.223 chambers too deep

[halfmile]

working with 2 rifles, 1 a custom 700 VLS, and the other a new XR-100. Love the guns, but throats are very long for 40 grain bullets. Best I can do is seat them for .030" jump, that leaves half the neck supporting.

I am assuming the XR,says target rifle on the barrel) is cut to use heavy bullets. It does not group as good as the custom 700 with 40's, but shoots 53gr match like a house afire. I can seat them deeper.

I mostly shoot dogs, no matches. It looks like if I want to get needle threading accuracy I will have to rechamber the XR.

I love the vapor effect of the 40's but may go to 55gr SX to get closer to the lands. Any one else seeing this?

HM

 

[Joel]

Try 27.5 grains of H335 with your 40's. I have the same setup and I am jumping them a mile. Works very well for me

Joel

 

[JER]

I am assuming the XR,says target rifle on the barrel) is cut to use heavy bullets.

Your assumption is incorrect. The XR-100 has a rate of twist of 1 in 12 for 204 Ruger and 223 Remington and 1 in 14 for 22-250. Hardly what you need for heavy,> 68 grains by my definition) bullets.

 

[halfmile]

The XR shoots the 40's pretty well, but not exceptional. I could never even get them to .030" off the lands. Dogs don't know the difference.

More research is necessary, I guess. Maybe rethroat the gun if not too costy.

HM

 

[mikeinct]

Shoot it the way it is..by the time you get done fooling around with it you could order a barrel in the caliber & twist rate you want that will be perfect....I've gotten spoiled with a few custom barrels, there is no turning back to those long throat loose neck wonders...take this for what it is worth..if you care enough to load your own ammo for accuracy get a barrel that works right..If you are shooting any odd bargain ammo..it is of no diff..I had a 223 with a ridiculous fast twist rate it would only shoot two loads well...& neither were to my liking for varmints..both were heavy & slow in the 223 with a rainbow trajectory...It is now a 20 tactical shooting 39 gr bullets really well..& I expect it to do better...Don't waste your time making do..it is just Iron fix it or chuck it..u only have so much time here...mike in ct

 

[AckleymanII]

Halfmile, there is more than one way to skin a cat. If you find yourself in Pickle with a long throat, then like Clint Eastwood said, "you got to overcome, improvise, and adapt". Go to a heavier bullet that has more bearing surface.

I am assuming that you want to blow the crap out of varmints with those fast flat shooting 40's, and I'm right there with you on that accord. Here's a couple of tricks that you can do to to keep your long throated rifle tuned up to shoot extremely tight groups. First, the current trend to shoot nothing but plastic tip bullets gets a lot of people in trouble in the accuracy department, REAL fast! Those plastic tip bullets do not have a lot of bearing surface, hence, you can not seat them out very far. You can only jump a bullet so far before it starts crooked in the barrel inducing inaccuracy. How far a bullet can jump before it is inaccurate depends entirely upon that particular rifle...I don't think there is a standard.

Quite a few of the old style bullets blow the crap out of critters and give bug hole accuracy. The Sierra lead tip blitz are excellent bullets and I have had great luck pushing them to 3650 fps. I won a benchrest match with the Sierra Blitz in a 22 ppc agging a .189. I left the match and shot the crap out of ground squirrels with that same rifle.

The Speer 52g HP and the Speer 55g sp are two more excellent bullets that are extremely accurate and are very explosive on critters.

This is one of those situations where if you "find yourself in a hole and need to stop digging". The extremely short 40g bullet will shoot for a while, but the bullet jump at some point will have the accuracy degrade....I hate going down a dead end road. Another thing about bullets that have a little more bearing surface is that they tend to shoot accurately for a longer period of time when you start "jumping" them. I think that the more bearing surface helps the bullet straighten itself out after it gets started a little crooked.

I have had several dog rifles that had the throats shot outof on red hot dog towns and started shooting the Sierra Semi point bullets. In most cases, the barrels accuracy was restored to where I could put another 1500-2000 rounds down the tube on dogs,I consider 1/2" as max group for my short range dog rifles when there is extensive wear). I had one 220 Swift that had the thorat shot out on inwhich accuracy was completely restored by switching from the 55g Sierra spt to the 63g Semi point. One other thing, those big lead tips really make a critter blow up...very humane kills.

Good luck to you on your rifle!

 

[Ackman]

That's how 40gr. bullets are....not very long. My chambers have NO freebore, and a plastic tipped 40 touching the lands still only seats about 1/2way down the neck. That's how it is with shorter bullets and your chambers aren't really that bad. If you can't find a good combination of seating depth and accuracy, go with 50's.

 

[Ackman]

One more thing. Some people like to start off with brass trimmed to a "trim to" length. If you have, don't do it anymore. It's like adding freebore and completely unnecessary. Factory .223 chambers are at least .020" longer than untrimmed cases and you may never have to trim them.

 

[halfmile]

Thanks for the replies, guys. We just got back from SD, and I shot a variety of 40's. I am staying with them for now because they shoot pretty flat out to 300, with no holdover.

They are jumping a fair amount a la Roy Weatherby, but accuracy is not bad.

The cheapie Barnes Varminator 40's yielded a nice tight grouup, less than .3 inch. Barrel needs to warm up, 3-4 groups till the good ones show up.

Ballistic tips shot tight groups in a warm gun too.

This is almost as much fun as motorcycle racing, and doesn't hurt near as much when you make a mistake!

HM