The 220 Laser and 220 Howell are the same thing for those who didn't know. I didn't like the effort it took to make brass from 25-06 so I quit trying. It becomes a labor of love rather than a matter of practicality. I chambered a total of one rifle in this caliber and decided I would be better off with a faster 6 than trying to make 22 bullets do something they really weren't intended to do. I get using 75 grain Amax and the ilk when forced to use a service rifle to shoot 600 yards. I don't get it when you can use any rifle in any caliber you want. If you want to shoot coyotes at 600 yards with moderate recoil it's hard to beat a flat shooting 6 such as the .243AI.
Had you gone the easy route you'd have more love for the .224 heavies.
About a half mil worth here. Launched from a 22-250 for those interested in the short way around the barn:
Dave
Originally Posted by Geno67
Trump being classless,tasteless and clueless as usual.
Originally Posted by Judman
Sorry, trump is a no tax payin pile of shiit.
Originally Posted by KSMITH
My young wife decided to play the field and had moved several dudes into my house
In total truth, it is really hard to beat a good man with a .223 Remington. High capacity cartridges are fine, high BC bullets are excellent, but what is above all else is a superb marksman with many hours of trigger time.
You can design all you want and make all the theories you can, but the truth comes out when bullets are actually shot, animals are killed dead and the marksman learns his both the rifle and the cartridge. The three become a deadly team.
Theoretical shooting of non-existent bullets on the internet is totally useless. Bullets in the air, bullets actually killing things that bleed and die ... that's all that counts. Anything else is total bullshit.
And that is the damned truth.
Another damned truth is that several veteran varmint-shooters with beaucoup hours of trigger time in prairie-dog villages have proved — in the field — that the .224 Laser with real 75-grain Hornady A-Max bullets consistently does exactly what it was designed to be — an ultimate long-range varmint cartridge.
There's no imaginary fantasy or empty Internet theorizing in this report.
I've killed dozens (if not hundreds) of prairie dogs, marmots, and other varmints, at ranges in the hundreds of yards, with .223s, .22-250s, .220 Swift, even a .250 Savage and a .257 Roberts, and several of us with comparable experience have proved that the .224 Laser is a better long-range varmint cartridge than any of the others.
In the immortal words of Pepe LePew, "Eef you 'ave not tried eet, do not knock eet!"
The 220 Laser and 220 Howell are the same thing for those who didn't know. I didn't like the effort it took to make brass from 25-06 so I quit trying. It becomes a labor of love rather than a matter of practicality. I chambered a total of one rifle in this caliber and decided I would be better off with a faster 6 than trying to make 22 bullets do something they really weren't intended to do. I get using 75 grain Amax and the ilk when forced to use a service rifle to shoot 600 yards. I don't get it when you can use any rifle in any caliber you want. If you want to shoot coyotes at 600 yards with moderate recoil it's hard to beat a flat shooting 6 such as the .243AI.
Had you gone the easy route you'd have more love for the .224 heavies.
About a half mil worth here. Launched from a 22-250 for those interested in the short way around the barn:
Dave
22 seconds until the jug was hit, I could sneak up on an elephant faster than that and I have a BC .0003...
I set back an 8 twist barrel that was dedicated to the 80 grain SMK three times,....and the guys at sierra TOLD me that those long, snaky, "grey smoke" prone bullets WOULD be hard on the throat. Moly plated with tremendous coaching and steering from the gent who fired up NECO,.... Or plumb naked,....that Israeli 2520 , or Varget ,....driving em' at 2750 to 2850 FPS looked to be generating .0001" of erosion per shot. Yup,....that out of the humble and ubiquitous 223 case. 2950 FPS was right there, and do-able,....but yielded no improvement in real world accuracy, and were obviously pushing the limits, pressure wise.
That barrel's history, and I'll be running in the replacement with the AMAX 80s, and hopefully 75s when those are gone.....in the same "velocity window."
I like the way that particular combination bucks wind, and pulls it all together way out there, and have just not felt tempted by higher velocities
GTC
Member, Clan of the Border Rats -- “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”- Mark Twain
In total truth, it is really hard to beat a good man with a .223 Remington. High capacity cartridges are fine, high BC bullets are excellent, but what is above all else is a superb marksman with many hours of trigger time. You can design all you want and make all the theories you can, but the truth comes out when bullets are actually shot, animals are killed dead and the marksman learns his both the rifle and the cartridge. The three become a deadly team. Theoretical shooting of non-existent bullets on the internet is totally useless. Bullets in the air, bullets actually killing things that bleed and die ... that's all that counts. Anything else is total bullshit. And that is the damned truth. Steve
Have no idea how good I am - paticularly in someone else's terms - but I do have a good-shooting .223. For that matter, also have a good shooting .222R - and a good shooting .22/250, a .220 Swift and .220 HLaser, etc. All seem to work well for me.
