My new 22BR!

[jlorenzo]

Weekends, starting at about 9am you start to see more and more people. Weekdays, in the morning, you'll have it pretty much to yourself. I drive pretty far in, but the place I go to is known as a good long range spot, so on the weekends I have to be up the earliest to beat the other guys to my favorite spot. Helps that the wind is usually the best right at sunrise too!

I ended up joing CRC awhile back and only usually go monday or tuesday unless theres a match. Last time I was up near Bakers draw it was wild. People shooting all over. I left. I could see if you drive in far enough it would be great. I used to go out there. Its really cool being alone out there, having a good day of shooting. Never did more than 400y myself.

 

[Evan]

I ended up joing CRC awhile back and only usually go monday or tuesday unless theres a match. Last time I was up near Bakers draw it was wild. People shooting all over. I left. I could see if you drive in far enough it would be great. I used to go out there. Its really cool being alone out there, having a good day of shooting. Never did more than 400y myself.

It can be really peaceful out there when you're alone and everything is calm. I love being out there as the sun rises and everything wakes up, particularly in that narrow spring window when everything is green and blooming. It's a nice meditative time when I can focus on just what I'm doing without distraction. Always come home from those trips feeling really good.

 

[Evan]

I went out with all my reloading equipment and worked up some data for the new TS15.5 powder from Alliant. You can see my rough powder ladder below:

I want to caution anyone thinking of trying this that I'm just a random guy on the internet and you can't assume this is safe. Based on speed alone, we all know there is a lot of pressure to those top loads.

Based on this ladder, I loaded up some 5 shot groups to see where a node might be at. The picture below also has my 6.5x47 groups too. I think I missed my 22BR node. I have a hunch that it is just above my 3 charge weights. I will try 31.2 up to 31.5 next time and see if there is a node. Otherwise I'll probably go down and look for something. This is feeling like a lot of speed and there is probably pretty significant pressure. Oh, and no lost bullets makes me a very happy camper!

 

[CooperNV]

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!

Nice I live the 22br . I aquire a hall action Lilja barrel 22br out of a estate years ago. Its a fine round. And the ancient burris signature. I have one 6-24 sig left. The f-stop on the objective is great on gopher safari for bright days. I traded the others for black diamonds with side focus though.

 

[Evan]

31.2 up to 31.4gns of TS15.5 and there doesn't appear to be a node. I'll try going a little higher. I've got to be close and it looks like 31.3 and 31.4 may be starting to level out. 31.4gns is giving me 3140fps.

H4350 is a dumpster fire. 31.7gns got me up to 3070fps. Big groups. I don't know if I will continue with it.

 

[Evan]

Seated to touch, this is what a 95 SMK, 90 SMK, 88 ELD, 85.5 LRHT, 80 VLD, and 80 SMK look like in a 22BR with 0.100" freebore. I threw in the 223 for reference.

 

[Evan]

It was fairly temperate and in the mid 80s today. Clear sky but it felt really chaotic today with a lot of wind. My base was 4 MOA right and the flags were constantly changing. I took a stab at some Shooter's World Long Rifle loads and vastly overestimated the speed. My lot is much closer to H4350 than Varget in my 6.5x47 and I should have factored that in to my starting ladder here. It's all ok though; pretty nice 223-esque speed loads.

The 80VLD seem pretty promising. I like what I see here. I will crank up the load of SWLR and see howmuch speed I can get, and I'll pull out some of my other powders and see if something else looks good. I'd like to see if ~3200fps is reachable with good accuracy. We'll see how it goes.

Once again, the 85.5 just doesn't treat me very well. I could spend a lot of time and components thinking that maybe I could repeat that orange group, but with my experience, I won't even try it on this barrel.

For reference, I think that I have 1850 rounds on this barrel.