Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Taming the vicious 223AI

So, I built myself a 223AI last year... it was the first chamber I cut myself. The notion was that I could really use a light, low-recoil trainer that was cheap to run high volume through. To that end I used a Mountain profile 1:8" barrel, made by Pac-Nor, and a M700 action via a SPSS donor I bought for the purpose.

While very accurate, I was disappointed by the rifle for a very simple reason: it still had enough muzzle jump from prone that I couldn't reliably see my shots impact. The little 75 Amax doesn't really hit steel very hard out there a ways, either, so I also couldn't reliably HEAR my hits when I tried it on my steel plates. Speaking strictly for myself, if you can't call your shots, shooting LR gets tedious pretty fast.

I mothballed it and moved on to other projects.

A month or so ago I decided to make a brake for one of the two builds I have going currently, a .338 EDGE. I more or less copied the Holland first-gen brake design. The brake I made for the EDGE looks like this:








One difference between this and the Holland (I think) is that on mine the slots are offset so that the bottom of the brake is solid, so it doesn't blow crap everywhere. I don't know how well it'll work on the big .33 and won't have that rifle together for a couple more months.

But, that sparked the notion that, silly as it seems at first blush, maybe the thing to do was to brake the 223AI! Not for the recoil per se but to keep the muzzle flip down. So I made a similar but smaller brake, pulled the AI back apart, threaded the barrel, etc. Since this is all a big experiment, I left space between the slots to add another one if needed; I kinda regret that now. Oh well, hindsight is always 20/20.





I shot it today, a bunch as it turned out. What a hoot! I could easily see my shots impacting, and that allowed things to move pretty fast. By the end I was picking on small rocks in a cutbank at 520 yards with ease (75 grain Amax), holding well under MOA, and while things were falling apart a bit at 875 yards, probably due to ES, I was keeping them in about a 1-foot diameter, which was still fun... and is farther than I really need this rifle to reach anyway.

The rifle/scope package itself is pretty low-budget-funny and will make a few heads explode. I just put it back in the plastic SPS stock (I hear a pop!), which floats the MR profile barrel nicely... scope is an old Leup 2.5-8 (pop!) with the coin-slot click adjustments, I think I bought it new about 15 years ago. It's always tracked great, ironically, which is why I've kept it around. It has a straight duplex (pop!). The turret is a Stoney Point retrofit unit (there's that popping sound again!) that I like a lot; very positive clicks, easy to read, works great. Trigger is a 1st-gen X-Mark (pop!). Mounts are Talleys.

I cut the barrel pretty short when I threaded it. Since this is purely a toy a few fps velocity doesn't matter one bit, so I cut it to a bit under 20". With the brake on there it's a bit over 21". Feels nice, good balance.

It seems to be a little louder, as expected, but that doesn't matter either as I'm a muffs & puffs guy anyway.

I'm pretty psyched. This barrel is in big trouble <g>.