Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Rimfire Alternative: Part Deux

As you may remember I was so enamored with the performance of reduced loads in the .22 center fires that I decided to' build' a rifle dedicated to the reduced loads.This is a "Campfire Rifle" for the most part. I had the action, bought a new take off barrel here on the 'fire, as well as a Mountain Rifle stock I bought here, plus a Cabelas Outfitter 3x9 scope I bought from our own Mule deer some time ago.
Screwed them all together, chambered in .223 ( cause thats what I have the most brass for...) and got it to the range for load testing today.
Full load of Trail Boss behind a 50 Vmax was only so/so
8 grains of Trail Boss behind the Vmax was pretty damn good...then...


I tried A load Seafire gave me, 12.5 grains of IMR 4198 and the 50 Vmax....

This is six shots during the sight-in...I walked them in with scope adjustments from left to right.....50 yard target...




This is the rifle...




And the only real modification was shortening the barrel to 22" cut and re-crown...






The rimfires will see even more safe time.....

Fun stuff! If it's specific to reduced loads why not 20" or less?

Sweeeeet looking Rifle there Ingwe....

dontcha love when a plan comes together....

but serious question.. isn't that seafire guy the one that gives out that load data that has a history of blowing up people's rifles????

at least that is what I heard... and you know, everything you hear on the internet HAS TO BE TRUE...

by the way, I am a French Model... Bon JEWer.....

Ive been known to "backslide" on occasion......

I figured it was true...its why I used a Remington. They are known to have their bolts fall off,known to go off all by themselves, and their extractors go A.W.O.L.


I didn't think it would be much of a loss if the loads blew it up....

Nice work I must try these sometime soon..

Well with 12.5 grains of 4198... at least that Remington should be able to handle the recoil and the chamber pressure.... three rings of steel and a recoil pad....

now if that Cabelas scope hopefully holds up...

That is a pretty stout recoiling load....at least in my experience....

They'll never work. You know you need powders which are temperature insensitive.

Some H335 should test that Remmys three rings of steel!


I'll wait for a 100 degree day........

No need to wait, just test it with some Blue Dot.

Well if ya do, and use Ingwe's 50 grain VMax bullets

8 grains will get you about 2050 fps...

9 grains will get ya about 2250 fps...

and 10 grain will get ya about 2450 fps...

Still impossible to find Blue Dot here, and I tried some years ago. No problems and pretty good in the accuracy department but it doesn't outshoot this load of IMR4198!

Either does the Trail Boss, though its close. Ive got almost two bottles of it I don't know what to do with now

Just loaded some 75 Amax with 7 grains Trail Boss in formed Ackley cases to play with. Those 75's hammer stuff so I figure it'd be fun to play with. Got a couple pounds of Blue Dot sitting around. Need to figure out some starting loads for the 75's if they are as much fun as I'm thinking they will be.

7 grains of TB sounds just about right for the 75s...Regular 50 and 55s in my gun liked 8 grains.

Odd thing in both 223 and 223AI max seemed to be 8.4 grains...both rifles shot better with 8.0 grains.

Here's 7 grains of Trail Boss under 75 amax with 9 moa dialed in at 100 yards out of my .223AI Montana with 1-8" Pac Nor.



And 50 Zmax with 7.7 gr TB and no elevation.



Formed brass for both btw

Welllllll.......I think you've found a couple bunny loads!!

No Blue Dotz? Really?

Yep -- I am getting down to my last pound of five and starting to think maybe Lil Gun will work nicely in the 223 when I run out for sure.

I have NOT seen any Blue Dot since OCrisis One.

I have been running the blue dot loads for years. Got started with the Calhoon bullets and have used the 37gr for quite a while, they seem to be the softest bullet to use at reduced speeds.

and you boys rag on Oregon....

last couple of months I bought 5 or 6 lbs of it, off the shelf...

and actually they had 40 pounds of it or more, and then got another shipment with about 80 lbs....

I didn't want to be a hog....ya know...

but If I'd have known you boys were looking for some I'd have picked up some more......


also if I can find them, I did a batch of work ups and targets using 75 grain BTHPs, and a host of powders, working toward subsonic for deFlave/Travis last year....

ran across those targets and the load data on them a few weeks ago... if any interest, I'll dig them up....

Did Trail Boss, Unique and some others in those burn ranges...

the groups out of the Ruger American were tighter than Higbean's above...

The reason they have powder supplies in Oregon is because you are the only shooter in the friggin' state......