My new 22BR!

[linebaugh]

Really appreciate your detailed reports. Keep up the good work!

 

[Evan]

Finally went shooting today and up'ed my game:

Brought my laptop, because my range notebook is getting difficult to manage. Putting everything into the computer makes it searchable and useable. Looking through pages of notes, trying to find that one group I shot last year and what load it was just began to frustrate me.

It was really nice in the early morning - 50, lightly breezy, and I got some really nice groups out of the 95 SMKs and 90 VLD at 350yards. Here is the best of them:

95SMK at .475" and 90VLD at 0.435" respectively.

And here is the target, note the wind. As the day warmed up, the wind got pretty bad:


And for anyone interested in what I use for wind flags:

Surveyors tape on a red spray-painted 4' #3 stick of rebar.

 

[Evan]

And here is an example of the less glorious of the day:

a lot of the groups were in the 0.8" up to 1.5" range as the wind got worse. I'm still happy though. Really nice results for 350 yards.

 

[Rdlningcltchdmpr]

Alrighty, so I went out today and discovered that I've been wasting my time with the wrong darn powder! RL17 shoots like doodoo. Here's the target. The 5 big groups are RL17:
View attachment 1113956
IMR-4350, however, shoot AMAZING. I started at 29gns and I shot one of the smallest groups I've ever shot right off the bat. I loaded up 5 with 29gns of 4350, 88ELD seated 0.065" off the lands, CCI 450, new never-fired Lapua brass and this is what happened:
View attachment 1113957 View attachment 1113958
Wow! 150 yards and just under 0.100". Holy moly. Oh IMR, why do I stray from thee. IMR has NEVER disappointed me and for some weird reason I am always trying other powders first.

At 29gns, I knew I was going slow. I didn't have my magnetospeed up for that group, so I decided to run a ladder and hooked the magnetospeed up. Here is the ladder from 29gns up to 31.5:
View attachment 1113959
And here is a nice graph comparing where I got to with IMR4350 and RL17:
View attachment 1113960
both made it to 3075fps, but IMR is showing no pressure and could go higher. I stopped because my target is 3050fps and I got there plus some. At this point a storm was rolling in and it was misting rain on me and the wind was really kicking up, so I loaded up 3 at 31.5gns and sent them to the target. That group can be seen in the middle left of the big target. 2 together and one high for a 0.5" group but I think it'll settle in and shoot just like 29gns did. I was rushed at that point and the wind was getting bad. I also think I may have had an issue with one of the shots, cause the magnetospeed reported 3075, 3075, 3040fps. Wind shaking the truck may have thrown my scale off on one of those charges.

I'm a very happy boy right now. WOW!

I keep trying to convince shooters that the powder is what creates accuracy, but it's futile ! I will say it again, the powder makes the accuracy. This happens all the time with my new guns, many powders are good but one or two powder's are mind boggling accurate.

 

[bozo699]

Evan,
I was looking at another thread that you posted a link to this one, glad I clicked on it! Don’t know how I missed it the first time around but nice thread!.... you ever finalize on a load for the 22br?
Wayne

 

[Evan]

Evan,
I was looking at another thread that you posted a link to this one, glad I clicked on it! Don’t know how I missed it the first time around but nice thread!.... you ever finalize on a load for the 22br?
Wayne

Still tinkering, but IMR-4350 is the powder. Varget was great too, but it blew up bullets left and right and I don't have much of it left. IMR-4350 seems to blow them up less readily and I have a stock of 5 pounds on hand which is probably enough to burn out the rest of this barrel.

For the 88 ELD - 29gns
For the 90 VLD - 29gns
For the 95 SMK - 29gns

The nodes are wide though - they shoot to the same POI and have similar accuracy from 28 up to 29.5 or so.

For the 85.5 - 32-32.5gns seemed ok - I never got this bullet to shoot adequately and have stopped trying for now.

 

[bozo699]

Evan,
Have you ever considered trying 4895 in your 22 br?
Wayne

 

[Ramblerman]

Hi Folks. I've been posting up questions revolving around the 22BR recently.

