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Shooting My First Reloads...223


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Nothing wrong with Lee beam scales mate, a little fiddly perhaps, but damn accurate.

Prone, rear bag bipod nothing fancy   223 ackley Tikka t3 action Border match barrel 1/12 twist Macmillan stock Atec mod Night force NXS np2dd   Long range to   6br RPA action

Looks like the 27.5 suits your rifle too, but I agree that you should wait for a still day and try again, because taking those results as gospel could send you down the wrong path early. Once you've

Prone, rear bag bipod nothing fancy

 

DD6C318D-A24C-476C-B9C5-E37A6ED64243.jpg

223 ackley

Tikka t3 action

Border match barrel 1/12 twist

Macmillan stock

Atec mod

Night force NXS np2dd

 

Long range to

7E5683AB-AA2B-45AA-A373-0003E8BDDE9F.png

 

6br

RPA action

Krieger 1/8 twist barrel

SSS stock

Night force NXS np2dd

 

Gaz

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all folks on this thread seem to be doing some good reloads.

 

one things for sure adding upgraded parts like quality barrels and decent stocks plus nice triggers combined with quality brass = improved consistency.

 

the thread owner has also shown how tinkering about with loads can improve groupings.

 

makes me want to do some reloads now.

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So after shooting some steel at 240m the other day it became apparent that my reloads are much slower and drop about 8 inches+ at that distance, whereas the 40grn vmaxs I had left was shooting spot on....

 

So I thought I would load another ladder of different weight powders using some 40grn nosler bt's....Using a new set of digital scales!

Starting load of 27.5 then 28.0 28.5 and 29.0

 

Made sure the conditions was almost perfect, used a smaller target, measured out my 100y and got some much better groups and they was shooting much higher, indicating that they wasn't hanging about like my first loads... Best group was with the 28.5grn of the cfe223...

 

4 shots here, gutted I must have pulled the last one! haha..

 

IMG_1477_zps1nh1d3xv.jpg

 

 

Well happy with that! My only concern was with the cases after firing, it looks like they have rotated slightly scraping some brass up and leaving a tiny burr...?

 

IMG_1483_zpsnacaeziz.png

not sure what gun you have. but if its a remmington like mine then the extractor claw COULD BE catching on the edge of the case rim. if so its because the factory quality control is rubbish. either get a smith to grind a small bit off the edge of the extractor or buy a new one for a few quid from brownels. or do what I did and remove it carefully and file it down a very small amount.

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Out of all the rounds ive tested in my .223 it seems to like soft point not ballistic tip or hollow points

 

Ive tried

 

Berger 52gr hollow points

Winchester silver tips 50gr

Sierra blitz 55gr and 50gr

Hornady ballistic tips 50gr

Lapua 55gr soft point

Sierra 50gr varminter 50gr

 

the soft point were averaging 11mm 3 shot groups edge to edge at 100m

 

The ballistic tips were averaging 18mm

 

Was wonder why so i measured the oal of the bullets alone and the soft points are considerably shorter do i started reading up on different bullets short vs long and its seems to my reading a slow twist barrel like mine 1/12 twist will stabilise a short lighter bullet better but a longer bullet will have better stability over longer ranges.

 

so i guess thats why alot of people are shooting 40gr bullets and getting great results

Edited by GEOFF.223
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Out of all the rounds ive tested in my .223 it seems to like soft point not ballistic tip or hollow points

 

Ive tried

 

Berger 52gr hollow points

Winchester silver tips 50gr

Sierra blitz 55gr and 50gr

Hornady ballistic tips 50gr

Lapua 55gr soft point

Sierra 50gr varminter 50gr

 

the soft point were averaging 11mm 3 shot groups edge to edge at 100m

 

The ballistic tips were averaging 18mm

 

Was wonder why so i measured the oal of the bullets alone and the soft points are considerably shorter do i started reading up on different bullets short vs long and its seems to my reading a slow twist barrel like mine 1/12 twist will stabilise a short lighter bullet better but a longer bullet will have better stability over longer ranges.

