Thread: 22 250 Face lift

A while back Beeman's son bought a new carbon fibre stock for his 300 WSM and when he headed of to Aussie to work he gave me the wooden stock. Just the other day I decided to see if it would fit my Rem SPS 22 250. I pulled the old stock off which was the factory plastic one and weighted the two, the wooden stock about 3 oz heavier.
The wood stock fitted perfect with no alterations needed, hopefully it would be a good shooter. With the plastic stock I have shot a 14 mm group but generally it's at about an inch for three shots.
Once it was all set up it weighted in at 8 ld 12 oz so not to bad as it's not a bush gun more an open country rifle.



I was hoping it would shoot a bit better than the old plastic stock as this wood one is now a free floating one and doesn't have those little blocks at the the tip of the forearm that apply upward pressure.



Yesterday I took a few rifles out to shoot some different loads, in the 22 250 i had my normal handload of 55 gr Noslar BT with 36 grs of AR 2208 for about 3600 fps and some Belmont 55 gr factory loads which look like they run the Hornady bullet in Graf brass.



After about 7 rounds I had it shooting a little high at 100 yds so then tried a couple of groups of three shots with both rounds. I was very pleasantly surprised as I was only shooting over the hood of my truck on my shooting rest.
The 55 gr Noslar BT's went into 17 mm and the Factory Belmont 55's went into 26 mm both at close to the right height for a 200 yd zero.
Next time I try it out I will set up better in a prone position and see if I can improve on that.



When firing the Belmont factory ammo my second shot had quite a heavy bolt lift and the primers are a little flattened which isn't a reliable way to check for pressure but it was a surprise being factory stuff. The other thing that happens is when the Graf brass is resized the neck won't hold a bullet you can pull it out, all other types of brass I don't have a problem with it.....any ideas why this is the case???



At the moment I am very pleased with the 22 250's face lift.

Nice looking rifle now, should do something similar to mine but don't have the spare time or inclination at the moment. I currently working up loads using Blitzkings for my 22-250.

never heard of graf brass before....that IS INDEED looking nice now. as to why...no idea,will watch with interest.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

never heard of graf brass before....that IS INDEED looking nice now. as to why...no idea,will watch with interest.

Its a strange one alright. A while back I played around with some and tried annealing the neck area to see if that helped. I don't know much about that stuff but out of several cases I got one that would hold the projectile so maybe if I got them hot enough ? maybe they would be OK.
It's not a big deal as I only had two boxes of them and only have 30 left.

they arent brass washed STEEL cases??? try a magnet....only thing that comes to mind.

Originally Posted by Happy Jack

Nice looking rifle now, should do something similar to mine but don't have the spare time or inclination at the moment. I currently working up loads using Blitzkings for my 22-250.

I also tried some 55 gr Blitz Kings in my 223 Mod 7 Rem when out with the 250, 25grs of BM2 with that bullet got 3150 fps which surprised me as other projectiles with that charge of powder generally go about 3040 fps. Point of impact was the same as the Hornady's it's sighted in for and they went into 29 mm group which probably could be improved on.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

they arent brass washed STEEL cases??? try a magnet....only thing that comes to mind.

No they don't stick to a magnet.

Not being an expert . it sounds as though your brass is on the hard side . So what may be happening is because of the hardness of the brass it is "springing"back , what that means is the brass is being sized down but afterwards is returning to the size it was after firing . This will be due to "cold" working as opposed to "hot" working when firing a round .

Time to get your trusty vernier caliper out ( every reloaders owns one, right?)

Measure the neck OD of a fired case. Measure the neck OD of a sized case. Compare the two, any difference?

Measure the neck wall thickness (vernier calipers don't do a great job of this but will be near enough).
Subtract 2x the neck thickness from the sized neck OD.
Result should be around 2-3 thou less than a projectile OD (=0.221 - 0.222).

Excessively thin necks will give sloppy projectile fit as the dies will not be able to reduce the neck inside ID enough.
Shouldn't be a problem with factory brass though.

When pulling the expander ball back thru the neck does there seem to be any sizing occurring?
If you unscrew the expander ball/shaft will the expander slip back into the sized neck.

Originally Posted by zimmer

Time to get your trusty vernier caliper out ( every reloaders owns one, right?)

Measure the neck OD of a fired case. Measure the neck OD of a sized case. Compare the two, any difference?

Measure the neck wall thickness (vernier calipers don't do a great job of this but will be near enough).
Subtract 2x the neck thickness from the sized neck OD.
Result should be around 2-3 thou less than a projectile OD (=0.221 - 0.222).

Excessively thin necks will give sloppy projectile fit as the dies will not be able to reduce the neck inside ID enough.
Shouldn't be a problem with factory brass though.

When pulling the expander ball back thru the neck does there seem to be any sizing occurring?
If you unscrew the expander ball/shaft will the expander slip back into the sized neck.

I will see what I can find out tomorrow, I will do a bit of checking, thanks for the info.

Whats the barrel twist I have a new barrel on the 788 it's a 1-12 so any info is good info.

Not sure of barrel twist probably the same as yours 1-12. It didn't shoot as good with some 60 gr partitions I tried in a long time ago so presume it has the slower twist. It's a standard factory Remington barrel.

Done so measuring with my "Noah's Ark" calipers which aren't like the new ones of today. As best I could get the OD dia of a sized Graf shell was 6 mm and non sized one was 6.5mm.
The neck thickness appears to be the same sized or fired. I measured a R-P case for comparison and thickness was slightly less than the Graf brass.
I weighted different brass and I got a big variance, PMC 165.3 grs, Norma 166.5 grs, R-P 157.3 grs. The Graf brass went 175.4 grs, 174.4 grs, 175.5 grs.
When sizing the Graf brass there was no resistance from the expander button in the die, when I tried a bullet pushed in by hand it push in and pulled out with little resistance.

Looks like Graff brass is their own? Link

Well assuming the (factory FL) die has pulled the neck diameter down noticeably, the only explanation at this point is an unusually thin neck thickness