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/new-22br-coming-which-dies.3979615/
http://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/are-the-90s-worth-it-in-a-22br.3977792/

I also posted up the new stock I made for my 22-250, which was burned out and I rebarreled to 22BR:

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/new-stock-for-my-22-250.3978615/

And I even got a new scope for it to replace the ancient Burris Signature 8-32:

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/sightron-10-50x60mm-svss-ed-moa-h-review.3980390/

Well, the gunsmith called me up with some excellent news Friday afternoon: my new barrel was ready! So for the first time ever, I loaded up my reloading equipment in the truck and took it all out to where I shoot with me. It's about a 75 mile, 1h10m drive, and I really wasn't sure what would work and what wouldn't with this new-to-me cartridge.
View attachment 1111964
View attachment 1111965
I started with Reloader 17:

• At 29gns, 88ELDs hard jammed, my magnetospeed showed 2900fps.
• At 30gns, 3000fps
• At 30.5gns, 3050fps
• At 31gns, 3075fps

View attachment 1111966
The whole ladder grouped about like this at 150yards. The far stray high left was the first shot, then I dialed down and over for the rest. Shot one at a time, with a ~5minute reloading break between each shot and no particular care taken to watch my wind flags. I stopped at 31gns as that was above my target speed (I only really wanted 3000 to 3050). Nasty storm clouds, with lightning and heavy rain were charging up on me, so I loade dup 5 more rounds at 31gns, hard jam, and shot this group a bit hastily:
View attachment 1111967
3 all tightly knotted together then I threw 2 out of the group. I'm extremely hopeful that without the pressures of an oncoming storm, and a bit of careful tuning, that I can get five shots to go into at least the 2s.

Out there, it looked like everything was fine. When I got home and carefully inspected the brass, I discovered some very faint ejector marks:
View attachment 1111968
Right over the "6" is the faint ejector mark. The proud primer crater happened to every piece, from 29 up to 31gns but never got worse.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the most important part! I absolutely love this cartridge. I have very limited experience with it, but so far, it is a really sweet little thing to shoot!

Very cool write up Evan...is your range out near Deer Trail? Whole lotta nothin out there! Hahaa. Keep us posted. My Golden Bear 22 BR coming this summer!

 

[Evan]

Very cool write up Evan...is your range out near Deer Trail? Whole lotta nothin out there! Hahaa. Keep us posted. My Golden Bear 22 BR coming this summer!

Close! Further north. Pawnee Grasslands, a bit north of Bakers Draw. I love the very pretty 3-6 weeks or so when everything is green and gorgeous before the sun fries it all back to brown in the summer. It's a peaceful but desolate place.

 

[Simpsonrl]

Hi Evan,
I found your thread and enjoyed reading it immensely. Thank you for taking the time to post for us!!

I have a question about load development. what is your process? I see that you have shot ladders, but they appear to be for mapping velocity vs charge. How are you determining what powder charge is accurate?

Do you shoot groups for each increment?

 

[Evan]

Hi Evan,
I found your thread and enjoyed reading it immensely. Thank you for taking the time to post for us!!

I have a question about load development. what is your process? I see that you have shot ladders, but they appear to be for mapping velocity vs charge. How are you determining what powder charge is accurate?

Do you shoot groups for each increment?

So my "ladders" are only to determine where maximum pressure is. I could not find reliable data for the heavy bullets in the variety of powders I had on hand, so I chose conservative start points, jammed the bullet into the lands, and incremented up to max pressure shooting one round at each charge weight. I used the magnetospeed to get velocities that would help inform me when I was approaching high pressure.

My loading method is to take my max pressure load, knock it down a little and load up some 3 shot groups around there:

1. So if my maximum load is at 32gns, I drop down say 5% or so and would choose 30.5gns as a starting point to load up 3 to shoot. I'd also load up 3 each of 29.9, 30.2, 30.8 and 31.1.
   
2. Shoot them at a target at 300yards (furthest distance I can resolve bullet holes in my scope) and look for a node. I define a node as a range of charge weights that all impact at the same height on the target. What I might typically see is that the center of the 3 shot group at 29.9 would impact 1" below my aim. 30.2 will impact 0.25" low, 30.5 will impact at point of aim, 30.8 will hit point of aim, and 31.1 will hit 0.5" high. That tells me that between 30.5 and 30.8 is pretty stable. Since I know that the load going toward 30.2 is pretty stable still too, and I always shoot in the morning and see temperatures rise as I shoot, I would then chose 30.5 to allow room for the load to "heat up" as the day goes on.
3. I now perform seating depth tests with 3 shot groups at 30.5, starting at a "hard" jam of 0.020" or so and increment my way out in 0.025" steps: so jam 0.020, jump 0.005, 0.030, 0.055, and 0.080. One or two of these will shoot noticeably tighter than the others. Let's just say that 0.005 shot way better than the others.
   