In all truth, every one of those cartridges was once merely an idea, then a design to be dicussed/built/tested and then a good shooter in the hands of a marksman. There is no replacement for skill and expertise with the firearm, and sometimes the differences between cartridges are slim, but don't see how a truly knowledgeable shooter would say that theorizing/discussing (even on the net) and testing new cartridge ideas/designs toward improved performance is total BS. Something does not add up there.
There is no replacement for skill and expertise with the firearm, and sometimes the differences between cartridges are slim, but don't see how a truly knowledgeable shooter would say that theorizing/discussing (even on the net) and testing new cartridge ideas/designs toward improved performance is total BS. Something does not add up there.
Really, there's a statement that might need fallen back on, and re-grouped around. ....put me in the like (love) em' all camp.
....and keeping pressures down, while getting better FPS, thereby keeping barrel life UP, is not now, never has been, and never WILL be total BS.
GTC
Member, Clan of the Border Rats -- “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”- Mark Twain
Lots of shooting and trigger time is all that counts. …
The MAN, the damned rifleman, is way more important than some theoretical piece of bullshit. Bullets fired and trigger time is what it's all about.
I apologize if I stepped on some theoretical toes, but you KNOW I speak the damned truth. After all, I've launched more boolits than most.
Steve, ol' buddy, if I remember correctly, I told you about my project 15–20 years ago, at one of the Varmint Hunter Association jamborees in South Dakota. It's far from a recent mushroom from the darkest and dampest cellar in the world.
Old Wrangler may as well jump into this fart-storm of BS and dance the methane minuet. Now I been hunting, if you can call exterminating ubiquitous little rodents speckling the landscape hunting, since back when when Rosy was a foal and LBJ was air-expressing scrap aluminum to North Vietnam. That's a long time. Fired about every cartridge possible at those little buck-toothed pests, even the .45-70, which made them appear as if they caught a bowling ball in mid-flight before unraveling. It was quite a display, reminded me of playing the Frog in a Blender video on the Joe Cartoon site.
Now what I discovered about barrel twist, big old long bullets and high velocity, came most recently in 2007 when California banned lead core bullets in the condor zone. Up until then I really liked the .257 Roberts Ackley Improved and the .22-250 Remington, and a really stupid .220 Swift I built for long ranges. But none of my rifles would shoot the lead free Varmint Grenades, and there wasn't any in .257 caliber. So I learned that these only shoot in fast twist barrels. Now my favorite long range rifle wears a 1:8" twist 24" barrel in .243 WSSM. It shoots the 6mm Barnes Varmint Grenade at a sedate 3,585 fps, and kills better than an old Asplundh wood chipper with sharp blades. If I miss a little low at 300 yards, that Varmint Grenade explodes on the soil and frags the squirrel like a fractured buzz saw blade. Great little cartridge, even better bullet.
What I discovered is that these jacketed compressed powdered metal core bullets are pretty much immune to puffing-out at high velocity or from spinning as fast as Pecos Bill's whirlwind. Same with the little 26 grain .204 bullets at 4,110 fps from a 1:8.5" twist, or the .224 50 grain 3/4" long Varmint Grenades making 3,600 fps from a 1:9" twist in my .22-250 Ackley. I really like the Hornady 24 grain NTX Ballistic Tipped Boat Tail in my .204 Colt M-4 leaving at 3,900 fps from a 1:9" twist Hart barrel. The cores of these bullets are a solid, they have the quality of stick chalk, when they impact the jacket flies apart and the powdered metal looses its cohesion and acts like a kinetic bomb. Meanwhile, back at 100 yards they all are capable of iddy-biddy groups, usually better than even the best lead core jacketed offerings, including match bullets.
Seems that what kills most lead core stuff, is heat, spin and the qualities of lead. Drive a lead bullet down a barrel and heat from the powder burn and friction from the barrel softens the lead core, while rifling engraving of the jacket places neat "Please tear here," lines in the copper. Drive 'em too fast and it's like shooting frozen water balloons, they last a while until they thaw out then - Puff! Even my old friend in Oregon has switched to lead free varmint bullets, for the reason they are just more accurate, don't ricochet, and are cheap. Not to mention he lives down the road from Nosler that makes really good BT Lead Free bullets. So there you have it. I gotta go see a man about a horse, so ya-all take care.
In total truth, it is really hard to beat a good man with a .223 Remington. High capacity cartridges are fine, high BC bullets are excellent, but what is above all else is a superb marksman with many hours of trigger time.
You can design all you want and make all the theories you can, but the truth comes out when bullets are actually shot, animals are killed dead and the marksman learns his both the rifle and the cartridge. The three become a deadly team.
Theoretical shooting of non-existent bullets on the internet is totally useless. Bullets in the air, bullets actually killing things that bleed and die ... that's all that counts. Anything else is total bullshit.
And that is the damned truth.
Steve
AMEN!
Member: Clan of the Turdlike People.
Courage is Fear that has said its Prayers
�If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.� Ronald Reagan.
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