Thread: Anyone reloading 35 grain 223's ??

Righto. Got my reloading gear set up.

I'm keen on reloading a 35 grain varmint round for my 223 as a starter for 10.

Any advice on a good starting load ?

Tim

35gn?

I assume they are V-Maxes?

ADI 2205, 2207 or Bench Mark would be fast powders.

Pretty sure it's a typo and he means 53gr. At least I hope so

Originally Posted by Proudkiwi

Pretty sure it's a typo and he means 53gr. At least I hope so

Nup, I'm serious. Plenty of people doing these loads, just not a great amount of reliable load data.


Tim

Originally Posted by dogmatix

35gn?

I assume they are V-Maxes?

ADI 2205, 2207 or Bench Mark would be fast powders.

Yep, they're vmaxes.


Tim

You should be fine using the starting powder charge for 40gn projectiles and work your way up, as its going to be conservative.
In fact, looking at the BC data, unless you are set on the 35s, 40gn seems a better pill. Almost double the BC (not hard).

Are you going for splat factor?

Originally Posted by dogmatix

You should be fine using the starting powder charge for 40gn projectiles and work your way up, as its going to be conservative.
In fact, looking at the BC data, unless you are set on the 35s, 40gn seems a better pill. Almost double the BC (not hard).

Are you going for splat factor?

Splat factor ? Must be a technical term

Most of the varmints will be under 200 yards ... The idea with 35 grain was faster = flatter ... And a little cheaper (less powder)

That said , I'm not looking for so fast as to burn out my barrel or pressure spike the chamber..

Thanks for the advice. Might indeed go with 40gn



Tim

I've been using the Nosler 40gn BT in my 223. Very happy with the results on hares, wallabies, goats and paper targets.

Velocity in the high 3k's and they are about as flat as you could hope for. Zeroed at 200 they're less than an inch high at their peak.

On the bigger animals, they punch clean for the first 10-15mm and then get pretty violent beyond that, turning a rockmelon-sized region of vitals into liquified mincemeat. Pulp is probably a good term for it. Consistent killer on everything sized up to some fairly large billies out to 200+ (haven't attempted any further than 230ish) and plenty further on roos. I don't tend to get any exits, although occasionally I'll find the base of the projectile in or around the offside shoulder somewhere when butchering. Only downside to the clean entry is that sometimes it can be tricky to find where you shot it.

Can't help with info on the 35's sorry, but thought you may be interested in my experiences with the 40's.

Originally Posted by StrikerNZ

I've been using the Nosler 40gn BT in my 223. Very happy with the results on hares, wallabies, goats and paper targets.

Velocity in the high 3k's and they are about as flat as you could hope for. Zeroed at 200 they're less than an inch high at their peak.

On the bigger animals, they punch clean for the first 10-15mm and then get pretty violent beyond that, turning a rockmelon-sized region of vitals into liquified mincemeat. Pulp is probably a good term for it. Consistent killer on everything sized up to some fairly large billies out to 200+ (haven't attempted any further than 230ish) and plenty further on roos. I don't tend to get any exits, although occasionally I'll find the base of the projectile in or around the offside shoulder somewhere when butchering. Only downside to the clean entry is that sometimes it can be tricky to find where you shot it.

Can't help with info on the 35's sorry, but thought you may be interested in my experiences with the 40's.

Hmmmm sounds like the 40 is the better way to go.

What powder are you using ?


Tim

My uncle is brewing these up for me rather than loading them myself, but he was using N133 in them until supply ran low a little while ago at which point he loaded me up a couple of different powders to test. Luckily they both performed well too. They were N530 and H335.

Nice one , lucky you to have an uncle like that.

The hodgdon website seems to have good reliable data
http://data.hodgdon.com/cartridge_load.asp

T

Inside 200 meters I think you'll find that flatter isn't a real thing


There's no point in loading the 35s

Interesting point of view.

If I'm not wrong what you're say is that there's hardly any difference up or down inside 200 anyway .... And that the flatter shooting is to biggest advantage at 200 + yards ???

If you have a 1-12 twist I would use 35grain pills if its only a bunny buster out two 200 yards. Good splat factor. Not like 50 grain pills have much better bc and energy isnt an issue.

Saying theres no point in loading 35's is prettt stupid

35's will do the job and will be the flattest shooting pill out to 200m even if it is only by an inch or so.

Go for it

The 35s are going slower before 200 than a 55gr is, starting at 4000fps vs 3200 for 55 and only drop .3" of an inch less. They'll be significantly worse in any wind at all than even the shitty 52-55gr bullets and have less "splat factor" if you care about that since they are slower

they're a waste of time and really limit your capability, 10 seconds with a ballistic calculator would tell you this. I mean go for it if you want to select functionally the worst possible bullet for the cartridge


e: a 53gr vmax at 3200fps overtakes the 35gr at 4000fps at about 115 meters