Thread: Getting ES down with 223

Interesting, I have a new 300 Blk bolt gun (that will have to run factory ammo for the foreseeable future until our build is complete)- what barrel length is your Blackout ??

Originally Posted by Tentman

Interesting, I have a new 300 Blk bolt gun (that will have to run factory ammo for the foreseeable future until our build is complete)- what barrel length is your Blackout ??

Hey it's a 16.5" Bergara single shot.

Primer Shootout
PPU brass, fireformed, annealed, trimmed, uniformed, necks brushed. 55gn Speer Gold Dot, 25.8gn BM8208, 2.300" COL.

Federal GM205M
3280
DNR
3234
3228
3223
3232
3227
3234
3280
3234
ES 57, SD 22.2, AVG 3244, 0.773"



CCI400
3297
3228
3255
3187
3212
3195
3286
DNR
3292
ES 110, SD 44.6, AVG 3244, 1.088"



CCI450
3228
3234
3228
DNR
DNR
MISFIRE
3249
3223
3220
3248
ES 29, SD 11.6, AVG 3233, 0.531"



So great result there with the 450's. This isn't the first time I've seen 8208 work well with that primer.

Anyone want to buy a brick of CCI 400's?

Bonus 300 blackout. 110 VMax, 20.5 AR2205, CCI450, 2.100".

2391
2383
2395
2401
2403
ES 22, SD 8.6, AVG 2395, 0.58"

Originally Posted by Pommy

Bonus 300 blackout. 110 VMax, 20.5 AR2205, CCI450, 2.100".

2391
2383
2395
2401
2403
ES 22, SD 8.6, AVG 2395, 0.58"

That's some great results with that 300BLK, what length barrel and twist are you using?
I'm getting similar ES and SD with that same power, using LC and Hornady 223 brass cut down to 300BLK with Fed205 primers and 125gr SST and TMK.
The only this difference is that I weight batch brass into 3 weights classes light, medium and heavy to keep the ES down. If I do this I can get the ES down to 9 on a 10 shot string.
Spent the last few days cutting down and trimming 600 cases for a couple of goat culls coming up in the next few months.

@tikka, 16.5" 1:8 twist. That's seated 0.050" longer and 1 grain over ADI max.

Next I just need to modify a seating stem so it's not munting the bullets under such heavy compression. I think Belmont Magnum Pistol is the same powder as H110 so that would probably get the same kind of speeds without needing to be crunched down.

X+1.5gn of The special sauce I was trying is giving 2261 but it's scattering them all over the place and I doubt it'll tighten up before primers start popping.

Thought I'd share some recent success I've had doing a quick workup with 50gr ballistic tips and AR2219.

Disclaimer: I start 0.6gr ABOVE ADI's listed maximum and end up 2.4gr over. You're touched in the head if you clone this without doing a workup. Your rifle is a unique snowflake anyway so just start from scratch rather than using data from forums / fecalbook.

I've had these bullets sat in a box for ages now and figured it was time to either use them or offload them. Since they are light for calibre I went with a fast for calibre powder. I don't want to waste time shooting these things at <3200 since I've got a boringly accurate load with 55gr gold dots that are doing that speed. So I refer to some of my older notes and use GRT to work out where my actual maximum is likely to be and load 10 steps of 0.2gr up to that point, to see how fast I can actually drive them.

PPU once fired brass, annealed, FL sized, tumbled.



Charge, AVG, ES, SD
24.6, 3193, 77, 39
24.8, 3226, 31, 16
25,0, 3275, 67, 36
25.2, 3309, 91, 46
25.4, 3365, 30, 17
25.6, 3364, 78, 42
25.8, 3378, 42, 21
26.0, 3428, 18, 9
26.2, 3459, 64, 32
26.4, 3496, 50, 26

Looking pretty average until everything came right at 26.0 grains. Seeing some patterns there with the opening/shrinking of the groups correlating with the ES/SD, I graphed the data:



I'll have to try this with a couple more types of bullets in the near future.

Have you tried constant neck tension from a mandrel? I use a mandrel now ( remove the neck expander from all my dies now ) and.expamd the necks after with an apw one from ozark. My es cut by half.

I use mandrels on a couple of other cartridges after sizing with some other dies but haven't found the need with the forster ones. The tension I get is consistently light. I'm not measuring runout but with a single digit SD and 0.086" group, I see nothing to suggest it's off.

Originally Posted by zimmer

Agreed. When the annealing "fad" appeared I decided unless I could do it consistantly case to case I wouldn't bother. I never had a need to do it due to split necks. Since gone down first the Benchsource path followed by the AM$.
My last build, 308 FTR and my 6.5x47L I get single figure ES and stunning accuracy, especially the 6.5x47.
My 7.5x55 Swiss I get around 30 fps ES but still great accuracy given the type of rifle.

Wide ES doesn't necessarily mean poor accuracy at close ranges. It's more telling at 1000 yds and on.
Conversely I've had loads with single figure ES that I've scrapped as they didn't perform accuracy wise.

I no longer neck turn except for my tight neck 6.5AI. All my recent builds are no neck turn chambers.

I haven't seen much difference in quality between Peterson and Lapua. Both have the 1/2 thou seam in the neck. The same seam I suspect runs the full case length. I used to get anal and turn this out. It doesn't affect my runout which is <1 thou usually. The Peterson 308 brass is currently parked up as it has reduced capacity over the Lapua. I won't bother getting any more Peterson.

Since AMP I have changed my loading technique. I anneal every firing. FLS using a Forster die (absolutely top quality) with expander removed, and the expand using a 21st Century expander. This process has seen my runout and ES drop very favourably. Previously I neck sized using Redding Comp Bushing dies. My runout with these was not consistant/frustrating. The worst creator of runout I found was Redding Body dies. They just don't support the neck when sizing.

Chasing runout I have been down the Redding Comp dies and Wilson inline dies path. Now that I'm Forster FLSing and then expanding I'm finally in control of neck tension and runout.

https://www.accurateshooter.com/shoo...es-from-bipod/

So Froggy got it all wrong? LOL. Best advice I know about biffing the expander father than you can shoot. 2C.

Originally Posted by TeRei

https://www.accurateshooter.com/shoo...es-from-bipod/

So Froggy got it all wrong? LOL. Best advice I know about biffing the expander father than you can shoot. 2C.

This was bad advice the last time I remember you posting it. It still is.

29 deer for the year so far. Must be doing something wrong. LOL.

One fella I know traced the issue with his reloads to the expander stem. I don't recall the brand of dies but what he found was the expander clamp system was pushing the expander ball off to one side. Being a machinist, he modified the clamping system to allow for lateral float so the first case straightened the expander ball and if the cases were straight the expander floated and aligned itself. Meant a separate decapping die required but worked. So provided its straight the expander in itself doesn't cause any issues that aren't already apparent but if it isn't straight you might have an issue...

Originally Posted by TeRei

29 deer for the year so far. Must be doing something wrong. LOL.

Completely irrelevant.

Yeah you can usually see when it's off-centre by looking up the die from below.

I quite like running the case into the die then lifting the expander so that it's in contact with the the inside base of the neck. This centres it before you tighten it off. Then when you draw the case out, the top of the neck is still supported (and held straight) whilst the expander opens it up. The Forster FLS dies have the expanders high up to let you do this. With other dies it means using a separate decapper.