New 22cal 88GR Hornady ELD-M

[284winner]

I'm not going to get another 7 twist 22. I think any future barrels will be 8 twist shooting the 75-80s. My future guns in any caliber will also be built to fall under that 300k rpm limit. The 90s just aren't a very good tradeoff in bigger than 223 cartridges. They are so specialized around that FTR niche and I don't think that recoil is significantly reduced from a 6BR variant shooting 105s when both are in ~16lb rifles. There seem to be no advantages.

This might sound ignorant but I don't think the 90s and up are built for the big case .224 cartridges. The .223 with fast twist barrels shoot them very well. Slow down the velocities and they do great. Unfortunately that's not the way most of us are wired. Speed is always where it's at with most of us. I mean speed but tuned down for accuracy. Nobody wants a 22-250 Ackley running 90s at 2700 fps. What's the point ? I settled on an 8 twist .22-250 Ackley after shooting various .224 cartridges. Those high RPM's and bullet jackets do not mix. Running an 8 twist with 75/80s is the best of all worlds for me. Fast, accurate and dependable. Not being a competition shooter, I always say a bullet that blows up only costs me a coyote or ground hog. Not the match. Still, I prefer all my bullets on target.

 

[Ned Ludd]

This might sound ignorant but I don't think the 90s and up are built for the big case .224 cartridges. The .223 with fast twist barrels shoot them very well. Slow down the velocities and they do great. Unfortunately that's not the way most of us are wired. Speed is always where it's at with most of us. I mean speed but tuned down for accuracy. Nobody wants a 22-250 Ackley running 90s at 2700 fps. What's the point ? I settled on an 8 twist .22-250 Ackley after shooting various .224 cartridges. Those high RPM's and bullet jackets do not mix. Running an 8 twist with 75/80s is the best of all worlds for me. Fast, accurate and dependable. Not being a competition shooter, I always say a bullet that blows up only costs me a coyote or ground hog. Not the match. Still, I prefer all my bullets on target.

Agreed. In F-TR, the .223 Rem is giving up a lot of wind deflection to most .308 shooters unless you're using the 88s/90s/95s. For that reason, we try to wring out every last bit of performance and sometimes get bitten in the process (i.e. jacket failure).

I seem to recall having heard of a few people that were running 90s in 22 BRs, 22-250s, etc., with 7.25 twist barrels. Apparently, that was a fast enough twist to stabilize the heavies at the achievable velocities, but not so fast as to tear the jackets regularly. The real question is whether using an acceptable twist rate with the 90s in larger capacity cartridges so you can obtain optimal velocity buys enough performance over shooting the 75-80 grainers to make the 90s worth the effort. In F-TR competitions the 90s are worth the effort for some of us, at least, but are not without risks.

 

[BronzeArcher]

Plastic tips throw off the calculator. It's been suggested that it's closer to reality if you subtract the tip from the length. Either way, they are easier to stabilize than the calculator suggests.

The JBM stability calculator has an option to enter both the total length and the plastic tip length. For most of the plastic tipped bullets I've tried, results are both reasonable and in agreement with the Hornady 4DOF Ballistic calculator which uses more involved technique for computing bullet stability.

See:
https://www.jbmballistics.com/cgi-bin/jbmstab-5.1.cgi

https://www.hornady.com/team-hornady/ballistic-calculators/#!/4dof

In cases where ballistic calculators give different results, I think I'd go with the results of the Hornady 4DOF for stability of Hornady bullets. Take care to enter all the fields accurately, as any calculator will give errant outputs with inaccurate inputs.

 

[Farmerboy78]

I run the 88gr eld in a 7twist 22-250 with great results! There are 6 shots in that group.