.223 with 9 twist- Best bullet for mid ranges?

[40X Guy]

What is the heaviest bullet that will work well in a factory 9 twist Savage barrel 24 inch long .223 caliber? Will it stabilize 75 grain class bullets? I do have a bunch of 69 Sierra MK's. Looking for load data and advice on where and what to start with from members who have a similar setup. This will be for my son and will be an informal 5-600 yard target rifle and woodchuck rifle.


Frank

 

[1holeaddict]

I have a friend who has two Savage BVSS for him and his wife. Both have the 1:9 twist and he shoots 75 Amax out of both and has great results. He has recorded kills on chucks out past 700 yards. I shoot 69 smk out of my BVSS and 55 gr Ballistic tips. My custom 223 eats those little 52grain smk's. I have been wanting to try the 75 Amax but cant locate them.
Good Shooting

 

[1S2K]

I also have a Rem 700 with a 9 twist barrel and shoot Sierra 77 grain SMK's out to 350-400 yards with no problem. It shoots them as well as it does the 69 grain SMK's.

 

[KMart]

I have a 9 twist McGowan on a 700 Rem. It will shoot Hornady 75 gr HPBT < .5" at 100.
The 75 Gr A-Max will not hit the target. You will have to shoot different bullets to see which ones will stabilize for you.

 

[40X Guy]

Thanks for the replies! I would love to get 75 A-Max to work in this rifle. Will probably start with 69 Sierras to see how she shoots out of the box. Also have some Hornady 68 grain BTHP to try for a woodchuck round. What are the powders to try with 68-69 class bullets?

Frank

 

[1holeaddict]

I only tried Varget with both bullets and never had to look elsewhere.

 

[mac86951]

Thanks for the replies! I would love to get 75 A-Max to work in this rifle. Will probably start with 69 Sierras to see how she shoots out of the box. Also have some Hornady 68 grain BTHP to try for a woodchuck round. What are the powders to try with 68-69 class bullets?

Frank

The 75 A-Max is an excellent bullet, loaded to 2.390" it groups very well out to 600 yards. AR Comp and Varget seem to be the better from my limited data.

-Mac

 

[stinnett1981]

The highest i went with in my R700 .223 9 twist is 69g SMK's. They shoot the best out of any bullet in that rifle. .5 average with the occasional .3. I have a feeling it will like the 77 SMK's too. I will definitely try them in the future! You can only try and find out with yours!

 

[Kermit in Va.]

Might wont to try aa2520 with bullets 60gr or heavier.
My 700 tac [20"bbl.] shoot it real good.
I tried the 77's but it was with varget, they too shot good.


Kermit

 

[40X Guy]

Thanks to everyone for the fantastic replies! I never loaded heavy bullets in a standard .223 rifle. Loaded plenty of 40 grain BT's in .223 during my PD hunting days though. Looks like a Varget/ 69 SMK marriage coming up!

Frank

 

[mac86951]

69 SMK is the standard "Light weight" heavy bullet. There are others to try as well for your 1:9 barrel may/may not like them.
Berger 70gr VLD
Sierra 77gr, and don't pass on the 52/53gr Matchkings!
Hornady 75gr Match
Nosler 77gr, and 69gr (some rifles like Nosler more than Sierra)

When getting to longer than 2.260" COL look to Berger 75gr VLD, JLK, or Hornady A-Max 75gr. The Moly Coated Hornday 75gr A-Max shoot very very well.

Of course, powder will be a consideration for all of this. Varget is a good one to start with, so is AR-Comp. H4895 is a good one as well.

-Mac

 

[stinnett1981]

Another I tried is the 53g Vmax. Even though its only 53g, some say its supposed to be shot out of a 9 twist or faster. Why??? I dont know.....something about its length? It has a very high BC for its weight. I shoot it on top of 25.5 grains of Benchmark. When load developing it shot horrible with anything less than 25 grains of Benchmark. Then I got up to 25 grains and the load magically tightened up ALOT!. Im talking 2" 5 shot groups at 100 yards to sub moa. Then I got up to 25.5 grains and it shot well under sub moa. Great varmint round!!!

 

[pdhntr]

What is the heaviest bullet that will work well in a factory 9 twist Savage barrel 24 inch long .223 caliber? Will it stabilize 75 grain class bullets? I do have a bunch of 69 Sierra MK's. Looking for load data and advice on where and what to start with from members who have a similar setup. This will be for my son and will be an informal 5-600 yard target rifle and woodchuck rifle.

Frank

I have a stock factory Savage M10 that is incredibly accurate with 73 gr. Bergers and Varget. It shoots the 68s, 69s and 75s well too, but the Bergers are more consistent.

Jim

 

[chase7]

Varget is my go to powder with the 68 hornadys and 69 smk's. I also played around with the 73 bergers with good results with same powder. All fired out of a savage model 10 predator in 1-9twist. Also great results with the 60grn vmax for my hunting loads. It was a little harder to get the right combo with the 60's but once I did it shoots excellent. Had to play more with seating depths on the 60's. My rifle loves .015 off the lands with 60's and the heavier 68-73 it seems to like .020 off lands better. I also tried Ramshot Tac with the 69's with no luck. But had such great results with Varget right away that I didn't play around with Tac that much. Still need to go back to it someday and try different loads. Best of Luck and let us know how your loads work out.

