New Berger .224 Bullet

[OldManTA]

Tested this morning. Still getting used to the Lab Radar so the data are sparse;
Case: Winchester
Primer: CCI BR
Jump: .015
Load: 24.6 grains N140 (started at 24.2 and worked up in .1 grain increments)
Chamber Reamer: Jerry Tierney design for 90 grain bullet per owner of the reamer
Rifle: Barnard/30 in Kreiger 1:7 twist
MV: 2824,2841,2842,2839
No extraction problems, primers flattened but still rounded at the edges
Need to do more testing. Looking for 2900+
CAUTION: AS usual this is what worked in my rifle so don't use it as a starting point nor as an absolute!

 

[gman47564]

don't be afraid to jump them hybrids...most of my best loads come between .060 and .080 off

 

[OldManTA]

Thank you for your comment. The .015 jump was recommended by two fellows who have been in the game for a long time. I had another recommendation for .025-.030. Right now the main goal is to achieve a safe load producing 2900+ FPS and acceptable accuracy. I can indulge in seating refinements later.

Tom Alves

 

[Ned Ludd]

Unless you're willing to use double base powders (and possibly even if you are), 2900+ fps for the 85.5 from a 30" barrel may ruin .223 Rem brass primer pockets in one or two firings. It may also increase the risk for jacket failure. Obviously this is a slightly gray area with this new bullet, but you're talking about very close to the same (or even higher) pressures that we already know create similar problems with 90 gr bullets. With the very good BC of this new bullet, it may not be necessary to push them that hard.

According to QuickLoad data, the 85.5 ought to show a good accuracy node somewhere in the neighborhood of 2870-2880 fps with H4895 from a 30" barrel. This is the equivalent node (OBT Node 4) as running the 90s at ~2840-2850 fps with H4895, which is a very well-proven load. I'd be tempted to work up a load there first and see how the bullets and brass behave before trying to juice them up any further. YMMV.

 

[memilanuk]

Is that running at SAAMI pressures, or NATO?

 

[OldManTA]

Unless you're willing to use double base powders (and possibly even if you are), 2900+ fps for the 85.5 from a 30" barrel may ruin .223 Rem brass primer pockets in one or two firings. It may also increase the risk for jacket failure. Obviously this is a slightly gray area with this new bullet, but you're talking about very close to the same (or even higher) pressures that we already know create similar problems with 90 gr bullets. With the very good BC of this new bullet, it may not be necessary to push them that hard.

According to QuickLoad data, the 85.5 ought to show a good accuracy node somewhere in the neighborhood of 2870-2880 fps with H4895 from a 30" barrel. This is the equivalent node (OBT Node 4) as running the 90s at ~2840-2850 fps with H4895, which is a very well-proven load. I'd be tempted to work up a load there first and see how the bullets and brass behave before trying to juice them up any further. YMMV.

Mr. Ludd,
Thank you for the information. This effort is for Palma competition. There is some thinking that this bullet can be successfully used to supplant(?) the 155 grain 30 caliber bullets. I am somewhat skeptical but there are folks, much more accomplished than I, who are pursuing that. I have been given a few bits of information so that has influenced my testing path. I'll continue using N140 in increasing increments, studying the after affects as I go.
Tom Alves

 

[MikeMcCasland]

I agree with Ned Ludd. That said, I did hit 2900 a few minutes ago with H4895. Can't say it was accurate though.

On a related note, I'm pulling this bartlein. Something is wrong with mine that I can't figure out. Can't get these 85.5s or 90vlds to shoot no matter what. I'm now 1300 rds in and the best thing its shot has been 88eldms, and just ok at that.

Tried n140, Varget, H4895, N150, and 8208XBR. No dice.

 

[USMCDOC]

I agree with Ned Ludd. That said, I did hit 2900 a few minutes ago with H4895. Can't say it was accurate though.

On a related note, I'm pulling this bartlein. Something is wrong with mine that I can't figure out. Can't get these 85.5s or 90vlds to shoot no matter what. I'm now 1300 rds in and the best thing its shot has been 88eldms, and just ok at that.

Tried n140, Varget, H4895, N150, and 8208XBR. No dice.

