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.223 out to 600 yards


Tmcfarland

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2 minutes ago, Tmcfarland said:

Thanks for the foresight, I will continue because it is intriguing and I hate and can't leave a problem unsolved.

 Any insight to what the stage gun was? Type of scope?. Can't wait to use the breach gun and throw the flash bang.

I can definitely understand that.

Can't remember the exact gun, some Rem 700 variant with a Nightforce on top. I don't know if they'll have the breaching shotgun and flashbang again this year, but I sure hope they do! Even if they don't though, there will be some awesome stages. I would also recommend wearing pants that have knee pads in them or bringing a set of knee pads so you don't get too beat up. Also bring a pair of thin shooting gloves in case your hands start getting torn up from climbing. Good luck!

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4 minutes ago, Huch said:

I can definitely understand that.

Can't remember the exact gun, some Rem 700 variant with a Nightforce on top. I don't know if they'll have the breaching shotgun and flashbang again this year, but I sure hope they do! Even if they don't though, there will be some awesome stages. I would also recommend wearing pants that have knee pads in them or bringing a set of knee pads so you don't get too beat up. Also bring a pair of thin shooting gloves in case your hands start getting torn up from climbing. Good luck!

Got the pants and knee pads so I will be covered there, I was thinking about gloves but haven't picked any up yet...suggestions? 

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1 minute ago, Tmcfarland said:

Got the pants and knee pads so I will be covered there, I was thinking about gloves but haven't picked any up yet...suggestions? 

SKD PIG Alpha gloves are all I use now. They fit perfectly and give me enough dexterity so I can shoot my pistol and load my shotgun with them on. Plus they're not very expensive.

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Received the Hornady Bullet Comparator today, measured the last 15 rounds I made of 75 grain BTHP match to test and was a little shocked at the findings. I see why now you don't measure and rely on on COAL and expect everything to be the same. As far as COAL i had a difference from shortest to longest of .0005", could be less or a little more as I am using a digital caliper. Now using the comparator on the same 15 rounds I had a overall difference of .0100". I measured 10 of the 75 grain BTHP match bullets and they were exactly the same from bottom to ogive, the 68 grain BTHP had a difference of .002". I first thought I would pull these and start over but I am going to build 10 more measuring off the ogive to see the difference in how they shoot. Its fun figuring this out with all you guys that offer help.Thanks

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On ‎9‎/‎17‎/‎2016 at 2:19 PM, Tmcfarland said:

Took my rifle out but did not get to use the 200 yard range, to crowded and was running out of daylight. I was stuck at using a 60 yd bay so I set up and was really shocked at the grouping. At this point I am just really interested in what the chronograph will report. I am no bullseye shooter by any means but come on! Let's here the bantering begin. All 5 shot groups
23 grains at 60 yards 68 gr HPBT running 2538fps
95d91e4856addefd586131e0c8879f55.jpg
24 grains running at 2644fps 342ff14e515054cc44f50662c157d393.jpg
25 grains running at 2732fps 1d02c7a3a94ee7218e2f48b29ea5caec.jpg
26 grains running at 2913fps 2e4a7e800f0440e39d2deab2e54276db.jpg
Just to make sure the rifle was still on I shot a group of my close range rounds 55 grain running at 2830fps 6139004507b4e1437056818e0386e198.jpg
I need some help!


Thanks

If you are shooting a 5 round group, put 6 rds in the magazine.  That way, you get the same cycle action from your rifle on all shots.  If your gun runs dry on the last shot, your follow through will be different with the bolt locking back and also the lack of any upward pressure on your bolt from the live round in the mag that is pushing up.  That could make your 5th shot go high and right.  Now if that flier was not your last shot, you still have an issue to sort out. 

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Grab your best load and hand the rifle off to your ranges hotfinger and see what he can wring out. Make sure it's the load and not you. Even a lead sled can give poor results if you're doing something wrong.

 

As for your load, I'd give a 77gr bullet a try. My 18" 1:8 Wylde likes 69's but loves 77's. Standard disclaimer: every barrel is different, ymmv.

 

The new Sierra tipped matchkings are the bomb. The 77gr STMK's have a BC of .420, I had to make a new dope card, they shoot that much flatter than the plain SMK's. Buck the wind better too. Half moa at 850 yards all day long.