4. I now come back and load up 3 shot groups at 0.001, 0.003, 0.005, 0.008, 0.011, and maybe 0.015 if it feels right. In this step, I frequently find inconclusive results. ELDs or Berger Hybrids are frequently very forgiving for example, and will likely shoot the same across all these small depth changes. A Berger VLD may or may not. A heavy SMK, like the 95, will be way pickier and may not shoot well at any of these increments, despite shooting well the previous session at 0.005" which would lead me to backing up a step and repeating again at different large intervals - maybe jam 0.010, jump 0.015, 0.040, and 0.065 to see if I just missed the sweet spot.
5. Next step is to load at least 25 at my "best load" and make sure it repeats.
6. Final step, once I've grown tired of shooting the same load and want to experiment, is to try different primers. It's best to repeat this whole process with the new primer, but I frequently shortcut it. I know what seating depth the bullet likes in my chamber so I skip steps 3 and 4. I also assume that my node is in roughly the same place. So I'd load up 3 each of the new primer at 30.2, 30.5, and 30.8 and make sure it's still flat.

A little bit of advice:

• If a powder isn't shooting well in step one. Do not continue; choose a different powder. It won't get significantly better in my experience. See my results with RL17 vs. IMR4350 or Varget as proof of that.
• A powder may shoot small across a wide range of charge weights, but that's why you look at the point of impact at distance to find where the load is stable and not at group size or shape. IMR4350 can shoot small at any charge in this gun, but at distance the POI will walk around as ambient conditions change and the gun heats up. When I'm at a node, it walks less.

 

[Simpsonrl]

Thanks for the informative and detailed response. a couple of questions:

1) what neck clearance between chamber and cartridge neck are you running in this rifle? (If you mentioned that, I may have missed it)

2) are you concerned with straight ammo? (Ie TIR of loaded rounds? If so, What do you try to keep it to?

Thanks.

 

[Evan]

Thanks for the informative and detailed response. a couple of questions:

1) what neck clearance between chamber and cartridge neck are you running in this rifle? (If you mentioned that, I may have missed it)

2) are you concerned with straight ammo? (Ie TIR of loaded rounds? If so, What do you try to keep it to?

Thanks.

Chamber is 0.253 and my loaded, unturned rounds came in at 0.2505-0.2510. I ended up cleaning up the necks on 50 of them as a test - turning them to 0.250 even and saw no change on target.

I run very light neck tension, 0.001", which in combination with carefully minimizing how far I bump the shoulders, has really made brass last longer! I'd recommend that anyone who really wants to get the most out of a bolt gun should strip the firing assembly and ejector out of their bolt and bump their shoulders only far enough for the bolt to just close without drag or resistance. Measure that distance with a comparator and make sure to size all your brass to that dimension. Bumping your brass 0.002" blindly based on a fired case without checking it in your rifle doesn't provide nearly the same result.

I don't really track TIR or anything like that. I don't think it really matters since your bullet to bore alignment is determined by the relationship to the shoulder, not the body of the case. Nearest I get to being concerned with runout is when I seat the bullet: I lower the ram and turn the round ~180, and then run it up again. Takes a second and can theoretically straighten out a wobble if there was one. I didn't notice any improvements on target when I started doing this either, but kept doing it anyway because my seating depths were measurably more consistent - pretty much dead on instead of the occasional +/-0.001.

 

[Ramblerman]

Chamber is 0.253 and my loaded, unturned rounds came in at 0.2505-0.2510. I ended up cleaning up the necks on 50 of them as a test - turning them to 0.250 even and saw no change on target.

I run very light neck tension, 0.001", which in combination with carefully minimizing how far I bump the shoulders, has really made brass last longer! I'd recommend that anyone who really wants to get the most out of a bolt gun should strip the firing assembly and ejector out of their bolt and bump their shoulders only far enough for the bolt to just close without drag or resistance. Measure that distance with a comparator and make sure to size all your brass to that dimension. Bumping your brass 0.002" blindly based on a fired case without checking it in your rifle doesn't provide nearly the same result.