RL15

 

[Ned Ludd]

Mr. Ludd,
Thank you for the information. This effort is for Palma competition. There is some thinking that this bullet can be successfully used to supplant(?) the 155 grain 30 caliber bullets. I am somewhat skeptical but there are folks, much more accomplished than I, who are pursuing that. I have been given a few bits of information so that has influenced my testing path. I'll continue using N140 in increasing increments, studying the after affects as I go.
Tom Alves

I've used a .223 Rem with 90 VLDs with success in F-TR for a number of years. In my experience, the .223 Rem with heavies stacks up very well indeed against .308s running 185 gr or lower weight bullets. Best of luck with the 85.5s!

 

[OldManTA]

I've used a .223 Rem with 90 VLDs with success in F-TR for a number of years. In my experience, the .223 Rem with heavies stacks up very well indeed against .308s running 185 gr or lower weight bullets. Best of luck with the 85.5s!

Thank you for your encouragement.
Tom Alves

 

[dstoenner]

So I got my box of 100 yesterday to give them a try. I took their measurements and put those into my spread sheet that gives me a min to max load length taking into account not putting the front ogive below the case mouth and not letting the boattail/body junction get forward of the shoulder/neck junction for maximum bearing surface support in a 223. Those numbers turned out to be a min of 2.317 COAL to a max 2.569 COAL. SO then I measured contact on my 1:8 Wylde chamber bolt barrel with about 2000 rounds and that COAL was 2.583. But this current chamber runs with 80 SMK right at 2.460 right now and I run my barrels out another .060 before I call them done.

So what is the prognosis for jump? If I stayed fixed at 2.570 for a loaded length, my jump right now is .013 which is fine but what about .073 jump?

David

 

[dstoenner]

Some more observations. Has anybody looked into this?

I was setting up to do a load development test and was looking at uniformity of measurements. Well I found that OAL of these bullets REALLY vary. I started pulling bullets out of the box and measured them. I then sorted them using my loading blocks to keep them separate. When I got to 10 of any measurement I was going to quite. The results were interesting (at least to me)

1.154 - 2
1.155 - 1
1.156 - 6
1.157 - 4
1.158 - 7
1.159 - 10
1.160 - 3
1.161 - 2

I pulled 35 bullets out total and the spread was pretty wide, I think. So then I measured base to ogive with the Hornady comparator and here things were much more uniform. I measured 10 at random, 8 were .602 and 2 were .603.

What bothers me is the length because that has a big effect on BC.

Thoughts anybody?

David

 

[Shootin25]

Just started loading these a few minutes ago. Been sticking to measuring BTO. Went back and checked COAL and they vary slightly.

Measured the projectiles themselves and they are as short as 1.156 and as long as 1.163.

LOT No PO1722

 

[MikeMcCasland]

Some more observations. Has anybody looked into this?

I was setting up to do a load development test and was looking at uniformity of measurements. Well I found that OAL of these bullets REALLY vary. I started pulling bullets out of the box and measured them. I then sorted them using my loading blocks to keep them separate. When I got to 10 of any measurement I was going to quite. The results were interesting (at least to me)

1.154 - 2
1.155 - 1
1.156 - 6
1.157 - 4
1.158 - 7
1.159 - 10
1.160 - 3
1.161 - 2

I pulled 35 bullets out total and the spread was pretty wide, I think. So then I measured base to ogive with the Hornady comparator and here things were much more uniform. I measured 10 at random, 8 were .602 and 2 were .603.

What bothers me is the length because that has a big effect on BC.

Thoughts anybody?

David

The only thing that matters is BTO, as measured with a good comparator. It doesn't matter the OAL (to the tip) unless you're trying to feed these via a mag.

 

[memilanuk]

Apparently you guys haven't gotten serious about measuring a box of 'regular' Bergers?

By way of example, measuring OAL on a single lot of almost 2000 .30 cal 200.20X bullets showed a range of almost 20 thou...

The factory made some significant changes to their technology and processes to reduce the OAL variance as much as they have. I think they pretty much *had* to, in order to make factory pointing a viable thing.

 

[memilanuk]

If you want to go full-on Dexter's laboratory on sorting by OAL *and* BTO, get yourself a Sort-Eez and go to town. You can bin everything just how you want it, like so:



FWIW, this is one lot of Berger .30 cal 200-20X bullets, sorted in 0.001" bins for BTO, and 0.003" bins for OAL. And *yes*, it took a long damn time - even with the Sort-Eez, which takes it from agonizing to merely tedious. And no, I'm not 100% convinced it made any material difference - but I did feel a lot more confident knowing that the bullets I was shooting were uniform within a given box or string, and that anything along the fringes had been used up for foulers, local practice, and load development. YMMV.

