Thread: 22-250 Ackley Improved Load Development

My plan is to use the Lapua brass for the 88gr ELD's but I haven't got much of that fireformed yet. Even so, I can use some of this Federal 243 brass to give myself an idea of what kind of charge weights I'll need to be using. I picked N160 and had high hopes...



A little disappointing. Speed was 3190 with an ES of 33. The vertical stringing suggests to me it's in between nodes and either a little more or a little less speed should tighten it up. I think N160 is just about topping out though so next to try will be AR2217.



What was interesting was how different the case lengths turned out after fireforming. The Sako cases (left) shrank quite a lot from about 1.910 to as little as 1.868 after firing. The Lapua brass (centre) did not shrink as much. Whilst my Federal 243 brass (right), not ballooning out like the others, grew about 0.002". I shall have to see if I can encourage the Sako and Lapua cases to stretch a little further so that there's not a huge gap between the end of the case and the throat.