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223 at 300 yards

kyotekiller25

Silver $$ Contributor
Went shooting earlier today and took my R700 223 Wylde with a 28" Bartlein 8 twist shooting 75g ELDMs at 3000fps with 24.7gn N540 in Lapua brass and Rem 7.5 primers at .025" off. I wanted to see what a 10 shot group off the bench would look like. About 70 degrees, 1-2 mph winds, little bit of mirage, but not bad. The result was approximately a 2.5" group. Now if I was to cherry pick, I'd say the 5 shot cluster was from 1 group, and the other 5 were from another, but that's not how it went haha. With that said, how happy would you be if this was your rifle? Would you try to further improve on this, or just load them all up and just shoot? I definitely feel the rifle is capable of more, whether it be a different bullet or powder, maybe tune the current load as the numbers on the Garmin aren't to promising with the ES/SD. I also put the last 5 rounds on a 2/3 ISPC target into approx 3" at 500 yards to end the day.

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Yes, its a HV contour and rifle weighs like 16# or so. It's mainly just a coyote and LR steel plinker out to 1K. I've pretty much done everything with this particular bullet/powder/seating depth combo. Tried 5 powders and did ladders at 300 yards to start off with the 75g ELDMs, IMR8208XBR, Benchmark, IMR4895, H4895, and N540. H4895 and N540 were the 2 best, but i only have 1# of H4895 left and cant find it locally anymore, so went the N540 route and bought 8# keg of it. I worked up the N540 in .1g increments, did seating depth test from lands to 40 off in .005" increments. Not sure what else to do with it at this point. It's dang close to being 3/4 MOA for 10 shots at 300, so it's not horrible, but I think the rifle is capable of 1.5" or 1/2 MOA with the right bullet/powder. These 75g ELDMs have always been pretty picky in this rifle. I haven't tried any other bullets as I just had planned on and intended these to shoot really well, so I bought 15 boxes to start with. I did however buy 1 box of 80.5g Bergers just to see how much better they'd be over the Hornadys. Not a BR rifle by any means, but always like to try and wring out the best of things.
 
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To know what the rifle is capable of you need a few more groups. Like five 5 shot groups.
I'd shoot the groups at 100 to reduce impact of wind.

To me, the 10 shot group shown above looks a bit odd - all the shots are on the outside of the white space in the middle. When I get that kind of result [at 100 yards], I assume it's on me.
 
It will do 1/3-3/8 MOA for 5 shots at 100 yards.

I know I missed the orange circle, but I only had 15 rounds and just kept the elevation and hold the same for these 10, then wanted to put the 5 on steel at 500.

Has a 200y zero on it, came up 2 MOA and that's what I got. Could probably go up 2 clicks and left 4 or so for a better zero.
 
kyotekiller25 said:
how happy would you be if this was your rifle? Would you try to further improve on this
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Always trying to improve, using different bullets. Good excuse to shoot more.
Shoot 5 shot groups under perfect conditions. No wind or sun. Use a 36 power scope or more.
I bet you will see a few 5 shot groups under 1" @ 300.

Berger bullets or custom, great idea.

My 243 @ 300 - 3 groups just under 1" The other 3 about 2.5" Just 1 bullet killing the groups.
68 & 90 gr Bergers.
Thats it, i quit. To far for an 80 year old to walk.
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kyotekiller25 said:
Yah I think those 3 to the left were a switch in the wind, even though it wasn't a lot. I could see it through the S&B on 40x.

Definitely not your perfect overcast, zero wind, and no mirage conditions.
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Unless you pick your own hours, pick your own days off and have a private range, you *might* get 2 such days a year.

I'm not sure what world some guys live in. I just know it's alien to me.
 
You might try slowing down a bit (back off 0.5 gr) - my rifle likes 2930 fps at 0.030" off with the A-Max. A set of good wind flags will also help; my range will often have all 3 of my flags pointing in different directions, so I know when to wait for consistent conditions. Don't worry about ES - at less than 800 yards it won't matter.
 
The .223 responds to changes in neck tension more than most cartridges (short neck). I'm not sure what dies you're working with, but if you're using a bushing die, try a few different bushings and see what shows up on paper and on the chronograph. I'd start with a little more neck tension, based on your target. If you don't have a bushing die, take the expander ball out and use a few different mandrels if you have them.
 
kyotekiller25 said:
Yes, its a HV contour and rifle weighs like 16# or so. It's mainly just a coyote and LR steel plinker out to 1K. I've pretty much done everything with this particular bullet/powder/seating depth combo. Tried 5 powders and did ladders at 300 yards to start off with the 75g ELDMs, IMR8208XBR, Benchmark, IMR4895, H4895, and N540. H4895 and N540 were the 2 best, but i only have 1# of H4895 left and cant find it locally anymore, so went the N540 route and bought 8# keg of it. I worked up the N540 in .1g increments, did seating depth test from lands to 40 off in .005" increments. Not sure what else to do with it at this point. It's dang close to being 3/4 MOA for 10 shots at 300, so it's not horrible, but I think the rifle is capable of 1.5" or 1/2 MOA with the right bullet/powder. These 75g ELDMs have always been pretty picky in this rifle. I haven't tried any other bullets as I just had planned on and intended these to shoot really well, so I bought 15 boxes to start with. I did however buy 1 box of 80.5g Bergers just to see how much better they'd be over the Hornadys. Not a BR rifle by any means, but always like to try and wring out the best of things.
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W-748 is the only powder you need for a 223.
Stick with the Rem 7.5 primers
 
