I have been trying to get some good numbers on my .223 loads but the best I can do is a Sd in the low teens. I measure powder to withing 1 kernel, change neck sizes, change primers, different bullet seating depths. I have heard in the past that this is a hard cartridge to get good numbers with so I was wondering if anybody out there has good numbers? Using a bolt rifle with 6.5 twist Brux. Varget powder and 95 gr. SMK.
.223 es/sd
- Thread starter clowdis
- Start date
MikeMcCasland
Team Texas F-T/R
Following, as I've never been able to get them nearly as low/consistent as other cartridges.
This is one of the issues with the 223. Its not as easy to get good SD numbers in this little case than most of our big brother's Like 308 for FTR or Palma.
As long as its not out of hand I try to just look at what the target is telling me. Small group size and Elevation is my gage now. A little less on SD or ES.
FWIW the best I have been able to obtain is an SD of 9. But I do not run a chrony every time I shoot so who knows. Running Sierra 90s/Lapua brass/24.5gr. Varget/CCI 450 primers for 2770 fps. My throat is long enough so the the shank/boat tail are just above the neck/shoulder joint while jumping .020". .002" neck tension. 7" twist 30" button rifled barrel.
DirtySteve
Gold $$ Contributor
Have you tried magnum primers..?? Better ignition should help.
Dusty Stevens
Shiner
Check the target. An es of 49 that shoots good is better than an es of 6 that shoots like poo. Small ES does not correlate to small groups. Your action has as much to do with es as anything by the way.
Mainly using CCI450 which is a mag. primer. I like the hard cup
Tried regular CCI and Wolf. It seems to shoot OK at 600yds. but would like to get a little better on the numbers when I move back to 1,000yds. Who knows, it may be fine.CharlieNC
Gold $$ Contributor
My story is like yours clowdis. I have a very nice node, so it does shoot well out to 600 so far. Interestingly this is following a barrel change last year; previous barrel and 80.5 full bore bullets had less variable chrono. This is the rep of the 223 with its small case; but then I read reports based on quite a lot of data of much less variability with good 22LR!
XTR
F-TR obssessed shooting junkie
I think this is one of the problems getting the 223 to shoot well at 1000 yards in F-TR. It's been discussed here before, but getting ES/SD down like you can with a 308 is just near to impossible, and at long range that correlates to vertical. In my mid range 223 F-TR rifle I don't bother with ES/SD numbers any more. I run some over the chrono to make sure I'm generally where I want to be then I do load development to get it to shoot well and don't worry about it, but I don't shoot my 223 past 600 yards.
I believe Greg @Ned Ludd once posted a challenge here to anyone who could show 223 numbers with an ES below 15 or so for 10 shots.
I believe Greg @Ned Ludd once posted a challenge here to anyone who could show 223 numbers with an ES below 15 or so for 10 shots.
Ned Ludd
Silver $$ Contributor
Pretty much everything has to be just so with loaded .223 Rem rounds using heavy bullets in order to keep the ES/SD low. Regardless of what some may think, without a load that has a reasonable ES value, shooting a .223 with heavies at 1000 yd will probably be a long and painful day. It IS important. Precise charge weights, uniform neck tension, uniform internal case volume...all of these things are critical in order to keep the ES low with the relatively small .223 Rem case and heavy bullets.
In my hands, ES values for 5- to 10-shot groups for .223 Rem loads with Berger 90 VLDs are typically in the upper teens to around 25 fps. A bad run might be as high as the low to mid 30s, an exceptionally good one between 10 to 15 fps ES. Per Wade's observation above, I'd be very shocked to see anyone loading .223 Rem ammo with 10-shot ES values consistently below 10 fps, as can be done with .308 loads. Further, .224" bullets with relatively long bearing surfaces, such as the 95 SMK, can sometimes make it even more difficult for which to obtain solid ES/SD values.
There is probably not any one thing that will be the "instant fix" for poor ES/SD with .223 Rem and heavy bullets; meticulous brass prep and reloading practices are essential as I mentioned above. However, one thing you might try if you haven't already is sorting your cases by weight/volume. I'm sure there will be a few readers that see this and want to start yet another "case weight versus case volume argument". If so, please take it elsewhere and start a separate thread; this thread is for the OP to get feedback on loading .223 Rem. Nonetheless, I typically sort cases by weight when loading for an F-TR match. I also sort bullets by weight to remove any gross "outliers". I do not typically do either of these steps during load development or practice, only for matches. I figure if I can get things working the way I want without those steps, they will most likely only make rounds loaded specifically for matches even more consistent when added to the reloading process.