 

[Ned Ludd]

I've pretty much always sorted Berger bullets for the purpose of obtaining individual length groups. Bullets from a single OAL group can then pointed without changing the pointing die micrometer setting, giving very uniform points. I sort into OAL groups of 1.5 thousandths and typically will have around 6-8 sorting groups for a given Lot# of bullets. That translates to about 12 thousandths overall length variance; however, there are always a few outliers in the shortest and longest length groups that increase the typical overall length variance within a single Lot# of Berger bullets to about .015" to .020", similar to Monte's findings.

I generally find the BTO variance within a single Lot# of bullets to be smaller than OAL variance, and sorting into OAL groups also seems to help improve [minimize] the BTO variance within any single OAL group. In fact, it's usually so small that sorting by BTO is not worth the effort, IMO.

dstoenner - your OAL variance seems, if anything to be a tiny bit better than average, although it will likely increase as you sort several hundred bullets. I routinely estimate BCs using velocity decrease data recorded with a LabRadar. Even though the LabRadar velocity drop is not measured over a very long distance, the values I obtain are typically very close to Berger's published values for unpointed bullets, whereas pointed bullets typically show about a 3-5% increase over the box value. The effect of a few thousandths overall length variance on BC will be significantly smaller than the effect of pointing bullets, and is not likely going to affect the BC of individual bullets to an extent that most shooters could even measure. However, if the notion of BC variance due to OA variance bothers you, sorting bullets by OAL is not too painful in the grand scheme of things. Nonetheless, I would recommend not letting the OAL variance bother you overly much.

 

[Shootin25]

I’m not serious enough to sort bullets or brass. (At lease as of now). I have other more serious deficiencies in my shooting. The equipment is not my limiting factor.

To much to learn, not enough time.

 

[garandman]

I’m not serious enough to sort bullets or brass. (At lease as of now). I have other more serious deficiencies in my shooting. The equipment is not my limiting factor.

To much to learn, not enough time.

That and the 0.25 - 0.45" @ 100y accuracy Im getting now is good enuf for me. But then, I dont compete BR.

 

[dstoenner]

I've pretty much always sorted Berger bullets for the purpose of obtaining individual length groups. Bullets from a single OAL group can then pointed without changing the pointing die micrometer setting, giving very uniform points. I sort into OAL groups of 1.5 thousandths and typically will have around 6-8 sorting groups for a given Lot# of bullets. That translates to about 12 thousandths overall length variance; however, there are always a few outliers in the shortest and longest length groups that increase the typical overall length variance within a single Lot# of Berger bullets to about .015" to .020", similar to Monte's findings.

I generally find the BTO variance within a single Lot# of bullets to be smaller than OAL variance, and sorting into OAL groups also seems to help improve [minimize] the BTO variance within any single OAL group. In fact, it's usually so small that sorting by BTO is not worth the effort, IMO.

dstoenner - your OAL variance seems, if anything to be a tiny bit better than average, although it will likely increase as you sort several hundred bullets. I routinely estimate BCs using velocity decrease data recorded with a LabRadar. Even though the LabRadar velocity drop is not measured over a very long distance, the values I obtain are typically very close to Berger's published values for unpointed bullets, whereas pointed bullets typically show about a 3-5% increase over the box value. The effect of a few thousandths overall length variance on BC will be significantly smaller than the effect of pointing bullets, and is not likely going to affect the BC of individual bullets to an extent that most shooters could even measure. However, if the notion of BC variance due to OA variance bothers you, sorting bullets by OAL is not too painful in the grand scheme of things. Nonetheless, I would recommend not letting the OAL variance bother you overly much.

Ned,

Thank you for taking the time and giving great explanations. I got to thinking that the bullet is basically 1.1 inch so .012 variance is a 1% variance. That says it really is pretty good to say the least.

At least I can rest a little better. I have loaded up 40 rounds 4/.2grain from 23 to 24.8 We shall see what the target says.

I have enjoyed your posts on getting 90 gn bullets to shoot. You definitely have been down a long road. You freely share your wisdom. That speaks volumes.

David