 

so i guess thats why alot of people are shooting 40gr bullets and getting great results

 

I would have to agree. I initially tried the 52gr AMAX. It is a longer bullet and no matter what COALs I used my results were like a shotgun. I gave up in the end. I seat my Nosler BTs at 15 thou off the lands to get the best results. Get this though, I can also seat them 40 thou off the lands and get similar results. The rifle hates anything inbetween though, and greater than 40 thou. Ballistics eh?

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I cant get to close to my lands as the mag well in my rifle always has me 40 to 66th away depending on bullet profile

Crimping apparently gives better accuracy in a standard bolt action rifle compared to jump to lands

 

Also read a few paragraphs were .223 and .22 250 will either like be close to the lands 5 or 10 away or 40 to 100th away

 

As said above between 10 and 40 is a bad area for some rifles

 

There was someonet on here that told me there 22 250 was set at 80th back and shooting half inch grouos at 200yds

 

Think I'll puchase my self a lee factory crimp and tried a few rounds worth a try

 

Its suppose to create equal neck tension and fps goes up by 100fps on .224 rounds so thats a bonus ;)

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The thing I was told about crimping (which put me off) was that if you have different thicknesses of brass in the neck, the tension will be different...Obviously the thicker the brass the tighter the tension? Haven't tried it yet but I understand that annealing cases before neck sizing may give you more consistentcy with neck tension...?

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Nah, crimping isn't for me. Some people swear by it though.

 

I decided to bite the bullet (pardon the pun) and buy myself a chrongraph. If the weather holds off I'll get out later and rattle a few rounds through it. :thumbs: . Info to follow ..........

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I did eventually make it out last night. I went out knowing that I was using some new brass (I don't resize new Lapua brass) so I did expect some spread/variation in the results.

 

Results? Over 10 shots the average came out as 3365 fps. The spread was around 50fps. My last three shots gave a single ragged hole (170 yards). Nectar! :boogy:

 

This was using:

 

Lapua Brass

Fiocchi primers

Nosler 40gr BTs

29.0gr CFE223

 

I'm going to reload this fire-formed brass and repeat the exercise next week. :thumbs:

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

So after shooting some steel at 240m the other day it became apparent that my reloads are much slower and drop about 8 inches+ at that distance, whereas the 40grn vmaxs I had left was shooting spot on....

 

So I thought I would load another ladder of different weight powders using some 40grn nosler bt's....Using a new set of digital scales!

Starting load of 27.5 then 28.0 28.5 and 29.0

 

Made sure the conditions was almost perfect, used a smaller target, measured out my 100y and got some much better groups and they was shooting much higher, indicating that they wasn't hanging about like my first loads... Best group was with the 28.5grn of the cfe223...

 

4 shots here, gutted I must have pulled the last one! haha..

 

IMG_1477_zps1nh1d3xv.jpg

 

 

Well happy with that! My only concern was with the cases after firing, it looks like they have rotated slightly scraping some brass up and leaving a tiny burr...?

 

IMG_1483_zpsnacaeziz.png

not sure what gun you have. but if its a remmington like mine then the extractor claw COULD BE catching on the edge of the case rim. if so its because the factory quality control is rubbish. either get a smith to grind a small bit off the edge of the extractor or buy a new one for a few quid from brownels. or do what I did and remove it carefully and file it down a very small amount.

 

 

If you don't get that with factory ammo then beware you can also get case damage if your loads are overpressure although if it is the cause that's mild as it normally takes more of the lip away.

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It's a Tikka T3, I think the cases I use might need a full length resize...

 

could well be your cases as tikka's have better extractors than crappy Remington's.

 

funny thing is chaps at the range said I needed to full length resize. they were wrong in my case as the claw was catching on mine. rem quality control can be questionable.

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