Thread: Attempting a new .224 wildcat

Spent a good part of my day testing this Wildcat hard..
My new cartridge holds 49.0gr of H2O, I spent a lot of time researching start and max loads of all the similar volume cartridges I could find. Here's a list of water volume held by each cartridge and its all I had to go by:

.22-250 Rem 44.0gr H2O
.22X47 Lapua 46.6gr H2O
.220 Swift 47.0gr H2O
.22-250 AI 50.8gr H2O
.22 Creedmoor 52.0gr H2O
.22-243 Win 54.0gr H2O

My Wildcat holds a fraction less than a .22-250 Ackley Improved but the brass is a lot stronger so I used its start loads and worked up until I saw the slightest primer cratering and then stopped. These were by no means hot loads and could have been pushed much harder but I really want to stick to my intention of conserving this barrel.
The powders I tested were of the faster end of the burn spectrum as my barrel is only 21" long so I want it to run as efficient as possible.
A list of the powders tested as follows in order of fastest to slowest burn rate :

BM 8208
AR 2206H - H4895
AR 2208 - Varget
RL16
AR 2209 - H4350


I put quite a few over the chrono with ladder tests documenting speeds, extreme spreads and finding my modest "max loads".
Even the start loads were faster than ADI's listed .22-250AI max load speeds from a 24" barrel which makes sense looking at case volume alone.
Once I was happy I picked a few loads that I thought should do well on paper and headed out to the 100 yard range.

Feeding from the mag was floorless and the accuracy nodes are wide and forgiving, all loads tested were boringly accurate ranging from a 0.84" at the largest down to a 0.40" at the smallest.
I havent messed with different projectiles as I have a heap of the 69gr TMKs and the jump to lands was 5 thou on all loads. Primers were CCI BR-4's.

I settled on two loads right around the 3200fps (mild) one with BM 8208 and one with RL16. The BM 8208 shot constant tiny bug hole groups and was noticeably quieter and softer to shoot but actually gave the best velocities of all powders tested. It is clearly running the most efficient in the short barrel.
RL16 gave tiny extreme spreads at 3 to 7 fps but didnt quite match the 8208 in the accuracy department.





I think this Cartridge could really give the .22 Creedmoor a run for its money if set up with a 26" 1-8" barrel. From my test results today Id say it will send an 80gr projectile to about 3500fps with a slower burning powder such as 2213SC or RL26. I have now doubts at those speeds it would only get about 1000 rounds before the throat was shot out though.