In the process of determining case water volume and case weight over the course of several years, I have become convinced that in fact, case volume is generally proportional to case weight. Notice I stated, "generally" proportional. That is to say, when you plot case weight versus case volume, you should see a general linear trend to the scatter plot data, of which the best straight line (regression) through the data points should have a negative slope. In other words, as case weight increases, case volume decreases. The relationship is not perfectly linear - i.e. there will always be a few outliers, meaning case weight is not useful for estimating case volume on an individual case basis. What it does mean is that by sorting many cases into specific weight groups (i.e. "light", "med", "heavy"), you will end up with more uniform internal volume within a specific weight group than if you had done nothing at all.
My main reason for even mentioning this is that I recently started a new batch of Lapua .223 Rem brass. I noticed with both 95 SMKs and 90 VLDs that my ES/SD values were larger than I typically expect, so I decided to weigh a few fired cases as I had not yet prepped any of this brass for a match (i.e. no weight sorting of it as yet). To keep things simple, I selected 5 cases from a single shot string that had obvious velocity deviation. The load was Berger 90 VLDs over Varget. Below are the velocity data and weights of the individual cases.
Velocity(fps)
2858
2853
2821
2823
2825
ES = 37, SD = 18.0, Avg = 2836 fps
Case Weight (g)
6.3010
6.3121
6.2238
6.1763
6.2274
As you can see, the two high velocity values that wreck the ES/SD are approximately 30 fps faster than the other three. Although this is only a sample of n = 5 cases, I have done enough of this in the past to know that those two cases will have much smaller internal volume without even actually measuring the water volume. In other words, this is no coincidence. As it turns out, cases that weigh over 6.3000 g in this particular Lot# of brass constituent about 25% of the total number of cases, a relatively high proportion. I am in the process of more precisely separating out and characterizing these heavier cases with respect to internal volume and their effect on velocity. Nonetheless, this is a good example of how case weight (and likely internal volume) can contribute to excessive ES/SD in .223 Rem loads with heavy bullets.
Whether you use case weight, or the more rigorous (but time-consuming) method of determining actual water volume, you might find that having more uniform case volume may buy you a little improvement in your ES/SD values. It's pretty easy to sort a few cases and see whether it helps.
In my hands, ES values for 5- to 10-shot groups for .223 Rem loads with Berger 90 VLDs are typically in the upper teens to around 25 fps. A bad run might be as high as the low to mid 30s, an exceptionally good one between 10 to 15 fps ES. Per Wade's observation above, I'd be very shocked to see anyone loading .223 Rem ammo with 10-shot ES values consistently below 10 fps, as can be done with .308 loads. Further, .224" bullets with relatively long bearing surfaces, such as the 95 SMK, can sometimes make it even more difficult for which to obtain solid ES/SD values.
There is probably not any one thing that will be the "instant fix" for poor ES/SD with .223 Rem and heavy bullets; meticulous brass prep and reloading practices are essential as I mentioned above. However, one thing you might try if you haven't already is sorting your cases by weight/volume. I'm sure there will be a few readers that see this and want to start yet another "case weight versus case volume argument". If so, please take it elsewhere and start a separate thread; this thread is for the OP to get feedback on loading .223 Rem. Nonetheless, I typically sort cases by weight when loading for an F-TR match. I also sort bullets by weight to remove any gross "outliers". I do not typically do either of these steps during load development or practice, only for matches. I figure if I can get things working the way I want without those steps, they will most likely only make rounds loaded specifically for matches even more consistent when added to the reloading process.
In the process of determining case water volume and case weight over the course of several years, I have become convinced that in fact, case volume is generally proportional to case weight. Notice I stated, "generally" proportional. That is to say, when you plot case weight versus case volume, you should see a general linear trend to the scatter plot data, of which the best straight line (regression) through the data points should have a negative slope. In other words, as case weight increases, case volume decreases. The relationship is not perfectly linear - i.e. there will always be a few outliers, meaning case weight is not useful for estimating case volume on an individual case basis. What it does mean is that by sorting many cases into specific weight groups (i.e. "light", "med", "heavy"), you will end up with more uniform internal volume within a specific weight group than if you had done nothing at all.
