Advice on finding a good ammo match for my barrel

General Firearms Reloading & Ammunition
1

I have a 16" 1:7 twist nitride coated barrel with a .223 wylde chamber. This is a brand new barrel I have put less than 200 rounds through.

Using old-ish .223 Remington UMC 55 grain FMJ, I was getting pretty awful groups at 100 yards, in the 3-4 inch range for 5 shot groups.

Shooting 55 grain Federal .223 BTHP ammo I was getting 5 shot groups in the 1-2 inch range, with the best group at around .75 inch.

I think I want to try loading my own ammo for this barrel, but I have some questions.

First, It’s a .223 wylde chamber. Should I use .223 dies, or 5.56 dies? I have a set of small base dies in .223 with 5.56 on the way.

Since it is a faster twist, I bought some 62 grain bullets. I’m hoping that will make a difference.

I have some small rifle primers as well. Since these will be used in an AR15, should I get harder primers?

Also, I have a couple of pounds of Varget that I’d like to use. Is this a good powder for .223/5.56? I really want to use this up.

I’m not looking for one ragged hole accuracy but I’d like to be consistently under 1 MOA. I think the barrel is capable of better, and I’ve shot better with other rifles. The big difference in accuracy between the two factory loads I tried leads me to believe the barrel might be capable of better.

Thanks in advance.

2

.223 dies will work. I use small base dies to resize brass not fired in a particular rifle. If you don’t segregate brass, you may need the small base dies.

Quality 62 grain bullets should shoot well out of a 1:7 barrel

I have been using Varget for .223 loads for over 15 years with good results.

Some commercial primers are softer than others. What brand small rifle primers did you purchase?

3

Man it sounds like you need to do A LOT of reading… what brand barrel is it?

There is no difference dimensionally between 223 Rem and 5.56, so either die will work. The only difference between 5.56 and 223 is the pressure it produces in each respective chamber. 223 Wylde will run either one safely. BTW, where did you find 5.56 dies? I’ve never even heard of anyone actually making them…

Since it is a faster twist, I bought some 62 grain bullets. I’m hoping that will make a difference.

Weight means nothing if they aren’t high-quality match bullets. With a 1/8 twist, you should be able to safely run 77gr bullets loaded to mag length. 77gr is the heaviest bullet you can safely run at mag length. You can run heavier bullets with a 1/7 twist, but that is an area that I wouldn’t even think about without a lot more experience.

I have some small rifle primers as well. Since these will be used in an AR15, should I get harder primers?

No, the thicker cup primers like CCI41 are not needed in an AR-15, but some are softer than others. I’ve never had a problem with standard CCI, Tula, Wolf, or Remington primers. What brand primers do you have?

Also, I have a couple of pounds of Varget that I’d like to use. Is this a good powder for .223/5.56? I really want to use this up.

Varget is a good powder that works well in 223, but there are much better, more user-friendy options out there. MY favorite right now is 8208XBR. I used Varget in the past and got amazing results, but I get equally great results with a number of other user-frienly/short grain extruded powders.

I’m not looking for one ragged hole accuracy but I’d like to be consistently under 1 MOA. I think the barrel is capable of better, and I’ve shot better with other rifles. The big difference in accuracy between the two factory loads I tried leads me to believe the barrel might be capable of better.

I don’t know what brand your barrel is, but I have a run-of-the-mill chrome lined barrel that will easily shoot .75moa with my handloads. A nitride/melonite barrel should do equally as well, if not better.

4

Thanks guys. The barrel is a Bergara. The primers I want to use are CCI no. 400, and the bullets are actually 69 grain hpbt sierra match kings now that I’m looking at them. I thought they were 62 grain. Do you think these bullets will cause oal problems given that the 77 grain bullets can be loaded to fit the magazines?

Thanks

5

RCBS makes a set of dies they label as 5.56 dies. It’s a set that has a small base sizing die and a taper crimp seating die. I heard the sizing die was carbide but it seems to be cheaply priced for being carbide.

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The Sierra Match King 69g HPBT is an excellent bullet. 1/2 MOA at 300 yards is attainable with the Sierra bullet and Varget.

You should be able to produce an accurate load with the Sierra 69g bullet that will reliably feed through an AR-15 magazine. You generally don’t run into C.O.L. problems until you start loading 80g bullets.

