Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters R26 with heavies in a .22-250

Has anyone tried R26 in a .22-250 using 75 or 80 grain bullets?

I asked the question in Hunting Rifles on the hunting bullets in a .22-250 thread but got no responses so thought this might be a better place to ask.

If the topic has been covered before I missed it.....

In my 1 in 7 twist 22.250, I found with those bullet weights, that the best powders for velocity and accuracy were in the Reloader 15 range, instead of the 4350 Range that I thought they would be...

tried 4831 also.... felt that powder was actually too slow for those bullets, at least in mine...

RL 26 would be way too slow if you are wanting it for velocity....RL 19 and Rl 17 were behind the RL 15 range for velocity.....

YMMV as always...

Mine was previously a 243 before rebarrel... so I have a longer magazine that you'll find on a regular 22.250..

I have no idea if the Tikka being offered by Whitakers, has a longer mag, or is just a regular 22.250 length...and throat... mine is also throated out to accommodate the 80 grain bullets, at mag length...

Big Game might be an interesting powder to try, being a ball powder and a little slower than Varget or R15.

Hodgdon shows CFE223 as getting the highest velocities in the .22-250, and if accurate could be a real winner.

-19 and -17 always gave me better speeds than -15 with heavies in both the vanilla and AI versions, and were more temperature sensitive too -

I cant comment on the cartridge in question, but for reference the 220 Weatherby does well with -17 and IMR 4451 with 70-90 gr. stuff.

Anything slower than 19 doesnt offer the accuracy, consistency or runs out of real estate.

Put another way, Id be looking at 6 Creed powders in the 1000 yard circles.

I strongly suspect 26 is a little too slow for the .22-250, even with 75-80 grain bullets. Its burn-rate is similar to H1000, which works great with 75-80's in the .223 WSSM and .22/6mm Remington, which have at least 20% more powder room than the .22-250.

Thanks for the answers. That is what I suspected but had to ask.....

My loads are running at 3350 fps with the RL 15 range...with the 80 A Maxes

if yours are running higher, which powder are you using, and what kind of velocity are you getting...

maybe I overlooked something...

That's interesting, because published, Nosler's pressure-tested .22-250 data with RL-19 and bullets in that weight range gets around 3200.

And Hornady's data for the .22/6mm Remington (a much larger cartridge than the .22-250) only lists 3400 with 80's, and that's with Superformance and H100V. The top .22/6mm load they list for 80's with RL-15 only gets 3000 fps from a 24" barrel.

How long is your .22-250 barrel?

24 inches John...

the action was a 243 before, and the barrel is throated out to be able to take the round magazine length...

of course those loads aren't pressure tested, so I might be running over "SAAMI" specs, but the brass and primer pockets don't seem to mine it at all...

of course it may also be that chrony, I've got that has been accused of being "fast"...

the loads were worked up, even the slower powders, which is where I first started with, thinking that would be the optimum... 4350 being the first...RL 19 and 22 being second..

If I remember deFlavo was running RL 15 in his fast twist 22/250 using RL 15, and getting 3300 or so...

guess "our mileage may vary" kind of scenario...

Pac Nor Stainless barrel, 1 in 7 twist, heavy magnum contour, Ruger 77 SA.... barrel was done by John Noveske, before he started and got famous for his AR work...back in his 'poor days'... knew each other fairly well from over at the range...

No doubt the longer throat makes a big difference.

RL26 works really well with 75's in a .220 Swift. Doesn't the AI'd version of the 22-250 have about the same capacity as a Swift? I wouldn't be afraid to try it.

Two others worth a look are Super performance and R23.

R26 performs differently depending on case volume to some extent so would be worth a try.

I have been shooting the 22-250AI for about 20 years (gave up on the standard version many years ago). I have tried about every powder, bullet,barrel combo that there is.

My favorite is a 1-8" twist barrel with a 5R or 5C groove, even a 6 groove works well. the only bullet I shoot any more is the Berger 80gr VLD.

as for powder the two stand outs are RL19 and IMR 4831

In my experience the worst combo I ever tried is what Seafire shoots, a 1-7" with RL15

BoatAnchor: Actually I use IMR 4895 and 4064... but since we were talking Alliant powders, I used the RL 15 analogy as the burn rate range...

but I'll be the first to agree that each barrel is an entity to its own...

just because I said it as an example of a burn rate range, doesn't make it the worst choice in everyone else's rifle...
or is that what you are implying?

I'm using a 22-250ai getting 3400 with 42.4 of RL26 with the 70 RDF. Good accuracy. It seems to work very well in this cartridge with heavy bullets. I worked all the way up to 46 grains where there seemed to be a node at 3685 FPS, but there was slightly stiff bolt lift and that was at 40 degrees F. 3400 fps should to be plenty.

My very first 22-250AI that I built had a 1-7" Pac-Nor 3 groove barrel that would blow-up just about every bullet above 3200fps.

apparently your barrel is not a Pac-Nor 3 groove but I will never own another 1-7" or another 3 groove (had the same experience with 6mm barrels also).

As for the RL15 I never found a load with any bullet I tried that had under 100fps extreme spread in the 75-80gr range, found several with RL19,IMR4831

I freely admit that I have never shot RL26 out of a 22-250AI

But I have tried RL22 and RL25, I was never able to get enough in the case to get your velocities, dont try your 3685 load at 70 degrees unless you are wearing a full face helmet

I also wouldn't shoot that hot of a load. I believe my buddy was shooting 75's near or maybe over 3400 with his Swift, though. He was successfully banging steel at 1200 with that rifle last summer.

RL26 is pretty dense. You might be surprised how much will fit in a case.

Based on that post, and one other on 243s.... I picked up a pound of RL 19 yesterday ( I've been out for a while...) so I will be trying it once again... and compare its velocity results with my normal GoTo Loads...

My barrel is a Pac Nor Reject.... It was put on a 223 originally.... I ended up giving the rifle to Mike Bellm, after putting the factory barrel back on...

The rifle was chambered and installed by John Noveske, before he got famous....he gave me the barrel and threaded, chambered and installed it for $75... he rechambeed it for the 22.250 for $25..... I use to send business his way, so it was a thank you from him at the time...

its still one of the most accurate rifles I've owned tho...

so I have no idea how many grooves it has.... never saw a need to question it it, based on its accuracy...

it does like 75 BTHP and 80 A Maxes a lot better than 75 A Maxes....just picked up some of the new 80 grain ELD-M to try in it....will start with the RL 19...

Thanks for the reply!