Accuracy problems...

[Chris Rhines]

I'm having issues loading consistently accurate .223 ammunition in my XL650. Best I can do, having tried half a dozen different loads, different bullets, etc., is 3.2" CTC for ten shots at 200 yards off the sandbags. Not nearly good enough*.

I load semi-progressively on the XL650, with a Dillon carbide sizing die, Redding Competition seating die, and no crimp. First go-round sizes, de- and re-primes. I trim the cases to 1.750" in my Giraud, then charge and seat bullets on the XL650 again.

One possible problem is with the sizing die. I'm trying to bump the shoulder back to 1.461", for a chamber measured at 1.4636". I can't seem to get consistent shoulder dimensions without cranking the sizing die way down, in the area of 1.457". Will having rounds sized so far under my headspace cause problems? Is the shoulder dimension even all that critical?

I'm using Remington once-fired cases from a friend at a police range (i.e. they were fired through all different weapons.) Would it be worth trying some new brass?

Anything else I should be looking at?

Thanks all,

Chris

[mscott]

How does your gun shoot with factory ammo? What is your rifle? What components (bullets, powder) are you using?

[el pres]

Yup, What bullets, powder, whats your barrel twist ????

For instance, my RR 16" 1/9 would shoot 52g at .75 moa but could not

get anything better then 2.0 moa with anything over 62g. Would not matter

on powder or anything...

[blkbrd]

The shoulder, and everything else don't matter till you get into sub MOA territory.

A good load matching your barrel will shoot even with thrown charges and uneven seating. I have done this on purpose to find sweet spots in a recipe. When you reach the center of a sine wave in the load it becomes very tolerant.

The big question is whether the shooter and gun can shoot small groups? Do you shoot high power or benchrest by chance?

Try some Black Hills match in a bullet weight that matches your barrel twist and see what you can do?

I have been able to get MOA groups even out of surplus M16 barrels with good ammo, glass and technique.

[Chris Rhines]

Barrel is a 17" MSTN/Lilja, 1:8" twist.

Most recent load is a 77grn. Nosler BTHP over 23.5grn. Ramshot TAC, Remington cases, Federal small rifle primer.

For accuracy testing I use a Leupold Mark 4 4.5-14x scope.

I do not shoot anything other than USPSA and 3-gun.

I'll get some Black Hills ammo and see how that does next weekend.

- Chris

[Religious Shooter]

I would say that 3.2 CTC @ 200 yards is pretty good. It would be good enough (for 3 Gun) for me.

[fastshooter03]

Chris,

If you have some Varget laying around, give it a try. If it still won't shoot, you have a different problem other than powder. All the DCM AR shooters I know use Varget exclusively and with Open sights will shoot that group or better at 200 with those same bullets.

About your consistent shoulder dimensions=You may want to run a second sizer on your dillion. I know it's slower but I size all my stuff on a Forster single stage press. I size once then spin the case 180 degrees(aprox) and size again. Doin that seems to help with the military crap that's been fired through a looonnnggg chamber. Do you have a case/bullet runout indicator. I've seen some bad sizers that wouldn't center the expander ball very well but usually on bigger cartidges like 308. The only other thing I can think of would be using too little sizing lubricant.

Is this a brand new gun? Has it shot anything well consistently? I have an AR 223 lilja 1x8 3 groove 24" that shoots very well but it is 1.200" straight and I did the work myself.

Nick

[00bullitt]

As bad as I hate to say it......I think it could be your barrel. I have the same barrel and cannot get much better than what you are getting and I've tried several Black Hills loads both red and blue box as well as over 15 different custom loads. I did add a PRI adjustable gas block and got my 100 yard groups to about an inch. Before that best was about 1.628" with a 69 grain handload running AA 2015. Now I shoot a 55 NBT with H335 at .919".

Not really the accuracy I was expecting.

I now shoot a 16" midlength gas system Sabre Defence that I pulled off a prize table and got a .561" group with my 55 gr. NBT load and a .460" group shooting the 69 with 2015. Even at 200 and 300 it does not open up much more.

I had very high expectations for the Lilja barrel. As funny as it sounds.....the midlength gas barrel shoots and feels better than the 17" MSTN/Lilja barrel with rifle gas system too. I run the SJC Titan comp and there is quite a noticable difference in felt recoil and impulse between the two. The Sabre is my competition rifle for this season.

BTW.....my accuracy testing was all done with a bipod up front and a small Redman sandbag in the rear. Optic was a Leupold CQT 1-3x.

