Tested My New .223 With 90's Today

[FroggyOne2]

Well I shot mine at 1000 yards today and have to say that I am quite pleased. Elevation averaged right 4" when the Oak Ridge wind wasn't doing it's voodoo here. Yes we get of wind that will cause substantial verticle at 10-11 and at 4-5 o'clock on the target. We incured winds from 4-15 mph with gust up to 25+ today. As to come up and velocity, well the JBM said to come up was 16.75 moa from my 600 yard zero, so that is what I put on the gun, first shot was an X at 4, then I got hit by the elevation winds or I yaked a couple at 8, wasn't sure, I do know that the brass is needing to be annealed.. any way, I didn't think at the time that it was me, so I made a elevation change, ha!, well out the top it went, so now I am beginning to think.. this gun ain't going to shoot well at 1K.. well out of 35 rounds shot, only a total of 6-7 shots had any elevation on them, the rest just hugged the waterline! The fellow that was pulling the target was impressed with the general over all results of the bullet, exp with the conditions that we had to shoot in today. Ok, well back to the velocity.. yeah, I mentioned that earlier didn't I, well as I said, I put 16.75 on it, had a drop out, then high shot and the after that high shot, well I was right back in the middle and stayed there.. 16.75 moa up from the 600 yard line.. the number that I had punched in the JBM to get that come up was 2850 fps. So there it is.. the bullet is going about 2850, the brass is staying good and the primer pockets are still tight, the brass that I used today has been shot now 4 times..,

I think that I am going to put my .308 up and let it rest for a while.

 

[pcrowe]

Hey Randy,

Sounds like you're ready for the shooting season. So now you have two .223s for prone? Do you shoot 90s in both or just the new rifle?

I've just put together a new Barnard/Eliseo Palma rifle-32" Bartlein 1x13 med palma. Can't wait to get to wring it out. I put a Tubb grip on it, lightened the Anchutz trigger on the Tubb to match the trigger on the Barnard. The stocks adjust the same. I want each rifle to feel the same, I think I'm pretty close. The Tubb will remain a 6.5 x 284.

Looking forward to getting up to Oak Ridge to shoot with you guys.

Phillip

 

[FroggyOne2]

Phillip,

Glad to see that you got it! Yeah, just the new one is the one that I am shooting the 90's in, as of right now, it appears that it is shooting really good. At least now I know what I need to do with the brass, it is going to have to be annealed by at least after it has been shot twice. Fired brass has to be sized with a .002 bump, necks have to be expanded after they are sized to give me .001 tension, bullet is seated 10 thou into the lands. As far as I can feel, when seating the primers, they are still kinda hard to seat, those Wolf primers are that way and the ones that I am using are the ones that still have the nickel coating on them. I only have 4 thousand of those left.

What color is yours Phillip? The new stock that I am getting from Gary is "Black Cherry" and all the stuff that would silver colored on the stock is supposed to be anodised black.

 

[FroggyOne2]

While I am thinking about it, I want to give a big shout out to Laurie Holland, for allowing me to use him as a sounding wall with my ideas and picking his brain a lil for the info that he has.. Thank you Sir, it is greatly appreciated.

 

[FroggyOne2]

Took the new. 223 out yesterday and shot a 200-10X at 600 yards. Though there were three shots that flew out from the normal flow of the group, not enough to ruin the score, but enough to be concerned, all three shots went to 1:00 on the target. I didn't seperate the bullets, nor have I a bullet pointer yet.
Going to test a different seating depth, just setting out the bullet just a lil longer. It could be the virgin brass, but I am only going to change one variable at a time, but over all so far I am quite pleased on how well the rifle is shooting!

 

[jbpmidas]

Hope my .223 performs as well, although, I won't be shooting the 90's yet.

 

[FroggyOne2]

What twist is yours? Hoe long is the barrel? What loads have you tried?

 

[jbpmidas]

7 twist, 26". I'm only beginning load testing. I'm starting with the 80 A-max and Varget powder. It's a factory Savage barrel so the throat is too short for the 90's, I think. I may try them when I get over 1000 on the barrel. We made a dummy round with the BTLR 90 and it was way into the case.

 

[FroggyOne2]

You may have good luck with that 7 twist and the 80 Amax, a lot of ppl have tried them in an eight twist and it didn't turn out so well. Another bullet to look at is the Berger 80:5 fullbore bullet.

 

[jbpmidas]

Another member mentioned the Fullbore to me. The greater cost has my hopes resting on the A-max. Now, if Berger introduces a Hybrid in the 80-90 grain range with a BC in excess of the 80 A-max, I'll be one of the first in line to test it out!

