90gr Berger VLD loads (223) with Varget

[Dub]

Looking for loads that have worked with the above listed components. I am shooting a 26" bbl with a 6.5 twist. I plan to start with the listings in the Berger Reloading manual but wanted to hear what others have found working.

 

[Jdne5b]

How much freebore do you have?

 

[Dub]

How much freebore do you have?

.169

 

[Ned Ludd]

Do a search using ".223 Rem 90 VLD" as your query. You will find more information than you could ever want.

One piece of information worth reiterating is that people using 0.218"/0.224" (land/groove) barrels of ~30" in length with twist rates faster than 7.0 have sometimes experienced jacket failures with the 90 VLDs. You may not observe this behavior with the shorter 26" barrel, or if you are using a 0.219"/0.224" barrel configuration. Nonetheless, if you are using a 0.218"/0.224" barrel in 6.5-twist, you may want to keep your final velocity below about 2800 fps to avoid any potential jacket failures. Frankly, I'm not at all sure you can even get close to the 2800 fps mark in a 26" barrel without going way over SAAMI MAX pressure, but the jacket failure issue is something to keep in mind if you are trying to get every last bit out of the setup/load and you ever happen to send a shot that mysteriously fails to put a new hole in the target.

 

[Dub]

thanks Ned. those search terms gave me what I was looking for. I think I will stick with the 80gr VLDs in this set up for now.

 

[XTR]

@Ned Ludd I recently talked with Brux about a new 224 barrel and they told me they don't do .219s in anything faster than 1:x twist, I forget what x was but it was significantly slower than the 1:7 that I have used or the 1:6½ I was discussing. Have you gotten a .219 from anyone in a fast twist yet? If so who made it?

 

[Jdne5b]

@Ned Ludd I recently talked with Brux about a new 224 barrel and they told me they don't do .219s in anything faster than 1:x twist, I forget what x was but it was significantly slower than the 1:7 that I have used or the 1:6½ I was discussing. Have you gotten a .219 from anyone in a fast twist yet? If so who made it?

I have a .219 in 2 barrels faster than 1:7 from Bartlein.

Is Brux worried about the bullet jumping the rifling?

 

[XTR]

They didn't say. I've got a barrel certificate and I called them to talk about it. Didn't pursue it further.

 

[MGYSGT]

Perhaps those people blowing up projectiles were shooting in 22-250 or such. Going way over the 3,000 mark.

 

[XTR]

Perhaps those people blowing up projectiles were shooting in 22-250 or such. Going way over the 3,000 mark.

That will certainly blow them up, but there are people, some posting on this thread, who have had blow up issues with F-TR rigs shooting 90s and 88s north of 2800 from 30" tubes with faster than 1:7.

 

[badmitn88]

I have a 1:7 twist 30 inch Brux with a .218 bore. I got it specifically to shoot the 90 vld's around 2800 in a Rem .223. I can say with the utmost certainty, more bullets blow up than make it to the target. I know Brux makes good barrels, I think this combo just doesn't work. If you are running them slower they may work just fine. You might also try the new 85.5 bullets as well. That's my next project.

 

[Nature Boy]

30" 1:7 Shilen shooting the 90VLDs here. 24.2g Varget, ~2,740 fps. Shoots 600 yard high master scores with my 16 year old pulling the trigger. Close to 1k rounds with nary a blow up

 

[Ned Ludd]

@Ned Ludd I recently talked with Brux about a new 224 barrel and they told me they don't do .219s in anything faster than 1:x twist, I forget what x was but it was significantly slower than the 1:7 that I have used or the 1:6½ I was discussing. Have you gotten a .219 from anyone in a fast twist yet? If so who made it?

Not yet. I had thought about it but decided to go with what had worked for me in the past and recently sent in a pair of 0.218"/0.224" Bartlein 5R barrels in 7-twist to be chambered for my original .223 Rem F-TR rifle. More than one person I have spoken with at Bartlein has suggested that the 0.219" approach should help with jacket failures and they offer both 0.218" and 0.219" bore configurations in twist rates from as fast as 6.5 through 14. I have never used anything but a Bartlein 5R barrel in any of my F-TR rifles, including the .308s. The barrel I have that blows up the 90 VLDs and 88 ELDMs is also a Bartlein 5R [30", 6.8-twist, 0.218"/0.224"]. Unfortunately, that barrel is also threaded for a tuner, and I have an identical barrel ready to go when that one is shot out, so I'm not going to order a 0.219" bore barrel anytime soon. However, the consensus is that the 0.219" bore would likely make a big difference.

I would not have guessed a 90 VLD bullet could jump over a land in a fast-twist barrel, regardless of whether the land was .0025" or .0030" tall. Then again, it isn't a topic I have thought about very deeply, either. If that turns out to be an issue with 0.219" barrels once the twist rate exceeds a certain value, that would suggest using a 0.219" bore as a remedy for jacket failures may not always be the best approach, but it would all depend on the minimum twist rate at which the bullets started hopping the lands. During the course of shooting 90 VLDs in F-TR over the last 6 years, I have never lost a single jacket using a 30" Bartlein 5R (0.218"/0.224") 7.0-twist barrel, so I am confident that specific setup works. Although a 90 VLD is predicted to lose a relatively small amount of its intrinsic BC out of a 7.0-twist barrel, that twist rate is more than sufficient to win matches, which is all I really care about. I'll probably try a 0.219" bore barrel at some point in the future, but I just don't need another extra 0.224" barrel lying around right now, so it will have to wait.

 

[scott_at_vortex]

I run the 90gr smk at 2840 out of a 26" 1/7 with 8208. That being said, LC is the only brass I've found that will consistently not blow primers. The primers do occasionally start blowing on the 3rd loading though......to the tune of about 1 out of 100. The gun is absolutely one the best shooting guns I've ever built. I ran it in the first year of the PRS Tactical division.

To my knowledge I have never had a bullet blow up.

 

[XTR]

My last barrel was a 1:7 28" Lilja 3 groove, and I ran right at 2800± w/o any problems, but it's a 3 groove, that may be a whole different variable. It started to fade on me a couple of yrs ago but my schedule has kept me from being able to use the 223 much since then. I've got a new 1:7 30" getting chambered, but I forget where it came from now.