 

[fdshuster]

When I bought my 10FP, 223, new in 2000 (pre-accutrigger) it included the factory test target. I take that with a grain of salt, since they "count" the best 3 of 5 shots at 100 yards, but it did include the recomendation that the preferred bullet should be the 69 gr. Sierra #1380. They were right! The single most consistanly accurate bullet for the life of that barrel. It was a 9 twist.

That rifle now has a 1-8 Hart and the 69 #1380 remains the preferred "light" bullet, the 80 gr. SMK the favorite heavyweight.

 

[pdog2225]

I also have the sav BVSS 223 in 9T, along with a RRA AR15 with 24" 8T barrel. They both shoot the 69smk's very well. I tried the 77smk in both and they shot great also. The load was 24.5 grs of AA2520 or RE15 for the 77smk. The RE15 was a compressed load, could hear the powder crunch and sometimes bullets would raise up and have to be reseated. So I stuck with the 69gr smk with 26.0grs of AA2520 for my prairie dog load out to 700yds. This load came from the 223 article on this site. pdog2225

 

[40X Guy]

Thanks everyone, I will be loading up both 69 Sierras and 73 Bergers this week and hopefully do some testing next week.

Frank

 

[Bowman44]

I have two savages, 1 model 16 laminate sporter, and 1 model 12BVSS and both shoot the Hornaday 75 BTHP or V-maxes very well. T.S.

 

[NilesCoyote]

This is a post I did on another forum but it may help you here.

“223 Remington Tactical owners

I thought I would pass on some good info.

I have been searching for the best long range bullet this gun could handle with the 1-9 twist for some time. First I tried the 80 A-max, ha, that was nowhere near stable... Often not even making it to the 100 yard target backer let alone the target.

Then I moved on to the 75 A-max and 80 SMK, those landed on target but in a rifle that will shoot into 3/4” at 100 on a bad day these two would only shoot groups in the 3” to 4” range. Stable enough to hit point first but I could not push them fast enough get any real accuracy from them.

I moved on to 70 grain Berger VLD’s thinking that a BC matching the 77smk it may be a great alternative. While it did work I could never get it to shoot that well. MOA was about the best I could get. So I went back to the 69 that shot well. The 77’s will work but I just couldn’t run them fast enough to really outperform the 69’s. That is where I have been for the last year, using the rifle mostly for short to mid range varmints with a little steel plate shooting from time to time 500y on in.

Enter the 75 grain Berger VLD and its .423 G1.

This bullet is not new by any means but I somehow never thought to run it through the Rem Tac until now. For the last three weeks I have been developing the load at 100y and while everything looked great, I wanted to wait till I had the opportunity to shoot at the 1000y range to be sure, prior to posting and calling it a success.

Today was the day.

My load is running 2850 FPS at the muzzle and with today’s DA of 0’ (45 degrees at 960 ASL) it required 10.4 mils at 1000y, just barely supersonic. The only issue is the size and weight of the projectile; it makes it almost impossible to see an impact. As long as no one else is shooting you can hear the little “tink” as it impacts steel.



The following target is not posted as to show how great of a shot I am but to prove they are arriving pointy end first at 1000y. It would have been a 5 shot group but without knowing where I was hitting on the 36" target I missed judged the wind. I was holding 1.5 mil and should have held 1.2ish. Shots 1,2 and 3 all hit the left side while shot 4 missed. I thought I saw a minor disturbance in the force, I mean dirt, just off the left of the steel so I ended up over correcting for shot 5 by half a mil. :blush: Had all shots struck I am sure I would have had a nice 10-12” group in todays wind but instead I have 3 in 8” with a straggler.

So in closing, if you have a Remington Tactical in 223 and want to push the envelope as far as you reasonable can. Try the 75 Berger VLD, the ballistics are very close to my 175 smk 308 load at 2650, using about the same wind hold and just about a mil less in elevation.”

And

“I am revisiting the 80 grain BTHP, found a good deal on 1000ct Nosler CC's and playing with the stability program on jbm.

Shot them on paper the last two days and they are grouping well when jammed.

For those interested the bullet ranges from 1.06"-1.072" and the advertised BC is .415 g1

Last time I tried an 80 grain I had them jumping a long ways and I never ran them very hot. My test loads crono'ed at 24g= 2650ish, 25g= 2760ish, 26g= 2840ish for two shots each with varget powder.”

I will add that my 80g load with nosler CC’s works great during the summer but once the temps get down in the 40’s I discontinue using them for stability reasons. They still hit nose first but the groups open up.

The two best all year bullets that work in my two 9 twists are sierra 69 smk and nosler 77cc and both work well pursuing coyote.

 

[Terry]

Mine like 80gr. Nosler custom competition bullets.