What twist for 223 with bullets no more than 50 grains?
Will be shooting factory ammo mostly.

1-12

1 in 12 is standard for 223, but for the bullet you are asking about 1 in 14 will suffice very nicely also.

8.




Travis

1:7" will also suffice very nicely.

yep way more bullet options..you can thank deflave later

If there is a gain in speed from a 1-8" Vs 1-14 it wont be enough to get excited about..IMO I would much rather have bullet weight options then be locked up with 35ers up to 50g

I have yet to encounter a 1-8 or 1-9 twist .223 that won't shoot good 40-grain bullets very well.

But if you've found a nice 1-12 rifle that's calling your name, it will shoot any 50 well, even during an Idaho winter.

JB,

Speaking of 40gr bullets; have you tried the Varmageddons? I picked up a bunch of Tipped over-runs very cheap and also one bag of the HPs.

This^^^^^^^^^^^

Pappy,

Yes, have been shooting the Varmaggedons since they appeared in 2012. They're very accurate, but there's a noticeable difference in destruction between the tipped and hollow-point versions, as well as trajectory, both flatness and wind-drift, with the advantage to the tipped version, of course. They're also thinner-jacketed than Ballistic Tips so "splode" (a term borrowed from West Virginia friends) more when they hit stuff.

The nice thing about Varmageddons is they generally cost less than other plastic-tips, because one of Nosler's engineers figured out a way to produce them cheaper.

what's the gain over and 8t in a 223? 90g bullets? that's about it

We've pretty much got the prairie dogs under control here in WV, so the 'splode factor is mainly appreciated for safety. Of course no one here will let you hunt groundhogs, or anything else much, on private land, so to get any shooting of that sort, I have to drive to PA, where the public land is managed for small game at least as much as deer and turkeys. Up there, they plant crops and mow the fields every so often. The general result is pretty much like old farmland, slowly going back to the wild, which makes for great hunting.

And it even more redundantly obsoletes that old stash of 50 grain SPSX bullets you might have on hand.

The OP (RinB) did not state if he was buying a new rifle or putting on a new barrel, just asked what the best twist was for a 223 with 50 grain bullets.

In reality a 1-14" twist would be optimal, quite a few bolt action rifles come with 1-12" barrels some with 1-9". If shooting factory ammo you might not notice much of a difference but to suggest a 1:7" is flat out stupid, but that is what froggy is famous (or infamous)for.

I shoot 40-55 grain bullets in my .223.. I find if I need more bullet wt. I go to a larger caliber.. I use my .223 for varmints.. I want excellent accuracy, and the lighter bullets to explode on impact either with varmint or earth..
I find the 1-14 does everything I want with that caliber be it .222-.220 Swift..

1&14 for 50 gr or less

Why is a 1-7 twist stupid for 50 bullets in a 223. Mine 1-7 H-Bar shoots them very accurately.

laffin' at the anchorboy...guess he hasn't tried shooting 50s in 1:7"...

I'm not surprised.

but he is pretty good at missing the point completely.

12 or 14

The upside to a fast twist barrel is there is no downside....

Not hard to understand if you've tried it.

David

one guy I was out shooting sage rats with once, brought a Mauser he'd cobbled together.... chambered it in 223, and the barrel on it, had previously been on a 22 Hornet...

so it had a one in 16 twist...

he was managing to shoot 40 to 50 grain plastic tipped bullets just fine out of it...

I primarily shoot 40 gr in my 223's and occasionally a few 50 gr. I have tried a couple of 1-8, three 1-10's, many 1-12 and 1-14. Pretty much true to the benchrest boys ideas the slower twists give the best groups. But with that being said I have managed to make them all shoot under 1/2 inch groups with the exception of the 1-8, using 40 and 50 gr bullets it always shot more to 3/4" groups.

Not a huge sample, certainly not scientific but since my 223's are used for paper and varmints, not deer, I will stay with 1-12 or 1-14. Never had a problem achieving excellent accuracy with them, the same cannot be said about my experience with the faster twists.

drover

I've seen a ton of light bullets blow up in 9 twist & faster.

If you just want to be able to grab any 40-50gr bullet off the shelf and go shoot, I'd go 12.

the only .22 CF bullets I've had nuke out of .223 AI 1:7" twist was a box of bullets I had left over from the '70s. one out of ten would nuke.

I have not had any modern bullet nuke in the air.

my most accurate .22 CF is 1:8", but it's a ~20# range toy with Brux barrel.

my 1:7" Hart barreled brass burper is second most accurate.

I bought an off-the-shelf DPMS Panther and gave it to my son who is 16 and newly "into" guns. 1-9" stock barrel with PMC Bronze 55 gr fmj's, he's pretty regularly hitting shotgun shells. Like previously stated, intentions change and the ability to shoot heavier projectiles is nice.

all mine are 1-7, but am considering a 1-8. I had a 1-12 one time, was fun to shoot those 62 grain green tips from.

I saw a 1/8 .223 nuke 52 SMKs the other day.
Those are usually pretty tough bullets.