Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 22-250 1-14 twist rate....heaviest bullets?

Hey guys! I know where there is a 22-250 with a 1-14 twist rate, but I am wondering if I can shoot the heavier 60+ grain bullets out of it?

Anyone ever try heavier than 55 grain bullets in a 1-14 twist on the 22-250?

Iam, Its the length not the weight-Muddy

I have shot 63 grain Sierra, 64 grain WW, and 70 grain Speers from my 1-14's.. No problem.. If I need more bullet, I just pick up a bigger caliber.. I have also had very good success with Nosler 60 part., but not all folks have..

Is that what she said?

I've shoot the 55 vmax fine in mine, but the 52 amax was more accurate. I know a number of guys that get the 60 partition to shoot, but I've never tried it.

Yeah. My first .22-250 shot the 63 grain Sierra and 70 grain Speer pretty well. It also shot the 60 grain Nosler solid base. It would shoot the Hornady 60 grain spire point but not their 60 grain hollowpoint.

The last one wouldn't shoot a 55 grain bullet well except, for some reason, the TBBC. Otherwise, it ate 50s. My guess ... the twist was somewhat slower than the nominal 1-14", maybe more like 1-14.5".

It doesn't take much to move the edge between what works and what doesn't. 1-14" is usually close to 1-14" but it could be a little faster or a little slower and make a huge difference in outcome.

Tom

The heaviest I have shot in a 1 in 14 Ruger #1 was the 60 grain SP Hornady and Nosler 60 grain Solid Base bullets. I used them because the Ruger had a very long throat, and I wanted to get closer to the lands. We weren't allowed .22 center fires for big game back then, so I didn't try anything bigger. I am thinking the Nosler 64 grain bonded might work.

Same here.

In mine, a Blaser singleshot with a 1:14 twist too, I get superb accuracy with Sierra's 63gr SMP.

And now that others mention it... Nosler's 60gr Solid Base was quite a bullet, asking to be reintroduced :-)

I can speak well to the suitability of the 63 Sierra and 64 WWPP in several 1/14" .22-250s. Just push them at top velocity.

I can't say about the Speer and Nosler, having never tried them.

You gotta shoot it to find out. Not all 1-14's will stabilize heavy (long) bullets. For that matter, not every 1-9 will either.

I shot the 63 gr Sierra SMP's in my 1 in 14 twist Swift (extremely accurate). It wouldn't quite stabilize the 60 gr Nosler Partition, but it was close to doing it. It didn't come anywhere close to stabilizing the 65 gr Sierra GK. I'm thinking that it might stabilize that new 64 gr bonded Nosler, but maybe I'm just kidding myself. There was a guy on another forum that said he'd send me some of the bonded Nosler's, but he never did. Dang.

Aside from bullet length, a lot depends on shape and also on the elevation and temperature where you shoot. Higher elevations and temperatures allow bullets to stabilize more easily.

Then there are the bullets themselves: Companies do put out relatively unbalanced batches now and then. All of this is why computer programs for calculating twist rates don't always work. Any little fault in one batch of bullets can prevent them from stabilizing in a twist that normally does the job well. I've had batches of 53-grain TSX's and 60-grain Partitions that wouldn't shoot consistently in 1-14 twists, while other lots of the same bullet would.

In general, however, just about any bullet up to 55 grains will do OK in a 1-14 twist, but 60-65 grain bullets can be iffy, even if they have shorter ogives supposedly designed for slower twists.

Mule Deer, when I said that the 60 gr Partitions wouldn't quite stabilize, the nearness to stabilization wasn't apparent for several days. I had wanted to use that bullet in my 220 Swift, so I bought a box of them. Did load workups on day 1. Shot pretty good, and I was happy that it would work in the Swift. Couple of days later I decided to check the zero with a cold bore. The bullet would not stabilize. The only difference in conditions was ambient air temp and maybe humidity. So all I can say is that under certain circumstances the bullet will work in my rifle, but naturally that isn't enough to load some up and plan to hunt with them. As for the 65 grain Sierra, I have no idea where they were landing. Nothing was ever close to paper at 100 yards. But those stumpy little 63 grainers from Sierra will shoot like a champion. The load I was looking for was for medium sized to large sized hogs. The 55 gr Nosler Ballistic Tip was killing them, but I had to track most of them. I've loaded up a bunch of 55 gr Sierra GKs but haven't had a chance to bust a pig with one. And I'd still like to try some of those Nosler 64 gr bonded bullets, but they are a bit stumpy and don't appear to be what a fellow might call a long range bullet.

I always thought that part of this twist rate issue that seldom gets discussed is how fast the bullet is going MV(muzzle velocity). But more to my point.... the "RPM" of the bullet, after all it is the spin that "stabilizes" the bullet.

So it would seem for a given bullet the faster it is shot (yielding a higher RPM) it would be (more) stable for a longer period of time than a slower bullet from the same twist.

As an example, Say for the current discussion a 22-250 (1-14) with a 60 grainer with a MV of 3400fps might be stable, where the same bullet with the same twist (1-14) in a 223 with a MV of 2700fps might not be stable (or as long).


Is my thinking incorrect ?

More velocity doesn't make as much difference as many people believe.

Bullets have two conflicting forces acting upon them after leaving the muzzle: the spin, which stabilizes them, and air pressure on the front of the bullet, which destabilizes them. More velocity increases the stabilizing effect of spin, but the extra air pressure tends to counteract it.

64 WW shot fine in my Ruger. 69 Sierras keyholed.

I have fought with this for years. When the plastic tipped bullets were invented, they (gunmakers) should have sh1tcanned all the 1-14" tooling and moved to 12. I had a Swift with a 14 twist and still have a 22-250 with a 14. Neither would shoot the 60 grain partitions any better than about 4" and wouldn't shoot any of the 55 grain plastic tipped bullets better than about 3" but would drill 40s into 3/8" groups and 50s about as good.

I shoot 40s and 50s exclusively now and sold the Swift (pre-64) because I thought it was useless as a hunting rifle. I had a bunch of 55 grain Sisk bullets and they were outstanding. Wish I still had a bunch. They were much shorter obviously that the 55 grain Vmaxs that I can't shoot.

On a tangent, I just got a 700 rebarreled to 22-250, 1-7" ROT. I'm just working up loads, but so far it loves 55 grn TTSXs and 70 grn TSXs, but won't shoot a 62 grn TSX for squat.

Everyone seems to forget the old Speer 70 grain SMP...
one of my favorite 22 caliber bullets for deer...

as a hint tho, I don't recommend shooting one and hitting a deer in the back of the neck from behind....I did that once out of a 22.250... the deer turned just as it saw me and presented me only with a "texas heart shot".. as he took off...

since I don't believe in taking those myself, I usually aim right over the tail as it is running away... and actually surprise myself on downing them with a shot like that...

for at about 250 yds, a "lucky shot" took that running buck right in the back of the neck... he literally did a somersault when hit...

got to him, and good thing it was not a head you wanted to mount...the bullet hit the spine and the front of his neck was literally opened up like a book, the size of a book...

The load had the 70 grain Speer leaving the barrel at 3300 fps...

have also used the same bullet out of a the 223 on blacktails and it does a darn good job...instantly down every time...