7

69gr SMK’s are excellent march grade bullets. I have a few boxes that I haven’t played with yet, but I am expecting .5moa or better.

Varget will definitely get you into sub-moa territory with that bullet. You could even try a few different primers and possibly get .5moa groups.

8

Ditto what Onyx said!

I have found any brand of 68-69 gr BTHP Bullet to shoot better with more powders than any other weight bullet, at least for 1:7 bbls. Sierra 69 are excellent.

I shoot just service grade uppers like BCM and LMT and easily get .75" 5 shot groups. I am no precision shooter so don’t try for much better than that. My favorite powders in descending order for 69 gr bullets:

  1. BLC2 (with IMR 8208 looking even better from my SIL)

  2. H335

  3. Varget and H4895

With your components you should easily get 1" groups. I seat all .223 bullets to the same COL pretty much.

9

Ah, yeah I forgot to mention the dies I ordered were from amazon. They were listed as .223/5.56 small base with a taper crimp. I haven’t looked at the .223 dies I have in a couple of years but I thought they might not have a crimp so I ordered these just in case.

10

Another ditto on what Onyx said!

In my experience, 16" 1-7 twists like a quality 68-69 BTHP bullet.
My “go to recipe” for that length and twist…LC once fired, Hornady 68gr BTHP, CCI 400’s, and either Varget or H335 (which ever I have the most of at the time). Normally <3/4" MOA in wide range of temps.

11

Ok, looks like the consensus is I picked some decent components!

I plan to use once fired remington brass since its what I have.

I haven’t reloaded in years, and this will be my first time loading rifle ammo. I’ve loaded quite a few .45 acp back when I was single and had plenty of time on my hands. So, this will be a learning eperience. My wife gifted me an rcbs reloading kit that had a lot of different tools years ago and even though I haven’t had much time to use it I made a habit of buying dies for every caliber I own just in case.

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Another related question would be if I was looking to buy factory ammo for a 1:7 twist barrel that would be pretty accurate and still be pretty cheap in bulk, what would be a good choice?

I bought quite a bit of 55 grain ammo before I read up about bullet weight vs. twist rate.

13

There is nothing wrong with 55 gr bullets for decent accuracy. Not the best for longer ranges and wind but within 200 yds they can be pretty darn good. The problem is a lot of factory 55 gr ammo is cheap bullets. With a good quality 55 gr bullet such as Hornady FMJ, Vmax or SP I still get about 1.25" groups.

So bulk ammo will never be very accurate no matter the bullet weight. I have not tried it but would expect Hornady rifle ammo or premium line from other mfgs to be close to 1"-1.5" in any bullet weight. I get the best accuracy over a variety of bullet styles and brands and different powders with 55 and 69 gr bullets. 62-65 gr seem to take more work and fewer good combos to get similar accuracy.

For factory ammo I would start with Hornady.

14

That should be an EASY MOA barrel all day long.

77 gr SMKs or 77 gr Nosler Custom Competition bullets are perfect for that barrel. We run 2 bergara barrels and they love my .223 house load:

77 gr SMK or Nosler
21.6-21.8 gr H322
Wolf or Tula primer
and a light factory crimp to finish it off.

This load will shoot sub MOA in almost any AR we feed it to.

15

If you still have your reloading manuals from before break them out and read them. The beginning sections usually have a section on rifle reloading. If not get the Sierra relaoding manual. It has some great info in the beginning that explains the more technical side to rifle relaoding. The good news is the info you get from seasoned reloaders will help you out. The bad news is that every rifle barrel is unique. You have to find out what it likes through experimentation and documentation so you can repeat it. I’ve had rifles that shot about any load well. I’ve had others that liked one load really well and shot average with all the other loadings. The best part is now you have a reason to load a shoot more because you can go in search of the perfect combo of bullet primer case powder seating length amount of crimp etc… Good luck and enjoy.

16

Typo or did you bump it up an entire grain?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

17

Friggin TYPO!! That’s the second time i’ve posted that mistake. (good thing reloading doesn’t require attention to detail :sarcastic: )

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Maybe you should just find a powder that shoots 22.6-22.8 gr well and send all of your H322 to me… boom, no more typos!

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I actually finished off an 8lb of H322 a week ago. Brought a tear to my eye to toss that big jug into the recycle bin. :wink: