New .224 Matchking...

[XTR]

Well... I dragged an old abandoned project out of the safe and revisited it for this bullet. It was my first attempt at an F-TR 223 that I never was successful. I took my unithroater into it and man did I end up way in there. A 90VLD will not seat in this thing and touch the lands. My OAL is over 2.730 with the samples I've got.

If it doesn't work I won't be bothered, but if it does... ooh babe

 

[Jdne5b]

2.725 is .020 off for me. Have a little room to grow.

 

[raptor1ronin]

Had some time to test. So far they shoot really good. What sucks is that I had forgotten my bipod so I had to shoot these groups off a sandbag. I will be shooting in a match two weeks from now. Hope the vertical is good at 500. Jumping .10 off lands.

 

[raptor1ronin]

Shot the 95’s in another match. This one happened to be windy 8-10mph. Boy did they shoot great.

Labradar had AVG FPS 2766 with an SD of 9.

 

[XTR]

Shot the 95’s in another match. This one happened to be windy 8-10mph. Boy did they shoot great.

Labradar had AVG FPS 2766 with an SD of 9.

Curious, What load did you go with and what's your OAL.

I'm planning to give these another look later this yr.

 

[Jdne5b]

Im running 23.7gr H4895 @ .016 off. Barrel has close to 3000 on it, but its shooting tolerable. May have shot the last match with it this weekend. New barrel should be here soon.

I havent chrono'd in this heat but it was 2640ish earlier this summer.

 

[raptor1ronin]

Curious, What load did you go with and what's your OAL.

I'm planning to give these another look later this yr.

Curious, What load did you go with and what's your OAL.

I'm planning to give these another look later this yr.

loaded 23.8 of Varget in a 32” pipe 5r. Avg Vel on a labradar 2766. OAL 2.668. Jumping .10 off lands.

 

[XTR]

Are you guys running 1:7s still or have you gone to 1:6.5 for these?

 

[Jdne5b]

This one is 1:7, next one is faster.

 

[raptor1ronin]

Are you guys running 1:7s still or have you gone to 1:6.5 for these?

1-6.7 but Next shoot I’m testing 7

 

[Pinkes]

Will you guys share this bullet's quickload file please...??

Got the itch....

 

[davidjoe]

I just shot my first 6.5 twist rifle build. I’ve ordered these SMK bullets to try but I shot 90 VLDs that dated to the Berger moly era. Sierra’s molly 80’s were always beyond good, and the tipped DTAC’s were lasers, so hopes are high.

I always felt my 7 twist barrels were marginal with those bullets at some 30 feet over sea level. The barrel was installed on a vintage 40-X, in an XIT stock with 3 way butt plate and ski bipod, although it doesn’t really move.

The Krieger 4 groove grouped immediately once zeroed at 200 yards, with Lapua brass, Varget and CCI 41’s. I’m kind of surprised more people don’t shoot heavy .223’s in TR.

 

[Ned Ludd]

"...I’m kind of surprised more people don’t shoot heavy .223’s in TR."

Shhhhh. They're no good...no good at all. Anyone that solely uses a .308 Win with 200+ gr bullets will tell you that.

In all seriousness, I bought some of the 95s the first week they were available. They shot extremely well. However, as we were previously discussing in the 180/184 Hybrid post, the SMK 95s over H4895 from a 30"-barreled F-TR rifle tuned in at ~2750 fps, and it would have likely been almost impossible to hit a faster node without killing the brass (primer pockets) in short order unless you were willing to have a setup purpose-built to shoot the 95s. I'm guessing a 32" barrel with a 0.219" bore and a freebore from here to Alaska just might...might allow them to be pushed a little faster and hit the next node, but I haven't actually tried it and can't state that with any certainty. If you could get the 95s up to the 2820-2830ish range without killing the primer pockets in a single firing, that ought to be enough to do it. In my hands, the G7 BCs of pointed 90 VLDs and the 95 SMKs as estimated side-by-side on the same day were so close as to be within the the SD of the measurements (0.290 vs 0.294, respectively). With BCs that close, you're basically giving up close to 100 fps performance using the 95s, all else being equal, because you can successfully run the 90 VLDs at 2850 fps. 100 fps is not a night and day difference in terms of external ballistics, but it's not zero either (~0.2 MOA at 600 yd according to JBM Ballistics). With a .223 Rem in F-TR, I want every bit of performance I can get, and even an estimated 0.2 MOA difference at 600 yd could make a difference in a point or two per match in windy conditions. Accuracy/precision and the ability to tune loads were comparable between the two in my hands.

 

[Jdne5b]

Shooting a 223 in TR is like shooting a 338 in open. Only crazy people do it.

