re-17 in .223?

[cmillard]

anyone out there tried reloader-17 in .223 rem with 77+ grain bullets? in ar-15 or bolt? if so, what was your recipe and start load.

thanks
c.millard

 

[fivering]

I recently used Re-17 behind 80 gr molyed Berger's in my AR-15 .223AI, with great success at the 600 yd line. I was able to shoot a 200, on a range with constant tricky wind conditions. I believe this was the first time the 600 was cleaned at this range with iron sights. I seat the bullets out to touch the lands, and use a stout load, which I will not pass on for liability reasons.
The primers used were Wolf Small Rifle Magnum, the Wolf Regular Small Rifle are way too soft for high pressure loads.
The RE-17 does seem to work best when used at near maximum loads.
Remember while developing loads for the .223, that when you see signs of pressure with the primer, you are already too hot.

 

[cmillard]

thanks for the info. think i could get re-17 to work at magazine depth with 77s? what was the velocity of your loads with re-17?

thanks

 

[fivering]

Your best bet with 77's at magazine seating length is good old H4895, or Varget. I get my best accuracy with 23.8 gr H4895 behind molyed 77's. Non fire formed brass works just fine at the shorter ranges, 200-300, with no apparent loss of accuracy.
I use only weighed,within 1/2 grain) fire formed and uniformed brass for Long Range.

 

[cmillard]

varget worked ok for me when i had the 24' hart screwed on my upper receiver, but now i have an 18' douglas on and dont want to loose a lot of velocity. im not chasing max loads or anything, but i would like a powder that i can get a little more velocity out of. im shooting tac right now and is very inconsistent with my velocity--es/sd are very high--even with weight sorted brass and careful attention to neck tension. ive tried aa-2520 out of the 18' douglas and it was a little better than tac as far as consistency. i am just looking for a load at about 2700 fps. with the 77s and very uniform ballistics.

thanks

 

[fivering]

If you shorten a bbl by 25%, you can hardly expect to get velocities you got with the longer bbl without some pretty high chamber pressures.

 

[FroggyOne2]

Five Ring, can I get your email so I can ask a few questions.. Pm's here are not working for me.

Thanks

 

[FroggyOne2]

Five ring.. you have email

 

[15Tango]

I was curious myself as I'm getting such impressive numbers with R17 and my .243 Win. & 6.5CM. It didn't work out that well for me, here's what I had:

20" Ar15, 1:9" twist.
75 grain Berger VLD @ 2.465" coal (.010" off lands)
Rem. brass, Rem. BR primer and the weights of R17 were as follows:

24.0 = 2456 fps
24.5 = 2484 fps
25.0 = 2549 fps
25.5 = 2631 fps

I didn't try going any higher as 25.5 grains were already compressing and 2631 fps is short of the 2900 fps I'm getting with Varget with the same exact load info sans the powder.

I wouldn't doubt with a longer barrel bolt action it would work well. These are just my results, take it with a grain of salt.