Help!!Load Develpment

[Civilian Sniper]

I am starting to develop loads for my AR for the first time and am looking for some direction on the best way to do this seeing this is my first time, i am shooting an AR 15 .223 Wylde with a 16" 1:8 SS heavy match barrel (i wish it was a 20-24" but can’t afford a new barrel till later) With a Bushnell 6500 2.5-16 x 40 with 30mm tube. Shooting method is from a bench with sand bag or bi pod front rest with no rear rest held tight to the shoulder.
i plan to shoot mainly 100-300 yards being i can't find many places to shoot farther than this nor do i believe my scope is sufficient for the 500+ but any ways here are my components
500ct new unfired Lake city brass FL sized trimmed to 1.750, primer pocket reamed and flash hole deburred and weight sorted into 5 shot groups using Federal Gold Medal match Primers
I have 4 types of powder
Varget
BL-C(2)
IMR 8208XBR
Benchmark

Also I have 100ct ea of the following bullets
Hornady 68g match HPBT
Sierra 69g MK HPBT
Nosler70g HPBT
Berger 70g VLD

So my idea is to load 100 rounds of each bullet in 25 round groups for each powder and do 5 shot groups starting at the lowest and increasing .3grains each 5shot group so in essence i will have 25 rounds of each powder for each bullet totaling 400 rounds. I chose this method to try and find which bullets and powders work best in this rifle so then i can hone in on a few combination that perform well and the do more precise development with these in. So my question is am I trying to do too much in one session, or am i on the right track or what?
I greatly appreciate the wealth of knowledge on this site and the time you guys take to help out us newbie’s

 

[mc223]

http://accurateshooter.net/Downloads/sierra223ar.pdf

http://www.6mmbr.com/223Rem.html

Your 16 in. barrel will be fine. Of the bullets you have the 69SMK with the published "accuracy" load from the above link. Primers I use mostly for this load are Rem 7 1/2, or Fed 205.
The Noslers are very similar in performance to the Sierras.

Good Luck

 

[Civilian Sniper]

what would you say is the limit to my 16" barrel and 16 power scope in terms of shooting longer distance cause i see all the guys shooting 24" barrels and thought i messed up big when i bought mine with a 16"
thanks for the reply

 

[Bronsin]

That's a hefty load for a range seesion. My suggestion would be to load up only some of the Sierra or Nosler bullets since they are very forgiving to seating depth, and try each of your 4 powders to find which one the rifle prefers.

Looking at the powders you have, varget and BL-C2 will probably be the ones that work best with those bullets as BM is kind of fast for those weights, and I believe that the IMR 8028 is similiar to BM.

Load 3 rounds at each increment you prefer weightwise, and check the groups. One powder will stand out. Clean the barrel between each change of powder.

Once you have found the powder and charge it likes, you can start changing seating depth to see where it likes to be.

The Berger and Hornady bullets will prefer to be jammed, which may be a limitation if you are trying to feed from the magazine and the rounds end up being longer than will fit in the mag.

Sierra's 80gr bullets will work in that rifle as well. ;D

 

[Civilian Sniper]

Will the 80g sierra's load to mag length? Cause my next planned test was to do this again with the 77g range of bullets for longer distances

 

[tunered]

You are looking at a lot of bullet drop with the heavy bullets especially with a 16in barrel, sure you dont need a bolt action??? LOL. ed

 

[Bronsin]

Will the 80g sierra's load to mag length? Cause my next planned test was to do this again with the 77g range of bullets for longer distances

You can load any bullet you want and still fit in the magazine, it's a question of how much jump it will have and whether or not it will shoot well like that.

The 77gr bullets (Sierra) actually have a different ogive than the 80's and will have less jump if loaded to the same OAL.

 

[Civilian Sniper]

Yeah I would love a bolt action and that is my next project but for now I am learning on my AR cause I've always loved them and would like to see what I could do with it but I would have to agree with you, but with a question if I put a longer barrel on like I plan to would you recommend a 20" or 24" ? And would that compensate for the bullet drop?