 

[davidjoe]

^^ I ordered 1,000 of them. I’m going to coat just 100 with HBN really well to try, based on reading these posts about the longer bearing surface they have relative to the Berger 90’s. Agree, if you realistically have to give up .2 moa drift at 600, that dulls some of the shine that a high BC carries. A really long throat as the alternative can sometimes mean a shorter accurate barrel life, I’m wary of. I’m thinking David T settled on HBN over similar considerations with his own branded 115 SMK, although he did sell them both ways. The coated version was always my reorder pick when available, and they were moving quite fast. It was my first .243 and it made me wonder why so much talk of short life abounded on the forum, but it is unhealthy to handle, I have read.

 

[davidjoe]

Shooting a 223 in TR is like shooting a 338 in open. Only crazy people do it.

That could be true, but if you look very closely at that picture, there’s no taper on that 1.25, of mine, and it’s well over 30. That rifle with no scope and no bipod was 17.5 pounds. That is indeed an F-Open .223 dedicated to the home field midrange monthly matches where I suspect I can keep them in and will have a lot of fun trying.

 

[davidjoe]

Mike, I also just finished my first max Open weight .308 to shoot off the Seb.

Backstory, (before agreeing HBN must be bad to handle) my club range (600) shoots into a prevailing headwind 12 months a year. The .223 is almost at no disadvantage at all, even at 18 pounds, a sadly observed truth by myself and many others who have needlessly attempted to push the berm back 100 yards for years. At $.60 cents a case, a longer barrel for more velocity and an Open taper for stiffness (Lapua .223 is always available) and 24.5 grains of powder, it’s barely 25% as crazy as shooting a .338.

 

[sfinn1]

Shooting a 223 in TR is like shooting a 338 in open. Only crazy people do it.

Jeremy! stop it, your confusing me. Does that make me crazy?

 

[MikeMcCasland]

Mike, I also just finished my first max Open weight .308 to shoot off the Seb.

Backstory, my club range shoots into a prevailing headwind 12 months a year. The .223 is almost at no disadvantage. At $.60 cents a case (Lapua, always available) and 24.5 grains of powder, it’s barely 25% as crazy as shooting a .338.

I can't wait to see how your .308 stacks up against the open guns once done.

Regarding the .223, after going through three 7-twist barrels, I am convinced the whole "the .223 can be competitive" thing is a lie perpetuated by veteran 308 shooters, with the sole purpose of hazing anyone brave/silly enough to think it possible.

I wish you good luck with it; I *really* wanted it to be competitive at MR distances, but I just couldn't make it happen. I half-way want to try a different reamer; something a little longer than .169.

I've heard tale of someone we both know who shot like a 592-593 at 1,000 their first time ever shooting that distance in a match lol. Likely further perpetuation of the myth.

Edit: This post ought to stir things up.

 

[davidjoe]

I can't wait to see how your .308 stacks up against the open guns once done.

Regarding the .223, after going through three 7-twist barrels, I am convinced the whole "the .223 can be competitive" thing is a lie perpetuated by veteran 308 shooters, with the sole purpose of hazing anyone brave/silly enough to think it possible.

I wish you good luck with it; I *really* wanted it to be competitive at MR distances, but I just couldn't make it happen. I half-way want to try a different reamer; something a little longer than .169.

I've heard tale of someone we both know who shot like a 592-593 at 1,000 their first time ever shooting that distance in a match lol. Likely further perpetuation of the myth.

Edit: This post ought to stir things up.

Well, now that you mention it, there is this person in TR that comes to my club that I do not want to go head to head with. If my nato round guns have to bust weight so that she doesn’t get to specifically beat me, I guess I’ll have to live with that.

I have had this theory, though, that the military really has, no surprise, always known very darn well exactly what it was doing in selecting cartridges like the 30-06, .7.62-51 and 5.56-45. For example, they consider realities like barrel life and heat, and we are tempted to push the limits on both with our milk jug cartridges. I have had adjust my vertical 1/2 moa at 1,000 with most of my saums and want to squeeze barrel life until they may be no better than a .308, with a fractional count.

TR has crept up so extremely close to open, lately, it makes me wonder what the extra gun weight would give those rounds, (in the calm) and will give me insight into what is worth its performance, and what is not.

I could surmise that TR leaders would simply devastate Open leaders on the same guns, but I don’t think that’s the right read on the score near-parity. I think that the cartridge performance gap has dramatically shrunk within the 1,000 max yards we shoot. We all know that a saum will never beat a .22 PPC at 100 yards and only passes it around 300-400 distant, and I just believe that bullet/loads/cartridges have all as a group closed in on, and crowded the competency threshold on the 1,000 yard target, similar to how they all have about an equal shot of winning a 300 yard match. Cartridges can remain technically unequal at 1,000 forever, but in reality bunch close enough together that between bullet improvements and the small gun stability factor, the same person will score close to the same regardless of cartridge chosen, unless ranges got longer (not possible) to once again draw out the advantages of speed.

This theory is mentally demonstrable in comparing a circa 2000 open gun and load to a modern TR load and gun, to an old TR gun. The targets aren’t going to shrink nor the ranges grow. We may be closing in on a point where all the equipment has reached a level that a great shooter could score the same aggs regardless.