Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Best Ball Powder for 50-55gr .223 Loads??

H335, TAC, and AR-Comp are my favorite. I have too much to try CFE, but someday maybe.

Thanks Mathman, would love the data if you could find it.

Yup.....my favorite of the ball powders, probably because it is old school...

last several years, I've been running a lot of H 322 thru a lot of my 223 reloads along with some other calibers....the other being AR Comp.

TAC or CFE223

Friday I was chronographing some rounds and had a .223 with me so ran some of them over the screens.

Two 3 shot groups, 26.0 TAC, Sierra 53 HPBT, WSR primer.

First three - high of 3211 fps, low of 3209, extreme spread of 3 fps.
Second three - high of 3207 fps, low 3201, extreme spread 6 fps.
Six shots total with an extreme spread of 10 fps.

Not saying other powders won't produce good results also - good ol' IMR4198 is still an excellent powder for accuracy in the .223, but once you get TAC up into its optimum pressure range it produces very consistent velocities and great accuracy.

Have mentioned this before here and there, but when TAC first appeared the folks at Western Powders told me it was not only very clean-burning but temperature-resistant. I worked up a load for an Oregon Kimber .223 during summer, then that winter ran some cold-tests, the temperature (and rifles and ammo) all at right around zero, the best way to run such tests.

The string of velocities for the TAC handload, 26.0 grains with 50 Ballistic Tips, averaged EXACTLY the same as it had at 70 degrees, when shooting the same rifle and using the same chronograph. The odds of that happening are pretty slim even when testing during the same range session; there's normally at least a 10-15 fps difference even then. In fact, it's the ONLY time that's happened whenever I run the same sort of cold test.

Luckily, I only had a few rounds left for the test, or it probably would have come out slightly differently....

The rest of the story.

These are the two three shot groups mentioned previously, fired from a LH Tikka T3 Lite with a Leupold VX-II 3-9 scope on 9 power. I was just messing around here, wasn't trying to hold my tongue in the proper position or pay attention to the phase of the moon or anything, and this is the result.

These were fired about 15 minutes apart, in between which the rifle was removed from the bags and the front rest shifted around for other rifles. Group at 4 o'clock is .208", group at 10 o'clock is .231, total of six shots is .611". Btw, the lower one had the extreme spread of 3 fps, the upper one had the 6 fps spread - that wider velocity spread must be the reason for the grouping going all to hell like that.

Whether this is a testimonial to Tikka rifles, Sierra bullets or 26.0 grains of TAC I couldn't distinguish, but taken all together they make a pretty good team.

Apparently!

I have not tried different powders in my many 223's since 1995 when I bought many many pounds of the then new Varget. I ran out about 6 months ago and found out the new Varget is nothing like the original Varget, it still works with the heavies but not so good with the 50-55's. I first tried Benchmark with every load from mild to wild from 40gr to 69gr bullets. some of the groups I got were OK but never found a load with under 100fps extreme spread. I even tried this powder in 3 other chamberings with the same results, think I'll use the rest of the 8 pounder for fertilizer. I have tried about 10 different powders looking for that perfect load for my 50gr Blitzkings. best I have found so far is VVN130 (that I shoot in my 222's)and H322 in a tie, with VVN133 not too far behind. I did find one powder worse than Benchmark and that was LT-30 in my 40x I never found a load that would shoot under 1.5" LT-32 shot OK though. After reading this thread I am going to give TAC a try before I decide on a final load.

H335 is the only one of those I have used. It works well.

I just checked my old load notes. I used AA2230 for 40s and 45s and H335 for 50s and heavier.

Today, starting from scratch, I'd definitely give CFE223 a try.

Tom

335 with 62's, 64's and 65's works good for me in the AR. Get sub moa out of my 6920 and sub 1/2 moa out of the bushy varmints.
The Hawk Hill barreled Montana likes varget though...... With 55 vmax, 62 tsx and 75 Amax.

Not one mention of BL-(C)2? Long a favorite of mine, fouling isn't bad either. Going to try CFE-223 soon though. I also like the way BL-(C)2 works in my 308 rifles.

I'm going to affirm Boatie's observations about Varget in that weight class. Some of you have read Mic McPherson's obsessive experiments that have had surprising and useful results for his lazier readers.
I am pretty much convinced that Varget at 50-55 charge weights in the 223 case brings granule packing into play, something Mic has written about. I can stuff a case with Varget, crunch it down under a 40 and it shoots. I can load under 60s and it shoots like crazy good. But under 50s and 55s, sometimes it packs, sometimes it doesn't.
Since I want to pump and dump, rather than "swirl charge" or tap the case (both of which work, Mic proved it), I moved faster to H 4895 Extreme from Varget for 50s.
But again, I am really liking what I see from TAC at that bullet weight range, too. I've been holding out for a jug of 4895, but at this point, if I see a jug of TAC, I'm buying it.

I followed Mule Deer's advice several years ago and just got on the Tac train. I use it for 40 through 62 gr bullets in the .223 Rem and it works pretty well in .338 Federal, too. I haven't tried it much in the .308 Win because I got such great results from IMR-4064 right out of the gate. I have a couple pounds of H-335, Accurate 2015 and 2230, and Exterminator, but I try to have at least one full 8 pound keg of Tac on hand at all times. Definitely my first choice for the .223/5.56.

Tac for 50 and up, X-Terminator for 50 or less. Good accuracy and velocity; easy metering, hundreds of rounds between cleaning. IMR 4895 will work if I don't have Tac or X-Terminator but doesn't meter as well and requires more frequent cleaning.

And you don't even have to swirl them into the cases! :-)

X-Terminator usually beats TAC for accuracy and velocity up to 69gr, in my experience; Ramshot's 5.56 data shows this too.

For 50-55gr, XTerminator is so much better than everything else, it shouldn't even be a question. In my "humble" opinion.

Thanks, based on what I've read, Ramshot's burn chart and one 223 that I tried X-Terminator in I thought Tac would be overall better for 55s or heavier. I'll give it another try when I get a chance.

I've had excellent luck with 40-grain bullets using TAC, though velocity is a little behind Benchmark.