 

[Civilian Sniper]

Will the 80g sierra's load to mag length? Cause my next planned test was to do this again with the 77g range of bullets for longer distances

You can load any bullet you want and still fit in the magazine, it's a question of how much jump it will have and whether or not it will shoot well like that.

The 77gr bullets (Sierra) actually have a different ogive than the 80's and will have less jump if loaded to the same OAL.

Thanks I planned on using the 77's in my next test
What would you say my limitations in range are with a 16" barrel using 69g-77g bullets ?

 

[Bronsin]

You shouldn't have any problems at all shooting out to 300yds. The high B.C. of these bullets make them fly better than the lightweights even though they start out slower.

 

[HolyMeekrob]

Varget is the gold standard for .223. I don't know anyone who uses any other powder. 24.0gr of it seems to be the sweet spot (this actually exceeds the sierra listed max for ARs), but, as is always said, start 10% below that and work up. I use the 77gr SMK but if you're not shooting beyond 300 and have a 1:8 then I'd go with the 69gr SMK and drive them faster (I think when I was messing with them I was getting up towards 2700?). And if you're going to load to mag length don't use any VLD (secant) style bullet, I've heard secant ogive bullets hate to be jumped. Stick with tangent (http://accurateshooter.net/Blog/bulletshapes4.jpg just in case you're wondering what they look like). However if you want to use VLDs I don't know if a 1:8 will stabilize an 80gr, but either way be aware that you're looking at turning your rifle into a single shot because you'll have to load them too long to feed from the mag. Ditch the federal primers and go with a CCI 400s. The federals are not popular with ARs and in my experience they suck the life out of your velocity. If you're worrying about neck tension .004 seems to be optimal for ARs.

My current load is 24.0gr of Varget with a 77gr SMK and a Rem 7 1/2 with .004 neck tension running right at 2400 (Please don't copy my load, not because I don't want you to cramp my style, but because who knows how it'll behave in your gun). After playing around for months with all of this stuff I asked my buddy who competes with ARs and he said "Oh yeah, that's what we've always used." ...And here I thought I'd worked up something special.

 

[Civilian Sniper]

Thanks for the great info I will be loading this weekend To go shoot it next weekend ok the neck tension of .004 do you turn your necks? and I have a foster flash die would you recommend me getting this with an over sized expanded ball or sending the die in to get honed out ?

 

[HolyMeekrob]

I've been debating whether or not I want to turn necks. I'd like to run no-turn necks, but I'm having some runout issues and trying to figure out if that's due to neck thickness variation, so right now I am turning them. They're Lake City '10 cases and I find that turning to .0115 is more than sufficient as most cases come out 90% cleaned up. I then put those through a .243 bushing to get my neck tension.
I don't use forster dies, and long since got rid of my expander, so I won't say much about that except measure the diameter of the expander, subtract that from .225 (.224+.001 for brass spring back) and that should tell you what neck tension it's giving. It doesn't have to be exactly .004, but that tension works well.

 

[ordnancemarine]

I think you might be over-thinking this. Just buy some decent quality bullets, powder and primers and prep your cases consistently. You do not need to turn the necks of the cases, you do not need to worry about seating depth. and the powder does not need to be played with too much. 300 yards is not enough to warrant that amount of case prep. You only need to worry about those things when you are shooting competitions such as CMP, high power, or Palma. The external ballistics will only really matter when you hit distances starting at 500 to 1000 yards. If you are going to shoot at those distances you will need a National match upper or something custom such as a Tubb 2000 or other type of match rifle. If I'm right, you are going to use your AR for casual shooting at the range and you just want a good quality round to fire. Save yourself A LOT of time and money and just buy average quality cases, projectiles, powder, and primers. Test one component at a time and settle for good accuracy. Like I said before. The type of accuracy you are chasing is only needed for a match weapon shooting at 500 plus yards. With that in mind, you do not need to worry about drop or BC or velocity, just consistency in your reloading. By the way, where do you live? maybe someone has a range that goes out further then 300 yards that you can go to...