You have a bunch of powders that will work very well! What color are your WSR primers. There are gold and silver colors. The new one's are the thinner cup. I still have a stash of the older ones. I used VV540 in my HP service rifle.
223 Powder Choices 77 SMK
- Thread starter Belton45
- Start date
Yes. The 205Ms have thicker cups.
Welcome to the AR bug! 77s huh? What distance are you wanting to shoot?
I see you're in central TX, so I'll assume you're at ~2500ft elevation?
My recommendation for year round load; work with H4895, i bet you'll stop at 24.0 in your load work-up due to all the crunching of a compressed load; but wow does it shoot!
Varget: 23.5gr and work UpTo and around that.
AR-Comp 22.1
CFE223, 24.0
N140: 24.0
TAC: (working on load now)
In fact, find some Winchester brass so you can stuff more power into the case.
Load to 2.255" for good feeding.
205M is a great primer to use; CCI 450 being another.
If you're after best accuracy, weight each round and use Varget / H4895.
Else, meter CFE223 or TAC and enjoy!
-Mac
Belton45
Silver $$ Contributor
Thanks for the info. That’s great information.
23.2 8208 is mine as well. I've seen others go hotter but it's tough on the brass.
Jeff Porter
Gold $$ Contributor
Also- brass case capacity is a consideration. Buddy I shoot with uses RUAG or Geco brass and gets same velo and groups with 22.8 gr. It is almost 10gr heavier than my LC.
It's not uncommon to "notch" the front of a magazine for additional COL for ~5 rounds.I seated some to set my Wilson die. Wow those suckers goes way down in the case.
Long time ago, a single stack magazine was available to feed from one feed ramp only, again for additional COL.
-Mac
Belton45
Silver $$ Contributor
3 Ar 1-8’s is what I’m wanting to load for on the 77SMK.
Alliant reloder 15 and IMR 8208 xbr has a perfect burn rate for 69, and 77gr.bthp match bullet loaded in 223 rem.
I prefer Remington 7 1/2 bench rest primers, I've tried all different cases..didn't matter much I had a 24" 7.5 twist barrel from Krieger.
When using LC brass, I prefer to prime the cases with either cci 41s or Federal AR (gold medal) Match primers. The 41s tend to deform less than any other primer when I don't get the LC crimp 100% perfectly removed. FED AR Match primers produce slightly smaller groups than any other primer for me in all of my 223 wylde and 5.56 barrels. With the FED AR Match primers, I usually have to discard a couple when reloading once fired LC brass when the primer gets flattened out significantly. I mainly ream by hand, sometimes I use my CH4D swager to minimize this issue.
Load with LC brass, CCI 41, 77 SMK: 23.1grs of IMR 8208 XBR is accurate and I don't get any pressure signs in any of my many AR barrels in hot weather/long strings of fire. 24grs of Varget also works well for this combo.
I have found Benchmark and H4895 to work best consistently with lower gr weight bullets (55/62), although with some experimenting you can find a good load with 77s as well. IMR 8208 XBR is a great performer with the Hornady 62gr BTHP (midsouth exclusive) as well. I have a jug of AR Comp that I want to try, I will probably find great results at 22.8grs like many others have discovered.
Load with LC brass, CCI 41, 77 SMK: 23.1grs of IMR 8208 XBR is accurate and I don't get any pressure signs in any of my many AR barrels in hot weather/long strings of fire. 24grs of Varget also works well for this combo.
I have found Benchmark and H4895 to work best consistently with lower gr weight bullets (55/62), although with some experimenting you can find a good load with 77s as well. IMR 8208 XBR is a great performer with the Hornady 62gr BTHP (midsouth exclusive) as well. I have a jug of AR Comp that I want to try, I will probably find great results at 22.8grs like many others have discovered.
Ned Ludd
Silver $$ Contributor
I've used both H4895 and IMR4895 under 90 VLDs in .223 Rem F-TR bolt rifle loads (30" barrel, 0.169"+ freebore). In my hands the IMR4895 typically tunes in on a given node at approximately 20-25 fps faster than H4895, which itself tunes in about 20-25 fps faster than Varget. IMR4895 did not yield quite the precision as H4895, but it wasn't bad by any means. FWIW - I have yet to find another powder that equals (or betters) H4895 with heavy bullets in .223 Rem. H4895 has fairly small and uniform kernels. IMR 4895 kernels have fairly uniform diameter, but the kernel lengths are all over the map, from very short little cylinders to fairly long rods. H4895 yielded slightly better ES/SD values in my setups, but that was solely using Fed 205 primers, so the results may have been the same or even reversed using a different primer.
The only issue I encountered with IMR4895 had to do with pressure and brass life. For years, I have run an F-TR load with 90 VLDs and H4895 that yields approximately 2840-2850 fps from a 30" pipe. It is a stout load and brass life is relatively poor. As you can imagine from my earlier statement regarding relative tune velocities with the different powders, a comparable load with IMR 4895 wants to tune in somewhere around 2870-2880 fps. This has the unfortunate result of being extremely hard on brass, to the tune of maybe only a couple firings (or even only one) before the primer pockets are trashed. To that end, I would have selected the next lower node with IMR 4895 had I continued to use it for competition, which might have ended up somewhere in the 2800 to 2810 fps range, but I never actually worked up a load at the next slower node with IMR 4895 so I'm purely guessing on that. This is not a criticism of IMR 4895, merely an observation that for my specific use, I couldn't quite hit the same higher node that I could with H4895.
FWIW - in your shoes I'd give both the IMR 4895 and the N140 a try. N140 is another good powder for .223 Rem with heavy bullets. It has very small and uniform kernels like H4895. In my hands, N140 generated higher pressure when loaded to comparable velocities as H4895, which like IMR 4895, became a deal-breaker for the loads I was specifically trying to develop. Again, that is not a criticism of either powder, merely an observation that neither was quite optimal for my intended use. With a different bullet and/or barrel length I'd imagine either one could potentially work very well. It wouldn't be too difficult to load up a few test rounds with each powder to get a feel for what kind of precision they might provide. Of course, the caveat to that kind of streamlined approach is that without optimizing charge weight/seating depth, etc., the results may be misleading. Nonetheless, it may be possible to get some idea of whether you think they may be worth pursuing further without going through a complete load development process. Because you already have those powders in hand, why not give them a shot?
I'm running an 18" gas gun so I am not trying to achieve screaming velocity. Brass life is a concern as well as smoothness of the gun. I find a little bit slower round is slightly more smooth and tends to shoot better in a gas gun. Thanks for the in depth reply.
Ned Ludd
Silver $$ Contributor
I was merely using those loads as an example. I agree with you, there is no need to run loads like that in a 18"-barreled gas gun. In any event, the H4895 and N140 powders you have should still both be excellent choices in your setup.
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