I don't really track TIR or anything like that. I don't think it really matters since your bullet to bore alignment is determined by the relationship to the shoulder, not the body of the case. Nearest I get to being concerned with runout is when I seat the bullet: I lower the ram and turn the round ~180, and then run it up again. Takes a second and can theoretically straighten out a wobble if there was one. I didn't notice any improvements on target when I started doing this either, but kept doing it anyway because my seating depths were measurably more consistent - pretty much dead on instead of the occasional +/-0.001.

Thanks for starting this post Evan, lots of good info here...got the ABC 7T barrel from a gentleman on here and picked up the Golden Bear today at lunch...now to get the barrel heads spaced on it and get the stock inletted and sent off to @Bc'z. Shoot small everybody. Kevin

 

[Evan]

Thanks for starting this post Evan, lots of good info here...got the ABC 7T barrel from a gentleman on here and picked up the Golden Bear today at lunch...now to get the barrel heads spaced on it and get the stock inletted and sent off to @Bc'z. Shoot small everybody. Kevin

I'm very excited to hear your impression of the golden bear when you get it all up and going. Truth be told, I like the big squared off actions better than the round ones and the Golden Bear just seems like a really nice design. What type of a stock are you going with?

 

[Ramblerman]

I'm very excited to hear your impression of the golden bear when you get it all up and going. Truth be told, I like the big squared off actions better than the round ones and the Golden Bear just seems like a really nice design. What type of a stock are you going with?

Hey Evan, it's a maple Xring Robertson F class stock that we cut the cheekpiece on and added an elevation mechanism to.

 

[284winner]

It's a good point. My RPR loves the 147s, but they're jumping something insane like 0.120" in the factory chamber when I seat them to feed out of the magazine. But they've shot in the teens on a regular enough basis to make me re-evaluate what I thought I knew about jumping bullets that far!

I've got enough room with this load; I'd say the 30.5gn of RL-17 is maybe 90% full. You can hear powder move if you shake a round. I may run the Berger test and seat some at 100 75, 50, 25, and 0 to try.



My hesitation with H4350 is that it is so sporadically available here. I've got a pretty good supply of IMR-4350 though which holds promise too. My 30-06 loves it (why I have a supply) and the 6.5 Creedmoor really likes it to (it's my backup load for if RL17 dries up). I have a lot of 3031 and 4320 too (my grandpas 300 savage loved them) and the 4320 could be a good one to try since it's similar to Varget.

I appreciate the encouragement, guys; I think I went into it yesterday with the wrong expectations and was disappointed when it didn't go the way that I thought it should. I want to try the 95 SMK when the next run of them is made and see if I can get something good to happen, but I am really hoping I can find a great load with the 88s cause the price is right.

That 22 BR sounds like it may be my next set up. Either after I burn out my 22-250ai or just buy a prefit for my Savage 12. Think I'll start playing around locally at the 100 BR matches. I think that 22 BR would be a great cartridge for it

 

[Evan]

That 22 BR sounds like it may be my next set up. Either after I burn out my 22-250ai or just buy a prefit for my Savage 12. Think I'll start playing around locally at the 100 BR matches. I think that 22 BR would be a great cartridge for it

I'd consider a 12 twist and shoot the 52/53gn bullets for that. Or go 8 twist and shoot the 80s. But yes. This is the most accurate rifle I've ever shot!

 

[Hoser]

I have been shooting 80 Sierras in my 22BR for a long time. I settled on Varget because of the good accuracy and low ES. I never got around to trying anything heavier because the 80s worked so well.

I keep thinking about a 22 Dasher in my next barrel, but I just havent got around to it.

 

[284winner]

I'd consider a 12 twist and shoot the 52/53gn bullets for that. Or go 8 twist and shoot the 80s. But yes. This is the most accurate rifle I've ever shot!

Thinking I'll go with the heavies. The range that I'll shoot at is a tough range with pretty stuff winds. I'd say the heavier 70-85 grain bullets will be the ticket for that scenario. 7 twist sounds about right. I have a few great shooting .224 rifles but I have heard what you stated, the .22 BR is a tough one to beat