Think I have a 223 load sorted

[Brad Y]

Nice shootin tex.

Don't be afraid to try BM8208 either, meters and throws real nice.

[stinkitup]

Looks good Raven....nothing better than good groups with your own loads!

[trevort]

i would wind your scope up now, an inch high at 100 will help with the 250m rabbits.

unless you are clicky windy of course

[The Raven]

I think that is the rifle some of us were trying to convince you that you wanted it, even when you knew you wanted it before we did.

That's pretty much how it went. I wanted a 223 but wasn't sure what to get and ended up taking the advice of everyone here (not always a wise thing to do...)

I also like the fact both the rifle and scope have increased $250 each since I bought it....suggesting I saved $500. Well, that's what I tell Mrs Raven.

[The Raven]

i would wind your scope up now, an inch high at 100 will help with the 250m rabbits.

unless you are clicky windy of course

Clicky windy is something I'd rather avoid in the field, just have it set right for the expected range and then fiddle ONLY if need be.

You saw what it did to the bunny on that hill at Buchan. From memory, that was dialled in for 100m and he was around 200ish. Nailed him with no apparent holdover or clicky/windy.

[trevort]

If he was 250 you would have been low. 223 drops off after 200 quite noticeably


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[Branxhunter]

Last trip to the range trying out some new loads. Happy with the results.

IMG_4182.JPG

Nice work there Raven. That will sort out a few ferals.

Marcus

[The Raven]

Went to the range last week to do some more load testing. On the Sierra Blitzking with 26gn of 2206H the best group so far is just under half an inch, with most being between 0.5 to 1.0 inch (if the nut behind the trigger is doing his bit).

Another silly question, beyond watching the brass for signs of spilts, stretching, loose primer pockets etc roughly how many times can you reload the one piece of brass? Obviously that depends on a lot of factors, starting with the brass, but how many reloads are you getting out of ADI/OSA brass (223 Rem)? Just interested.

[Camel]

Using a good sensible load that isn't working the brass too hard, I would be very disappointed if I didn't get at least 10 reloads out of those cases. I have seen and used 222 brass that had over 30 reloads per case, but some of the primer pockets were starting to get a little loose. This was before I had even thought about doing anything silly like annealing, just size em, trim em, and load em up and shoot em. I think the trick is to not try and get every last poofteenth of speed out of you brass.

P.O. Ackley did some interesting experiments with 30-06 brass years ago, he was trying to find which was actually better between neck and full length sizing, and not listening to all the nay sayers that stated full length sizing was rough on brass and shortened life span. Roughly from memory he loaded up a near max load using common projectiles and found that full length sizing lasted around 90 loads before the case was no longer useable, neck sizing failed at around the 60 mark. He was old school and everything was exactly the same in both cases, except the sizing part.

[223 fanboy]

Good load development Raven.
I've settled on 26gn of 2206 for 55gn projectiles too. My groups aren't as good as yours though.

PS. If you find a better load, then we all want to hear about it.

[The Raven]

Using a good sensible load that isn't working the brass too hard, I would be very disappointed if I didn't get at least 10 reloads out of those cases. I have seen and used 222 brass that had over 30 reloads per case, but some of the primer pockets were starting to get a little loose. This was before I had even thought about doing anything silly like annealing, just size em, trim em, and load em up and shoot em. I think the trick is to not try and get every last poofteenth of speed out of you brass.

P.O. Ackley did some interesting experiments with 30-06 brass years ago, he was trying to find which was actually better between neck and full length sizing, and not listening to all the nay sayers that stated full length sizing was rough on brass and shortened life span. Roughly from memory he loaded up a near max load using common projectiles and found that full length sizing lasted around 90 loads before the case was no longer useable, neck sizing failed at around the 60 mark. He was old school and everything was exactly the same in both cases, except the sizing part.

So far all is good. Some brass has been through 4 times now with no signs. I'm not worried about speed yet, because I've not use a chrono on it yet....

Interesting on sizing. I'm neck sizing at the moment...

[Camel]

Using a good sensible load that isn't working the brass too hard, I would be very disappointed if I didn't get at least 10 reloads out of those cases. I have seen and used 222 brass that had over 30 reloads per case, but some of the primer pockets were starting to get a little loose. This was before I had even thought about doing anything silly like annealing, just size em, trim em, and load em up and shoot em. I think the trick is to not try and get every last poofteenth of speed out of you brass.

P.O. Ackley did some interesting experiments with 30-06 brass years ago, he was trying to find which was actually better between neck and full length sizing, and not listening to all the nay sayers that stated full length sizing was rough on brass and shortened life span. Roughly from memory he loaded up a near max load using common projectiles and found that full length sizing lasted around 90 loads before the case was no longer useable, neck sizing failed at around the 60 mark. He was old school and everything was exactly the same in both cases, except the sizing part.

So far all is good. Some brass has been through 4 times now with no signs. I'm not worried about speed yet, because I've not use a chrono on it yet....

Interesting on sizing. I'm neck sizing at the moment...

Ok cool, I have a self imposed rule, hunting cartridges, full length size every time, varmint type cartridges, they get neck sized, there are supposed advantages of using them like this, I don't know as I haven't tested the theory that neck sizing is more accurate.

[Flash Gordon]

The important thing is that your cartridge fits the chamber,honestly after a few years target rifle shooting ,I have come to the conclusion that the load is more important,a thousand of an inch too much is far worse than one thousand of an inch loose for the cartridge fit in the chamber.