Chasing 223 / Slowing down UPDATE: # 29 w/ pic

[garandman]

I have a JP CTR-02 with .223 14.5" 8 twist barrel. It seems to stabilize 77 SMKs OK. I don't recall trying to shoot small groups at 100 yards though. It's more a fun mag dump kind of gun. LOL. One of these days I'll have to take the 1-8x scope off and put a GE on there and see how well it can do at 100 yards with 77 OTMs. Will be interesting.

I got a 1-6x and I'd guess I'm giving up 0.25 - 0.50" @ 100y. I was just trying to get 1" groups @ 100y b4 I handload a mess of them..

That's the JP barrel I got on back order. Did you get the heat sink?

 

[Doom]

Your powder increments are two big. Nodes in 223 are typically about 0.6 gr apart and are typically +/-.1 gr wide. Shoot 24.8, 25, and 25.2 and see if you POI remains close to the same point. I would seriously recommend that you you research OCW and Dan Newberry.

OCW reloading instructions

OCW reloading overview and instructions

www.ocwreloading.com

For 300 yd there is no reason to push the loading to max unless you just like buying brass.

I was referencing the targets you posted in #29.

 

[garandman]

I was referencing the targets you posted in #29.

Right. And thank you. That target wasn't a full test. More just a partial test to see if the 69's on average shot better than the 77's

Answer? yes.

 

[dhagerty40]

Me being a pistol silhouette shooter and a lot of us shoot a .223 in 14-15" barrels, You need to go to a faster burning powder than Varget or CFE 223 as you are throwing about 15% of your powder charge as unburned powder out the barrel.

We use powders from VV N135 or faster in these short barrels. The 3 most common powders we use are H4895, VV N133 and H335.

 

[gravelyctry]

Well, my choice of a 14.5" bbl was a deliberate choice as this is intended for mobility, knowing extreme accuracy could well suffer. Loading for accuracy includes annealing, volume testing, case sorting, etc etc and I'm not doing any of that for this gun. Pretty much no one anywhere chooses a 14./5" bbl for LR accuracy.

But like I said... I took JP to be saying "It may / may not stabilize.... U gotta try it" which I find 100% credible / in agreement with my 20+ years of shooting / reloading / reading / research. Translation as to what the tech meant: "there a 5% chance it won't stabilize. I'm gonna mention that to this stranger who called in so if it doesn't, I can remind him I told him that was a possibility."

Like you said.... JP makes good stuff. In reality, they make some of the very best AR's in the world. I find it rather unseemly ppl here are dogging them. e.g. "they are just techs, etc" THOSE TECHS are the ones actually building the rifles.

Bottom line? For this first round of testing the 69s, they stabilized in my 14.5 and in the some 40 separate 5-round test groups, the 77's did NOT. (JP was kinda proven right, and those disagreeing with them proven wrong.) Far as my gun... that's the end of the discussion. (I'm not here to make claims about what I think should happen in everyone's 14.5" AR ) For me / my gun, what actually happenned by far outweighs whatever anyone thinks SHOULD happen. The real world always trumps the theoretical. And any disagreement with / arguing against that is foolish.

Don’t take this the wrong way, because I don’t know JP or their techs at all, but I’ve talked to technicians that have put together rifles who have described doing it with hammers when parts didn’t go together as expected. As in anything, there are people that do their jobs at differing levels of performance And you never know which one you’re talking to. I’ve learned not to trust anything 100%, but take the feedback I’m given and sort through it myself.

I hope you get the thing shooting the way you want, good luck.

 

[garandman]

I hope you get the thing shooting the way you want, good luck.

Thanx, sir. No offense at all. I am " gettin there."

Far as JP techs... I think their results speak for themselves, but I'm not on JP payroll and I'm certainly not getting paid to shill for them.

I think there are at least a coupla guys on Hornadys payroll around here though… lol