My main reason for even mentioning this is that I recently started a new batch of Lapua .223 Rem brass. I noticed with both 95 SMKs and 90 VLDs that my ES/SD values were larger than I typically expect, so I decided to weigh a few fired cases as I had not yet prepped any of this brass for a match (i.e. no weight sorting of it as yet). To keep things simple, I selected 5 cases from a single shot string that had obvious velocity deviation. The load was Berger 90 VLDs over Varget. Below are the velocity data and weights of the individual cases.
Velocity(fps)
2858
2853
2821
2823
2825
ES = 37, SD = 18.0, Avg = 2836 fps
Case Weight (g)
6.3010
6.3121
6.2238
6.1763
6.2274
As you can see, the two high velocity values that wreck the ES/SD are approximately 30 fps faster than the other three. Although this is only a sample of n = 5 cases, I have done enough of this in the past to know that those two cases will have much smaller internal volume without even actually measuring the water volume. In other words, this is no coincidence. As it turns out, cases that weigh over 6.3000 g in this particular Lot# of brass constituent about 25% of the total number of cases, a relatively high proportion. I am in the process of more precisely separating out and characterizing these heavier cases with respect to internal volume and their effect on velocity. Nonetheless, this is a good example of how case weight (and likely internal volume) can contribute to excessive ES/SD in .223 Rem loads with heavy bullets.
Whether you use case weight, or the more rigorous (but time-consuming) method of determining actual water volume, you might find that having more uniform case volume may buy you a little improvement in your ES/SD values. It's pretty easy to sort a few cases and see whether it helps.
Agree completely. I gave up trying to use .223 at 1000. Just to manic for me. That's what a .308 is for!
Ned Ludd
Silver $$ Contributor
The .223 Rem can be competitive at 1000 yd, but you have to pick the battles you can win with it. A day with challenging wind conditions is not the right battle to pick. However, on a mild wind day with 0 - 5 mph conditions might be a good opportunity to take advantage of the .223 with heavy bullets. By the same reasoning, I wouldn't pull out one of my .308s with a 185 Juggernaut load on a day with challenging wind conditions either, when many of the other competitors were using their 308s with a good 200.20X bullet/load. In general, many F-TR competitors have found that the .223 Rem can be very competitive in MR matches at 600 yd, where it will be giving up much less to .308s with 200+ gr bullets, even with more challenging wind conditions.
XTR
F-TR obssessed shooting junkie
There used to be a post on this site that I had a link to, but it was from before the site update several yrs ago and the link is broken, in any case it demonstrated a ~70% correlation between case volume and case weight, which is agreement with the post above.
My 90VLD load using Varget and 205M primers has an ES of 33 and an SD of 15
Give AR Comp a try. I'm only loading 70gr RDF but consistently get under 10 SD with wolf brass and primers. I've gotten good SD's with Alliant's new powders.
Hello. What kind of Brass are you using? Besides using quality brass that all weighs within .1 grain and is the same internal capacity, you should use try Benchrest primers such as Remmington 7 1/2.
Using a stick powder, Lapua brass with within .1 grain internal case capacity, and quality primer, the lowest SD I seen you can get consistently is about ~4-6 SD, with some batches of 5 shot groups in the ~2-3 SD range with 5.56. XBR8208, Norma 203B, RE15, Varget, can do sub 10 SD consistently with consistent components. Your question will be answered directly on this website soon I think. I know they are working on 5.56 this summer.
http://www.natoreloading.com/
Using a stick powder, Lapua brass with within .1 grain internal case capacity, and quality primer, the lowest SD I seen you can get consistently is about ~4-6 SD, with some batches of 5 shot groups in the ~2-3 SD range with 5.56. XBR8208, Norma 203B, RE15, Varget, can do sub 10 SD consistently with consistent components. Your question will be answered directly on this website soon I think. I know they are working on 5.56 this summer.
http://www.natoreloading.com/
Upgrades & Donations
This Forum's expenses are primarily paid by member contributions. You can upgrade your Forum membership in seconds. Gold and Silver members get unlimited FREE classifieds for one year. Gold members can upload custom avatars.
Click Upgrade Membership Button ABOVE to get Gold or Silver Status.
You can also donate any amount, large or small, with the button below. Include your Forum Name in the PayPal Notes field.
To DONATE by CHECK, or make a recurring donation, CLICK HERE to learn how.
Click Upgrade Membership Button ABOVE to get Gold or Silver Status.
You can also donate any amount, large or small, with the button below. Include your Forum Name in the PayPal Notes field.
To DONATE by CHECK, or make a recurring donation, CLICK HERE to learn how.