What components would you start with? 223 Rem - 29" 1:7 - 600y MR FTR

[Laurie]

Just seat with 0.1-inch of shank in the neck and go and load-develop. The old 80 SMK will jump silly distances and still shoot well. It's a rather low BC design though these days, so you'll handicap yourself at 600 against people loading the better 80s and even more so 90s.

FWIW, I had a Savage PTA in one of Gary Eliseo's S1 stocks and a 27-inch 1:7 True-Flite chambered with the 169 FB ISSF until recently. The guy I was selling it to wanted to use 77gn SMKs which are even stubbier and the jump becomes really serious in this chamber, but I said I'd try to find a load. Seating them in minimally - 0.1" shank depth is fine with careful handling in a single-shot rifle - I worked up a load with reload Swiss RS52 (not available in the US but it's the faster burning stablemate to Alliant Re17 from the same Nitrochemie outfit with all its properties, alternatively think H. VarGet or H4895 on steroids) to 3,100 fps plus. Groups were rubbish until I hit a certain speed then suddenly it shot tiny groups at 100 to my great surprise!

It would have been interesting to explore this more, not that I'd ever use the 77 at any distance in competition. In any event the buyer had meanwhile changed his mind about bullets and uses the 80gn SMK IIRC with which he's since shot some good 100 yard BR comp groups. He uses it / them in F-TR without much success, but I reckon that's because he knows less about wind-reading than either of my two tabby cats. ( ............ and one of them has to be the densest animal on the planet )

 

[XTR]

Just "smoked" a dummy 80gr SMK with a lighter. It looks like I only have about .60" of pressure ring/bearing surface within the case, however when the boat tail is included there is a total of ~.220 of bullet in the neck of the case.

This is obviously seated pretty far out there; moreso than I've ever done before. Is this safe/ok to shoot, or is this thing just throated too long for 80grs.

You are fine. I have a 308 load that has about the same engagement with a 200-20x. Not intentional and I wouldn't do it again, but it shoots great.

They might be a little fragile to ship by air, and you don't want to drop the box or you might get crooked bullets, but they'll shoot fine.

 

[cmillard]

That's flattering my friend, but there are many on the Forum whose experience is more up to date and useful now than mine as it goes back to 2009-12. As others have said in their posts, the 169 freebore ISSF chamber is the way to go these days allowing a mix of good bullets whilst my chamber had longer freebore and wasn't much use with anything other than Berger's two 90s (now reduced to one).

(I've never lost my love of the 223 as an F cartridge though and have a 223 F-Open rifle [ !!] on the cards for short to mid-range matches. The reason for 'Open' is to let me use a really heavy barrel and a muzzle tuner and with my 223's chunky McRees stock, it goes over F-TR weight with anything heavier than a 'Heavy Palma' profile )

I have always enjoyed reading your posts especially on the 223 and heavy bullets. How does that 223 f open rifle shoot? I love Mcree’s stocks, I have 2 of them

 

[MikeMcCasland]

Laurie/XTR - Thanks a ton for the quick responses.

I'm loading them behind 23gr of Varget with a .020 jump, working up in .3gr increments. I figure I'll hit the sweet spot around 24-24.5gr, but want to put a few rounds down the barrel for "break in" before really getting serious about analysis.

I'll glue some foam in the top of my cartridge box.

 

[natdscott]

Just "smoked" a dummy 80gr SMK with a lighter. It looks like I only have about .60" of pressure ring/bearing surface within the case, however when the boat tail is included there is a total of ~.220 of bullet in the neck of the case.

This is obviously seated pretty far out there; moreso than I've ever done before. Is this safe/ok to shoot, or is this thing just throated too long for 80grs.

It's probably too long, but try it. You may be happy to note though that the 80 SMK and 82 Berger jump pretty well.

Watch your concentricity though.