Fiddling with a .223 cast gallery load

[Wolfdog91]

So wrote this up on a different side and figured might be worth something to post here So I had just finished loading up a box of 45gr hornets for my little .233 H&R ultra varmint. Well I kinda wasn't in the mood to stop and I happen to notice this bottle of sized and sorted powered coated cast .225 bullets I had. So said screw it and decided tho have a lil fun give my self 30min and see if I could make a low velocity gallery load that half way accurate and possibly could use for blasting small game or varmints out to 50 or so if I ran out of .22lr (again lol). So the bullets are lee 55gr rf cast out of 100% clip on wheel weights , double quenched , sized to .225 , powder coated, gas checked and weight sorted in .5gr increments for these ( I usually do them to .1 gr) but yeah their running around 20-21 bhn and that with the gas check and power coating their super tough. Driven them up to 2500 gps in my AR and never had leading... They don't shoot for crap but hay was a fun experience Just grabbed some some sorted clean range brass I had and a quick resizing , bumped the shoulder back to what my chamber seems to like trim yadda yadda and primed and charged them with 12 GR if accurate 2015. I'd played around with it before and was able to put 3rd in a .6" hole @50yd with them goin 2250fps so I just SWAG'ed it and dropped down to 12gr hoping it would get me into the 1600fos and down range. Well that small of a charge didnt do much as far as filling the case and since I didn't have any "proper" powders like clays or red dot so wanted to try and make this work as well as possible So used a .2gr chunk of Dacron as a filler to keep the power semi in place . Not to be confused with using it to compress the power like with black power. You just put it in a little past the shoulder with forceps and kinda fluff it so it just take up air space and keeps the power more confined. now it's weird though I've been told by some it's perfectly fine to do and it's safe , I've been told by others I could ring my chamber and it's just idk. Figured worst case it would ba a extra hour of cleaning. Then gave the cases a little flare with my lee tool and loaded these lol pills to the CBTO I came up with for the rifle . This should be right off the lands. Like maybe 2 thousands of jump if that..

 

[Wolfdog91]

And there we go a set of lip stick loads as my dad like to call them lol

And out the front door to shooting into my .22lr little berm in the yard
So let me tell you, shooting a target @30yd with a scope with a fixed 100yd parallax is..... Irritating but ! Six rounds game me this

I mean I really feel like I could have shot those better but was rushing lol but hay under 1" ! I mean is it amazing ? No but it's definitely enough to pop a rabbit in the dome or boiler room a coon

anyway was pleased for how fast I did t it and I think k I'm going to give this some more work . I will say though it's quiter then a full load. Bit .22lr level. I'd say about like most .17hmrs I've shot. Aslo didn't Chronograph it but hoping I'm at last 1600fps or lower . Anyhow just a fun little ting I tried I figured I'd share

 

[Wolfdog91]

So just out of curiosity ran another 6 rounds.I dropped down my powder charge some more just so see what would happen . Went down to 9 grains this time and I'm getting right over 1/2" @30yd pushing this right at 1300fos according to my Chronograph. Getting unburnt powder though so think I'll leave Accurate 2015 here. Might bump up to 10.5 later just to see if that's a happy medium though. Also much quieter then the last load but still snappy enough I word ear pro

(Next day )

So seems like I dont really have any good power for reducing loads on hand I'm not planning on buy any for the next month or so so I just sticking with accurate for right now .
So played around with it a little more today. Bumped up to 9.5 grains and I think I've found a good happy place . Not as loud it's giving me right at 1200fps. Slapped on an AO scope and tried 10rd @31 and got this. Would have been alot better if I don't pull #5 but hay !


Well after that I decided to see if I could capture a bullet to see if it deformed..... Welll that don't really go as planned. Two one gallon water jugs did diddly . I mean I figy@1200 fps the second would have caught it but nope. That lol cast bullet zipped right though.
Here some screen shots of the slow mo video

 

[gpoldblue]

So wrote this up on a different side and figured might be worth something to post here So I had just finished loading up a box of 45gr hornets for my little .233 H&R ultra varmint. Well I kinda wasn't in the mood to stop and I happen to notice this bottle of sized and sorted powered coated cast .225 bullets I had. So said screw it and decided tho have a lil fun give my self 30min and see if I could make a low velocity gallery load that half way accurate and possibly could use for blasting small game or varmints out to 50 or so if I ran out of .22lr (again lol). So the bullets are lee 55gr rf cast out of 100% clip on wheel weights , double quenched , sized to .225 , powder coated, gas checked and weight sorted in .5gr increments for these ( I usually do them to .1 gr) but yeah their running around 20-21 bhn and that with the gas check and power coating their super tough. Driven them up to 2500 gps in my AR and never had leading... They don't shoot for crap but hay was a fun experience View attachment 1360437 Just grabbed some some sorted clean range brass I had and a quick resizing , bumped the shoulder back to what my chamber seems to like trim yadda yadda and primed and charged them with 12 GR if accurate 2015. I'd played around with it before and was able to put 3rd in a .6" hole @50yd with them goin 2250fps so I just SWAG'ed it and dropped down to 12gr hoping it would get me into the 1600fos and down range. Well that small of a charge didnt do much as far as filling the case and since I didn't have any "proper" powders like clays or red dot so wanted to try and make this work as well as possible View attachment 1360438 So used a .2gr chunk of Dacron as a filler to keep the power semi in place . Not to be confused with using it to compress the power like with black power. You just put it in a little past the shoulder with forceps and kinda fluff it so it just take up air space and keeps the power more confined. now it's weird though I've been told by some it's perfectly fine to do and it's safe , I've been told by others I could ring my chamber and it's just idk. Figured worst case it would ba a extra hour of cleaning. View attachment 1360439View attachment 1360440 View attachment 1360441 Then gave the cases a little flare with my lee tool and loaded these lol pills to the CBTO I came up with for the rifle . This should be right off the lands. Like maybe 2 thousands of jump if that.. View attachment 1360442

Years ago,I used a load I found in an old American Rifleman magazine that served me very well in
a Remington 788 .223. I loaded 6.0gn of Unique with a 45gn Hornet(.224) bullet. Speed was about
1950fps. Grouped 5 shots in about .6" at 100yds. Worth a try I think. Good luck....be safe.

 

[RegionRat]

Any issue with Dacron filler going up into the gas port on an AR?

 

[Wolfdog91]

Any issue with Dacron filler going up into the gas port on an AR?

Haven't tried Dacron in my AR yet . But when I took my AR apart after a few hundred rounds of power coated cast bullets I didn't see anything out of the ordinary honestly. I have the picture somewhere

 

[RegionRat]

Haven't tried Dacron in my AR yet . But when I took my AR apart after a few hundred rounds of power coated cast bullets I didn't see anything out of the ordinary honestly. I have the picture somewhere

Cool.

I saw you mention the AR velocity in the top post and thought that meant you were using the AR platform for tests.

What rig are you using?