 68 grain load data for the 5.56 NATO spec. Working from the lower end of these (picking up just above where I'd left off with the .223 spec loads), I worked up a new set of TAC loads using LC NATO brass instead of the PPU and Federal .223 I've been using for everything else. Ramshot's 5.56 data starts at 23.5 grains and goes up to 26.2 grains. Unfortunately, I'd run myself out of bullets, and only had enough for 20 rounds. I started at 24.0 grains and incremented by 0.3 grains up to 24.9 grains, with OAL at 2.155". I got good results from the 24.9 grain string, with an average of 2814.45 fps, a spread of 20.15 fps and a standard deviation of 9.53. Grouping was about 1", mostly lateral deviation so the load will probably peform better than that. Once I get a hold of more of these bullets, I'm going to do another workup, probably starting at 24.8 and incrementing up by 0.2 grains up to 25.6 and see how those do.



I stopped by McBride's today in the hope that they carried the 70 grain Speer bullets, but apparently they do not. What I did find was the fable IMR 8208 XBR powder that I've heard all kinds of good things about, so I picked up a pound, along with some Sierra 69 grain HPBT bullets. I'll have to do some workups with this stuff and see what they can do.