 

[FroggyOne2]

Me too, when I heard the talk about another bigger 7mm hybrid, sure gives me hope that they will do a .223 90 grain hybrid bullet. And believe me I would buy as many as could.

 

[jbpmidas]

I think I'd prefer an 80 or 85. Maybe it wouldn't have to be pushed so hard to get the velocity and extend barrel life a bit. I'd try either weight though!

 

[FroggyOne2]

Well I went out and did some more testing at 600 yards, with some different seating depths. I have found that with a COAL of 2.082 is working the best, which is where I was at in the first place. 99-7X with an elevation of two inches. The wind was blowing fairly decent but steady with some boils.

Overall, I feel that this is the best that I am going to be able to squeeze oiut of it for the moment. Though I do wonder if pointing up the bullets would be worth ghe effort as well as it is shooting. Just for the record all shooting was done prone with a sling.

 

[FroggyOne2]

Well I shot the .223 with the 90's this weekend. The range is nice, though a few improvements could be done. I did have a lot of trouble while there, first I could not get comply on the new sod, second all my previous shooting with the gun had been with a scope, so switching to the irons and using a new front sight it took me a while to get my act together. Quick switches at this range will get ya if your not paying attention and I will admit, I was not paying attention. Over five matches I was not really comply till the last match, I spent most of the weekend just trying to tweak things and get it all figures out. I even ended up shortening my length of pull on the rifle. Came in second palms rifle, but still my performance was poor, I can't remember all the X counts, but shot a 192-?X, 184-?X, 186-?X, 187-?X and 193-10X. So you see that I started to put things together. On the last match with finally being able to see clearly and being comply on the rifle, the X count came up. Will see how I do this weekend in the fullbore match.

 

[Delaware_Ken]

Good luck with your 90's. I went thru 200 of them trying to come up with a suitable load at 600 yards out of my 7 twist Savage F TR, but never did. Finally I broke down and tried the 80 Bergers, and all is well.

I took them down to a BR match on Sunday, and won the Factory division in group and score with them. On one of the relays, I agged a 2.5" group and my final score was 181/200.

I will admit, it was a perfect day for shooting BR. A little overcast, and very little wind. I'm sure the outcome would have been a little different if the wind had been kicking up. But, it sure was nice beating those 6BR and 308 shooters with my mighty 223.

Ken

 

[FroggyOne2]

On that last match that I shot, ev erything came together in my shooting except for missing a couple wind changes and pointing on into the 9 ring, I could not shake the bullet off of the waterline, it just hung right there.

 

[MrMajestic]

Well I went out and did some more testing at 600 yards, with some different seating depths. I have found that with a COAL of 2.082 is working the best, which is where I was at in the first place.

Froggy, This is a typo isn't it? Maybe 2.582"?

 

[FroggyOne2]

Nope, it is the measurement from the ogive of the bullet and the base of the case.

 

[FroggyOne2]

Today I shot the rifle with a new load, 25 grs of RL15, the temp when I finished shooting was around 82 degrees. It was our first Fullbore match of the year, winds were mild, but switchy. Shot a 149-9X at 8, 150-10X at 9 and a 146-5X at 1K. I felt the rifle and the load was working realy well together. I was using the Berger 90's that were pointed up with the Hoover die. Elevation was awesome and shot placement was very predicable as long as I did my part. Will have to see how the temps hold out as the summer eases in, I prob will have to back the load off some when it approches 90 degrees, but right now, it cases and the primers are looking great, brass was on it's second firing and had not yet been annealed.

 

[FroggyOne2]

Well I thought that I would bring you all up to speed with this project. I now have 950 rounds on the bbl and have yet to move the bullet, though when I change the load, I did change the seating depth (bumped the seating die and lost the paper than had the number on it, so I started over on that). But I do know that this seating depth that I am using now is really working! I called Randy G. To see if he still had the dummy rounds that I had sent him, fore that chambering depth is really working! As I have said before, I am running a Wylde chamber that has beeen throated for the Berger 90VLD. Temps last weekend in the low to mid 80's, but the real test will be this coming Sunday when the temp is in the 90's, just not sure how the humity will be, that will play a large factor! Either way, the scores that I shot last weekend were 195-7X, 198-7X and 197-8X to win out by two points! I am really pleased with the way this .223 is working and shooting! So much so, I called Mike Rock for two more 7.2 twist 30 inch bbl's.