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17 minutes ago, Absocold said:

Grab your best load and hand the rifle off to your ranges hotfinger and see what he can wring out.

It's hard to catch anyone right now, working everyday and rushed in the evening (only an hour of sunlight left) to try the next batch. Got this coming Sunday off so will see if I can latch onto someone for a few shots. 

53 minutes ago, Absocold said:

The new Sierra tipped matchkings are the bomb. The 77gr STMK's have a BC of .420,

I will have to try some out, looks like most places are out of stock. Got a vendor you buy them from?

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I travel a lot so have the opportunity to hit lots of stores looking for used stuff, interesting things and cheap .22lr ammo. Bought a small box of SMTK's at some place north of Denver. Tried them out and immediately bought the first big box I saw, was at a Cabela's in Nebraska. Should have looked before I leaped, price was jacked. Freaking Cabela's :(

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7 minutes ago, dauntedfuture said:

 

Buy a new barrel

 

Well that might be one way, but not ready to go that route yet. Feel like I have made a lot of ground on my reloading knowledge and still need to run the last couple of small batches I have made up. 

I do have another upper to try from Barnes Precision Machine that I won from one of our local matches so if all fails here I will be going back to a 16" barrel.

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1 minute ago, Tmcfarland said:

Well that might be one way, but not ready to go that route yet. Feel like I have made a lot of ground on my reloading knowledge and still need to run the last couple of small batches I have made up. 

I do have another upper to try from Barnes Precision Machine that I won from one of our local matches so if all fails here I will be going back to a 16" barrel.

You should have posted that first thing. I'll put money down that your BPM barrel will shoot circles around your current barrel. Wish I never sold mine....

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16 minutes ago, dauntedfuture said:

If my rifle was shooting like that i would take a serious look at the scope and barrel

The scope I have now is the Vortex Viper PST 6-24x50, I have only shot with it once and I don't think it is the scope as I can actually see the grid lines now. Got a few things to try out such as holding the follow through on the trigger, put 6 rounds in the mag to shoot 5 rounds, the last batch of bullets made using the Base To Ogive measurement instead of COAL. Then we will see what to do next. I believe these last rounds are built to the best of my ability.

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Eh, I've found that some AR barrels are just picky. I mean really finicky like 22lr's are finicky. Once you find the load it likes... wow, not too shabby! Usually when a new barrel can't be made to shoot well, either the upper face isn't square to the bore, the barrel wasn't properly coppered or there's crown damage. All easily fixed. Lemons aren't as common as some think.

Edited by Absocold
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Well, I think I might be about 90% and have decided on a load to finalize. COAL or thereabout 2.200" BTO of 1.7935" using Hornady 75gr BTHP with 23.4gr of TAC traveling at 2627fps. Which puts my Razor BDC hashes under 600 yards so I will tweak this a little more to get the FPS up, SD lower and the ES smaller. Looks like I will need to be right at 2700fps to make the BDC cover the distance. 

Last trip to the range I shot out at both 100 and 200 yards and came up with several consistent 1 MOA groups with the BCA barrel and tried the BPM barrel as well. It did shoot a little better so it might be what I stick with, we will see!                    

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Hornady makes good rifle brass but very few top shooters use Hornady bullets. Berger leads the pack by a wide margin with Lapua and Sierra a distant second and third. Most of us mere mortals use Sierra as they're the best value and usually in stock.

 

Varget is the most common choice for .223 accuracy with many others in hot pursuit (I like AR-Comp myself). TAC doesn't even make it onto the list.

 

Can you get your combo to do well? Sure, you've already proved that. But with even better components...

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1 hour ago, Absocold said:

 Most of us mere mortals use Sierra as they're the best value and usually in stock.

I am one of those mere mortals...I have been looking for a good deal on some Sierra's but nothing has come up yet.

 

1 hour ago, Absocold said:

 TAC doesn't even make it onto the list.

What list are you referring to? Only reason I picked some up was because of this thread and the good things said about it. I tried Varget, did not like the it metered at all, I guess it wouldn't be that big of a deal if I went out and bought a Chargemaster or something like that.

I am going to shoot out the components I have and try some others down the road a bit, but for now, I have about 14lbs of powder to burn up 

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3 hours ago, Tmcfarland said:

What list are you referring to?

