Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles A good Powder for .223?

BTW HD.. How's your working retardiment going?

We have Tac in the lead with 6 votes, Benchmark at 5 and IMR4895 with 3.

Reloading info for TAC seems hard to grab from the manuals, and the Ramshot website is lacking info also. Could be a factor there.

Benchmark is also not in any manuals I have access too.

Thats half the fun of reloading, lining up the bullets with the powder to the data available.

I don't have any experience with TAC but interested in trying some. My experience is with H335 -- it meters like water and my Rem 788 shoots sub-1/2" groups with a good load of it behind a Sierra Blitz bullet.

I've tried many powders (and bullets) in the .223 over the years, but have been using Reloder 7 exclusively for a while now - with the Sierra 50 grain Blitz. Not the highest velocity, but very good accuracy.

Benchmark. If going over 65 grains, RL-15.

Going great, part time work for full time pay!

I load 335 under 50 Vmax.

Pard swears by TAC, under his 55's. I haven't tried it out yet, but might see what I think come spring.

50-grs and under I like Varget! For 55-62 in my AR's I like H335. I would like to try Ramshot, but why change if you have a winner?

It's hard to beat 26g of 335 under a 50g Vmax with a cci. That was an old standby load for me before I switched to Benchmark.

Bb

Agreed.

TAC does exceptionally well with the 75gr A-Max in my .223.

28" barrel
3055fps ave
printed a 1.6" 3-shot group at 553 yards yesterday

What brand of barrel you running....that's some good shootin!

Thanks! I bought the rifle second-hand, but it's a MacLennan barrel, AFAIK.

I had good luck with Varget and 69 grain Sierra Match Kings but the barrel was a 1x8 twist. Varget worked better than Benchmark for me.

I'd say it's a keeper!

Only time will tell

I'm hoping to use the rifle for F-TR this year, so I still have some work to do.

I guess I'm simple: 26.0 H335 50 gr. blitx king, less then 1/4" groups all the time. Primary P-dog rifle. Cooper montana varmiter. This combo is stupid accurate when I do my part.

H1000 or H 870....

you'll never ever ever overload or overpressurize a case..

as for myself, I have always maintained.. it is harder to find a rifle powder that will NOT work well in a 223, than it is to find one that is 'better' than all the rest....

we all develop our favorites... but just like a goat.. it will digest just about anything...

I prefer Win 748. Outstanding performance for me from 50-grainers up through 75/77 grainers, and significantly less barrel heating than with stick powders.

For 50-grainers, IMR4198 worked very well, too. That was the Canadian-manufactured stuff, though; haven't ever tried the Aussie/Hodgdon version.

50 vmax and h335 works great in my 700 adl