Edited February 12, 2008 by 00bullitt

[AlamoShooter]

I have the 1in8 twist on a 20" = I got it for long range 500 and over. It only has a few rounds that group real good

hardly any of the 55 gr bullet would group unless I shot them --SLOW-- as in only the starting load. If I speed them up the group would open. & I got better groups at 250 than I did at 100 with most of my loads. that could have been me putting more in to the shot

with some of the Cheep stuff I shot for the carbin match with a C-more , = at 100 I only got 2.5" groups

With the rite load and my long range scope the barrel goups under a minute out to 1000 off a bench

[00bullitt]

I have the 1in8 twist on a 20" = I got it for long range 500 and over. It only has a few rounds that group real good

hardly any of the 55 gr bullet would group unless I shot them --SLOW-- as in only the starting load. If I speed them up the group would open. & I got better groups at 250 than I did at 100 with most of my loads. that could have been me putting more in to the shot

with some of the Cheep stuff I shot for the carbin match with a C-more , = at 100 I only got 2.5" groups

With the rite load and my long range scope the barrel goups under a minute out to 1000 off a bench

You have a 20" Lilja or just a 1 in 8 20" barrel in general?

One thing I find different about the Lilja is that it only has 3 lands in the barrel instead of 5. Is that supposed to aid accuracy or hurt it?

[Chris Rhines]

As bad as I hate to say it......I think it could be your barrel. I have the same barrel and cannot get much better than what you are getting and I've tried several Black Hills loads both red and blue box as well as over 15 different custom loads.

Man, I hope not. I do !not! want to replace a brand new barrel right before the season starts...

- Chris

[00bullitt]

I tried all season to get it to shoot to my standards. Don't get me wrong......it shot plenty good enough.......just wasn't to my liking for good confidence. On another note.......it never had one hiccup. I am not sold on the Lilja barrels and especially not since I hear your having the same issues as me.

[00bullitt]

As bad as I hate to say it......I think it could be your barrel. I have the same barrel and cannot get much better than what you are getting and I've tried several Black Hills loads both red and blue box as well as over 15 different custom loads.

Man, I hope not. I do !not! want to replace a brand new barrel right before the season starts...

- Chris

Get the adjustable gas block.....that should tighten you up some. It helped mine some. That gas port is a bit big and I think the gun unlocks a bit early.

[Scout454]

Chris,

I'm loading 25.5 grains of Varget, 69 SMK, Fed Sr or a Rem 7 1/2, LC or Win Brass. It's all loaded on a Redding T7 with Redding Competition dies - including the small base bushing FL size die. As soon as the weather breaks we can meet somewhere (Jerry's?) and you can try some of my loads. When I did load developement, using a 4.5-14, my extra light JP barrel would do 1.7" at 200 yards.

Mike

[AlamoShooter]

I have the 1in8 twist on a 20" = I got it for long range 500 and over. It only has a few rounds that group real good

hardly any of the 55 gr bullet would group unless I shot them --SLOW-- as in only the starting load. If I speed them up the group would open. & I got better groups at 250 than I did at 100 with most of my loads. that could have been me putting more in to the shot

with some of the Cheep stuff I shot for the carbin match with a C-more , = at 100 I only got 2.5" groups

With the rite load and my long range scope the barrel goups under a minute out to 1000 off a bench

You have a 20" Lilja or just a 1 in 8 20" barrel in general?

One thing I find different about the Lilja is that it only has 3 lands in the barrel instead of 5. Is that supposed to aid accuracy or hurt it?

I got the top-end from RB Precition about four years ago, Its not a Lilja. We geared up for a South Dakota Prairie Dog hunt, the guy I was going with had a 1000 yard range. Things changed and he sold his land - now we only have 500 yards, but I have not shot it in three years

[fastshooter03]

Lilja claims the 3 groove barrels offer better throat erosion resistance since they make the lands wider.

I did have a Lilja 308 barrel that I couldn't get to shoot so I went to Broughten to pick up another project barrel and he borescoped the 308 barrel. He said the chambering job was fine but as we went farther down the barrel there was at least one spot that was not lapped out. It still had the reamer marks. That barrel is gone and I only buy Broughten barrels now. Mostly because he's only 1/2 hour away and no shipping costs is good shipping costs.

I often think about offering AR barrels on Broughten blanks but I do not have the capability to do lots of barrels quickly.

Nick

[Chris Rhines]

Just for test purposes, I borrowed a friend's rifle with a 16" GTS Recon barrel, 1:7" twist Douglas blank. We'll see how it does this weekend...

- Chris

[wsimpso1]

Chris,

I have yet to see a failure in this rule - "If it doesn't shoot 69 Sierra's and 25 grains of 748, then you have a gun problem".

I can not vouch for RAM powders, but in my barrels, RL15, RP 7 1/2's, both Sierra and Nosler 77's are hammers.