Cruise the long range meets and competitions, ask around, see what the guys who don't miss are using. After a while you start to see patterns, things that get used a lot, things that don't get used as much as you'd think. You'll end up with your own list, it'll be similar to the list of everyone else who's paying attention. Don't get me wrong, you can get good results from other products but if you want the best results you can save yourself a lot of money, trouble and frustration by using the knowledge of people who've tried it all and have found the things that work best.

 

What you'll find is that while TAC is well-suited for the light bullets used on varmints (50-55gr), it's not used with the heavier bullets preferred in competition shooting (77-90gr). TAC will work fine with heavier bullets but other powders just work better.

 

When you find those Sierra bullets, they recommend N140 for their 77gr SMK's. Varget, Reloader 15, N550 and AR-Comp are also winners at that weight. Luckily the .223 isn't terribly picky but choosing the right powder for your bullet will achieve best results.

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5 minutes ago, Absocold said:

Cruise the long range meets and competitions, ask around, see what the guys who don't miss are using. After a while you start to see patterns, things that get used a lot, things that don't get used as much as you'd think. You'll end up with your own list, it'll be similar to the list of everyone else who's paying attention. Don't get me wrong, you can get good results from other products but if you want the best results you can save yourself a lot of money, trouble and frustration by using the knowledge of people who've tried it all and have found the things that work best.

 

What you'll find is that while TAC is well-suited for the light bullets used on varmints (50-55gr), it's not used with the heavier bullets preferred in competition shooting (77-90gr). TAC will work fine with heavier bullets but other powders just work better.

 

When you find those Sierra bullets, they recommend N140 for their 77gr SMK's. Varget, Reloader 15, N550 and AR-Comp are also winners at that weight. Luckily the .223 isn't terribly picky but choosing the right powder for your bullet will achieve best results.

I agree TAC isn't a good powder for 77 -90g bullets however, we are talking  3GUN rifle loads here... specifically for 68-69g bullets and if you look into those circles. You'll find many that prefer that load. You can easily load sub MOA ammo with TAC and 69 SMKs or in my case Nosler Competitions which is more than acceptable for 3GUN.

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I was unaware that 3gun required shots out to 600 yards. Does it really? Because that would be cool.

 

Or did we get off topic? I'm on my phone and too busy atm to go back through all the posts to see if we got derailed somewhere and I'm giving the wrong advice for where the discussion has wandered. 

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5 minutes ago, Absocold said:

I was unaware that 3gun required shots out to 600 yards. Does it really? Because that would be cool.

 

Or did we get off topic? I'm on my phone and too busy atm to go back through all the posts to see if we got derailed somewhere and I'm giving the wrong advice for where the discussion has wandered. 

Not off topic, I have not seen or heard of a 3gun match to go that far but some around south Texas do go to 300 or 400. This originally started in an effort to build a round in preparation for the Seekins Precision Hard as Hell match which advertised out to 620 yards for rifle. It has been posted here a ways back that the longest was around 450 and with a stage gun. It has wandered back and forth but I'm using all the information I can get! 

Edited by Tmcfarland
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There are some 3Gun matches that go out to 600, but not a lot.  TAC is fine for 1MOA out to about 600 with 69s, 75s and 77s.  Varget is a bit slow for the 16 and 18 inch barrels and even at the same velocity, will wear a barrel faster than some of the other powders.  If ultimate accuracy is the only concern for longer barrel lengths, I can see where Varget could get top billing.

FWIW, like someone else posted early on, I could never get the 68g Hornady's to group well in my ARs.  The 75s, yep, but there is something with those 68s that many have had issues with.

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2 minutes ago, MarkCO said:

FWIW, like someone else posted early on, I could never get the 68g Hornady's to group well in my ARs.  The 75s, yep, but there is something with those 68s that many have had issues with

I will probably just use them up as a mid range on the spinners or plate racks, bought 500 and hate to see them go to waste.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Received some sierra 77gr and loaded up a few...they shoot better than the hornady and I have read that somewhere before. I am sold! Loaded 23.6 gr of TAC at 2.20" here is the data for the 5 shots. Still not a sniper yet but it is big progress!

Mean Velocity - 2627 fps

SD - 9.7

Spread - 27fps 

.856" 5 shot group at 100 yards

IMG_7567.JPG

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