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seeking cheaper softer reload for 1/7


biglou13

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Tried all kinds of powders and bullets. Best .223 powder I've found for every gun I've fed it to is AR Comp. Redonkulously accurate with 77gr Sierra Matchkings too.

TAC is also a good all-around powder and meters well. N540 and N140 are also not terrible choices for your bullet weight.

As far as soft... with the right buffer and a good compensator the AR doesn't kick at all and can be tuned to have negative muzzle rise. If your gun is hitting you too hard I'd look there first.

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2 MOA at 100 yards? Just about any powder will work for that as long as your barrel likes the bullet.

Surplus or pull-down 55gr bullets are the cheapest but not every 1/7 will shoot a bullet that light with good accuracy. You may have to spend more and try some 62-69gr stuff.

If you don't have a bunch of bullet weights and styles on hand, here's what I'd do. Go down to your local rifle range on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon with a bunch of one dollar bills in your pocket. Offer three dollars per five rounds to everyone for samples of factory ammo they're shooting, you should have no shortage of people willing to help out. Five shot groups are much more informative than three shot groups (ten shot groups are even better but we're just looking for ballpark). The lightest bullets that show acceptable accuracy, get a picture of the boxes they came out of. Look them up on the internet and figure out where to buy those bullets cheap for reloading.

You'd be surprised how well it works. A couple times I've found ammo that shoots well under MOA with the scavenger hunt method.

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i have a pet load for 75 grain amax

but ....im looking for a cheaper softer lighter , "gaming" semi accurate load for the fast and close stuff????

1/7 twist

m forgery

Whatever powder and charge weight you're using for your long range load - just put a 55 Hornady FMJ on top of it. If your scope is zeroed at 200 for your long range load, the 55 should hit pretty close to POA at 100 and be pretty soft.

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your 1/7 barrel has nothing to do with how soft or cheep you can reload for it. You should limit yourself to not shoot light weight HP or SP bullets 55 or less as they will be more likely to come apart upon exiting the muzzle. These disentigrating bullets might however be soft shooting and cheep.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Have a 1/7 twist barrel. Have shot Hornady 55FMJs in it for 3gun for the past 3 years. Even shot a 100 50gr Vmaxes in it when supplies were tight. All made nice clean holes in paper. None disintegrated when exiting the barrel.

Did hear some time back of a bad run of Montana Gold 55s. But, that was a bad run and shouldn't be used as a sweeping generalization.

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What do you want the 55gr bullets to do? Just poke holes in paper? If thats the case, seat whatever cheap 55gr projectile you can come by over 21grs of H335 and plink/poke away. Lower velocity, but fine for paper and stays fine and accurate to 100+yds. Will activate lighter steel, but I wouldn't run them for Larues or heavier targets like that.

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your 1/7 barrel has nothing to do with how soft or cheep you can reload for it. You should limit yourself to not shoot light weight HP or SP bullets 55 or less as they will be more likely to come apart upon exiting the muzzle. These disentigrating bullets might however be soft shooting and cheep.

I'm running 55gr JSP's SX's and SMK's with no issue. usually with 22.5gr of 2230

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I have several different brands of 55 SPs spin apart out of 20" 1-7 barrels. Hornady SXSPs have an especially thin jacket. Do what ever you want but when they spin apart, I told you so. I have some other match 53g HPs that will also spin apart too out of a 1-8" 18" If you look onto some of the compay web sites they will reccomend twists and velocities for their bullets best accuracy, some will have a little more information. If you shoot almost any bullet too fast it will come apart.

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A 55 grain bullet leaving a 1/7 barrel at 3200 fps is spinning at over 330,000 RPM. The centripetal force is tremendous at that rate. Most bullets will handle it just fine, cheaper bullets meant to be used in a slower twist barrel may not withstand the stress and fling the jacket off or simply come apart in flight. Anyone watching through a spotting scope will see a puff when the bullet explodes.

For lighter plinking loads it's rarely an issue to be concerned about. The main point everyone's trying to make is that while shooting 55's out of a 1/7 is certainly possible and often works well, don't be surprised if you encounter difficulties. 55's work best in a 1/9 but your rifle may like them just fine.

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  • 3 weeks later...

My sp1 and xm4 (yea Im old) both have a 1:9 twist, so shooting 55gn military surplus is cheap and accurate. How accurate are you trying to get? In my military days we were hitting 2'x 2' at 500m, so at 100yds unless your shooting pennies, it should be easy to find a low cost reload that works. I do love the scavenger hunt idea, sounds like a great start.

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Try 55 grain Extreme bullets with 16 grains of IMR4227. I use that in a base DPMS M4 carbine with stock carrier group. It can go as low as 15.1 grains per the Lee load manual. When I first shot it, the recoil was so light I had to ensure the brass was ejected.

This is my go to 3 gun round for 100 yards or less. With my aging eyes and using a non magnified red dot they are point of aim at 100 yards. Just a really fun round to shoot, I highly recommend it.

As usual, this is my opinion only, test all loads atnyourmown risk, this is just a suggestion and may not be suitable for any other firearm.

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55's work best in a 1/9 but your rifle may like them just fine.

55s actually work best in something like a 1 in 12

If you are trying to reduce recoil, the best purchase is a $40 comp rather than changing anything else on the rifle.

If you're looking to save money, cheap bullets will shoot 2-3 MOA. I'm still using old m193 pulldowns, but I'm out of them, so I'll be switching probably to Hornady 55 FMJs

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I got 1" groups at 100 yards with 23g 2015 and Hornaday 55g FMJ. That barely makes 150 PF and I used a reduced buffer spring. That's just what worked for me when I had a hard time finding any other powder. I got similar results with mid range X Terminator Data with velocity around 2800. The key to "cheap" is buy in bulk of course. 6k Hornaday 55gs' for $480 from Powder Valley. Might as well add 20lbs of Powder

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  • 3 weeks later...

I tend to use the Hornady 55gr SP w/c for bulk .223 reloading. They came to ~$380 per 6000 after discount code and sale. Below is an example of how they tend to group at 100y rapid fire with mixed pickup brass, no chamfering after trim/resize. load is 24.7gr H335 at 2.220 OAL, Tula primers. This is my multigun rifle with 4x scope. Good enough for short range.

Photo says "TAC" but it is definitely H335.

Hor%2055sp%2024.7%20H335_zpsam9tlox4.jpg

Edited by mgrs
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