When was the last time you cleaned ALL of the copper and primer ash from the bore and chamber with JB? Some folks get surprised by the amount of copper and ash that a new barrel can capture. How does the throat look? Does the point of impact shift from clean to fouled? And last, is the barrel nut tight?

I would not be above putting Final Finish (well, I skip the coarsest two grits, and run the last three) through a barrel if the throat accumulates copper and shoots goofy despite cleaning.

As for the sizer producing inconsistent lengths, I have to presume that the incoming brass is all over the place too. I would not be worried over the consistency in headspace as long as the longest ones will chamber easily. You might try a different sizer. Screwing the sizer in further will just shorten the life of your brass, and probably not improve its consistency.

Good luck Chris!

Billski

[Chris Rhines]

Update: Just got back from the range, where I shot both my 3-gun rifle with the 17" MSTN barrel, and a friends rifle with a 16" GTS barrel. Ammo was my old handloads (75grn. Hornady over 23.5grn. TAC), my new-ish handloads (55grn. Montana Gold M193 clone over 26grn. TAC - for plinking out to 100 yards) and Atlanta Arms and Ammo 73grn. BTHP AMU loads.

I could hold ~1.25" groups at 100 yards with both the AMU loads and my heavy handloads. Group sizes were about the same with both rifles. The 55grn. handloads were about 2" at 100 yards, again with both rifles.

I'm thinking more and more that my bench technique is more to blame than the barrel or ammo.

- Chris

[fastshooter03]

Do you have the stoney point/Hornady stuff to check the cartridge headspace and cartridge base to bullet Ogive length? It clamps to your calipers.

Have you shot your stuff over a chrono to see what kind of velocity variations you are getting?

I have never had the 75 Hornadys shoot well no matter what powder I use. Same thing for 68 hornadys. Although I know guys that like the 68. I checked a box of the 75 grn for bullet base to ogive length and ended up with 3-different piles. Not the best confidence builder.

55 Fmjbts are for plinking or close range in my experience. You'd have to get a v-max, blitzking, or ballistic tip and sometimes 52-53 grn hp match to do really well in that bullet weight class. I can shoot 3/4" with a 55 v-max in a dpms barrel then go to winchester 55 fmjbt same powder charge and it sucks really bad. All over the place. I will be switching to Hornady 55 fmjbts when the Winchesters are gone and maybe it'll get better.

I say try a box or handfull from a friend of some quality bullets from Sierra and Make sure you check them for consistency with the proper equipment.

If nothing at all works you'll have to make due with 1.25 moa.

Nick

[ap3]

Barrel is a 17" MSTN/Lilja, 1:8" twist.

Most recent load is a 77grn. Nosler BTHP over 23.5grn. Ramshot TAC, Remington cases, Federal small rifle primer.

For accuracy testing I use a Leupold Mark 4 4.5-14x scope.

I do not shoot anything other than USPSA and 3-gun.

I'll get some Black Hills ammo and see how that does next weekend.

- Chris

Chris,

I disagree that it is your barrel, and you are right that is an unacceptable group size at 200 yards.

I had the very same problem this year with a 1/8 twist JP barrel shooting heavy bullet. I like to shoot TAC as well and found that the 69 gr Sierra and 75gr Hornady BTHP would not even begin to group unitl I got the velocity up to over 2900. You can load at magazine length and still get good groups because most of the 223 bullets are jump tolerant, so I doubt that would be the issue. What finally worked for me was switching to a 60gr V-Max by Hornady flying at about 3100. I have a picture in this section that shows a .902 3 shot group at 300 yards 60gr v-Max Picture. Even though I have the barrel for the 69 and 75 bullet I could not get them to group, maybe they just needed a bit more speed because I did get continual improvement the closer I got to 3000 and above. My last load for the Sierra 69gr was TAC 26.5 OAL of 2.860 FROM THE OGIVE. The Hornady's I will agree are a lost cause unless you use a V-Max or A-Max.

Here is my suggestion for working up your load of most important issues in their order of importance. You have to reduce as much variation in all variables as you can in order to determine the right powder weight or bullet to use.

1. Standardize case weight to under 1 grain of each other. Coming from the same company does not insure same case weight.

2. Standardize the OAL for every case to be almost all exactly the same.

3. Insure that the powder charge for each case is exactly the same.

4. Shoot about 3 rounds through the barrel of whatever before shooting test ammo.

5. Crimp or don't crimp doesn't really matter but be consistent

6. Weigh the bullets(if you really want to get detailed)

As far as bench technique, I use a bipod on the front and sandbags either under the grip or mag. The arm positions I use are just like what is used by benchrest shooter, or I use my support hand to squeeze the sandbags to adjust the elevation.

Edited February 25, 2008 by ap3