22br with 90 bergers?

[Josh11]

anyone use them? The bullets from berger states that the 90 grn vld has the bc of .551. How would this bullet stack up against 6mm? Would the barrel wear be worse?

 

[Klong]

Go read Gun Of The Week #43 by Clint Greenwood. He was not using Berger, but should still apply with the JLK.

Ballistically it compares well with the 6BR, but the BRX and the Dasher still have a slight wind advantage, Also the 6mm's are more forgiving when looking for an accurate load.

 

[BradY]

Yes I have a 7 twist trueflight that gets fed 90gr berger VLD's with 30.5gr of H4350 or AR2209 to us aussies. CCI 450 primer. I jam them about 25 thou and they shoot quite well. I havent been able to tune the load much as Ive actually run out of the bergers, but I was shooting 58's at the last f class meet.

 

[ThunderDownUnder]

Josh, the 0.224" Berger 90gr VLDs have a higher BC than any of the Berger 6mm range of bullets.
My 22BR with a 31.5" barrel and 30.5gr of Varget gives very good accuracy and launches at 3116fps. Its more than competitive with the parent cased 6mmBR!

Ian

 

[Josh11]

thats what I was thinking. How well does the barrel hold up compared to the 6br? I know it might be a little shorter but how much? This caught my eye while surfing for 6br bullets.

 

[SpencerC]

it wouldn't be anymore than a couple hundred less than the 6mm, so we are still talking almost 3000 depending on how it's driven....These 90's going 3000fps will greatly outperform the 10X 6mmBR going 2850, even most of the 6.5's sailing along at 2900+

IMO the only reason more people aren't using .22 wildcats yet is that they still think weight has something to do with BC.....

 

[Geronimo Jim]

Great thread. Tomorrow I am picking up a custom built 22br from Sid Goodling. It is build on a Bat action with 1 in 7.7 twist. Can't wait!

 

[ThunderDownUnder]

thats what I was thinking. How well does the barrel hold up compared to the 6br? I know it might be a little shorter but how much? This caught my eye while surfing for 6br bullets.

I ran the numbers thru the barrel wear spreadsheet (barrellife.xls) and for use with Varget the 6mmBR was calculated to be good for 2000 rounds and the 22BR at 1800 rounds. They look to be pretty close with each other as far as wear goes but real world data would be better than the calculations!

Ian

 

[Klong]

I have a 22 BR, but have not shot the 90 gr bullet yet. It shoots the 80's with Benchmark so well I just have not tried the 90's. I have only shot out to 300 yards. If little or no wind 5 shots with the 80's are around 1" at 300.

It is a single shot and a real pleasure to shoot. My velocity is only around 3000 fps.

 

[BradY]

Benchmark is way too fast for 90gr bullets! You must be running a really low charge! About 30gr of varget gets 3000fps, Not sure about H4350 as thats what im using. Must get back out with the chrony when the weather clears up here.

 

[Laurie]

I ran the numbers thru the barrel wear spreadsheet (barrellife.xls) and for use with Varget the 6mmBR was calculated to be good for 2000 rounds and the 22BR at 1800 rounds. They look to be pretty close with each other as far as wear goes but real world data would be better than the calculations!

Ian,

I agree with your last sentence. I find it difficult to believe that .22BR will be so close to the 6mm version. That's a fair bit smaller bore size to be shoving 30gn's worth of hot gas from a load of Varget, Re15 or H4350 down.

Anyway, we're back to how you define 'barrel life'. Kevin Thomas formerly of Sierra, quotes 6BR barrel life figure from his work with that company in a post on 'Barrel Life' dated April 2009:

I'd call it 1200-1500 rounds at best, based on the 1/2 MOA figure mentioned earlier. That's about the point that I expected to see accuracy drop off with SMK 107s from our test barrels, and I was actually running loads a bit slower than those cited here. The problem here isn't so much one of capacity or speed, but bullet weight; heavier bullets wash out throats faster than do the lighter bullets at higher velocities.

That rather shocked me at the time, but as a long-time benchrest shooting friend put it, few 6PPC barrels hold BR accuracy much beyond 1,300 rounds, and the PPC case capacity and charges are smaller than the BR's. (Also, 6PPC is all 65-68gn bullets in competition, while 6BR is often running 40gn heavier at that end. As Kevin T says, heavy bullets are barrel killers thanks to the extended period that high pressure and temperature gasses afflict the throat area due to a heavy bullet's greater inertia.)

I've just got my .223R F/TR rifle up and running with 90s, and I doubt if I'll get much over 2,000 rounds of F-Class grade accuracy out of this combination. We'll see - I hope it's more, but have my doubts. 4,000 rounds of mixed 69s, 73s, 75s and 80s (mostly the heaviest weight) in a previous .223 saw 110 thou' erosion of the leade in a Lilja barrel, despite modest loads - 2,700-2,750 fps with 80s, 2.950-3,000 fps with 69s.

Laurie,
York, England

 

[ThunderDownUnder]

Laurie,

Like you I shoot 223R in F-Standard (limited to 80gr bullets) and the barrel life is around 2000 rounds at 3000fps. It will be interesting to see how long the barrel keeps its accuracy with the 22BR wildcat.

I think the spreadsheet is probably right in as much as the 6BR will hold up longer but just how much longer remains to be seen. I should know in 12 months time as the 22BR is just one of three calibres I shoot in F-Class and it will take that long to build up the round count.

Ian

 

[Klong]

Benchmark is way too fast for 90gr bullets! You must be running a really low charge! About 30gr of varget gets 3000fps, Not sure about H4350 as thats what im using. Must get back out with the chrony when the weather clears up here.

Sorry, I did not mean to imply that Bechmark would work for the 90 gr bullets. As I stated I have not shot any 90 gr bulletsin my 22BR.