Unless you have to have the speed for coyote hunting, I would slow it down a bit. I shoot a savage action Criterion match barrel 26” and it likes around 2750 to 2800 FPS with the Nosler 70 gr RDF’s. I also run a faster powder (N135) and get pretty good results at 300. I want 1/2-3/4” groups but Ive got a ways to go yet! Also is your action bedded in the stock? The Bartlein barrel should produce,
 
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And maybe think about working at 200 for a compromise till you get sorted.

Plant a few wind flags and pick your best condition. You will need a little time with some flags to get the hang of this. Later on, you can test your skills without flags, but I really like to start beginners with flags for every incremental change in distance.

Try to call your shots and pick your conditions. Some days there will be enough wind to open up the groups at 200 but master that before you go to 300.

A little story about 300 yards...
A few years back, I was at a club Mid Range Match and we had a good crowd. We had only 6 ShotMarker stations running at 600 yards, so the match director decided to split the match by making it half at 300 yards to add firing points that could run in parallel to speed things up. Instead of 20x3 = 60 shots all at 600, we would have 2x15 at 300 and 2x15 at 600.

Well, all those High Masters didn't think 300 yards was worth their time, but so be it cause too many shooters showed up.

Well, you can guess by now what happened... At this range the 600 yard targets are on the left side of the canyon, and the 300 yard targets are on the right, but there is a little gully on that side with a sneaky cross wind. All the XTC shooters were familiar with it because it can blow you out a full ring on that stage if you are not paying attention.

Most of the usual winners lost points at the 300 yard line that day. They are the type of guys that shoot clean scores at 600 and the match boils down to X counts on most days. But this time many of them were humbled by the wind at 300.
 
kyotekiller25 said:
With that said, how happy would you be if this was your rifle? Would you try to further improve on this, or just load them all up and just shoot? I definitely feel the rifle is capable of more, whether it be a different bullet or powder, maybe tune the current load as the numbers on the Garmin aren't to promising with the ES/SD. I also put the last 5 rounds on a 2/3 ISPC target into approx 3" at 500 yards to end the day.



View attachment 1658685
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My take on it is the IPSC target pretty much answers your question. Going forward will be "because you can", not "because you need to". We have those 2/3 IPSC set up at 350, 500, 600, and 750 yards. They're fiendish because my mind assumes they're 18" wide when they're 12. Wind misses smart more than they should.



These are the stats from a test I did with a similar setup. 223, top is my reasonably developed default load using General Dynamics Lake City brass, H4895, Fed205MAR, 75ELDm. The gun is a RPR, the barrel is 26" Bartlein Heavy Palma 1:7. The chamber is Wylde that's been throated to leave the rear of the bullet bearing surface ~30% down the neck with 0.025" jump. The OAL is 2.525". It's straight forward to modify a R700 internal magazine to feed long 223. I'm using plastic AICS pattern magazines in the RPR.

The second one down is basically the same with an 80ELDm. I used QL to adjust the charge to keep the pressure the same as the 75 grain load. Same jump.

The third one is with 80AMax. I found 1200 of these I'd forgotten about. They were clearanced after the ELD line was introduced.

The fourth is the 80AMax with Benchmark. The charge was a first guess to match the H4895 pressure. It's lower than intended but I'm not going to retest. The other bullets were tested with Benchmark with similar results.

223 has been far harder to drive the velocity spread down with than other cartridges. I've had more success with moving the bullet out of the shoulder than anything else I've tried.
 
kyotekiller25 said:
Yes, its a HV contour and rifle weighs like 16# or so. It's mainly just a coyote and LR steel plinker out to 1K. I've pretty much done everything with this particular bullet/powder/seating depth combo. Tried 5 powders and did ladders at 300 yards to start off with the 75g ELDMs, IMR8208XBR, Benchmark, IMR4895, H4895, and N540. H4895 and N540 were the 2 best, but i only have 1# of H4895 left and cant find it locally anymore, so went the N540 route and bought 8# keg of it. I worked up the N540 in .1g increments, did seating depth test from lands to 40 off in .005" increments. Not sure what else to do with it at this point. It's dang close to being 3/4 MOA for 10 shots at 300, so it's not horrible, but I think the rifle is capable of 1.5" or 1/2 MOA with the right bullet/powder. These 75g ELDMs have always been pretty picky in this rifle. I haven't tried any other bullets as I just had planned on and intended these to shoot really well, so I bought 15 boxes to start with. I did however buy 1 box of 80.5g Bergers just to see how much better they'd be over the Hornadys. Not a BR rifle by any means, but always like to try and wring out the best of things.
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Can I presume that you are already sorting bullets by weight~?
 
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