Yep, makes sense to me. I’ve just been loading 223/5.56 on my 550 for ARs. Worked great with LVR and 77 TMKs. Once I got the CTR it shoots the same crap pretty well, or well enough to not be in a hurry to change it up yet.

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I let a young fella borrow the CTR for a 1000 yard informal shoot they do in town in the winter. I gave him a box of 50 of the loads and said have a blast. His girlfriend got on the gun and punched these three at 1000. He shot 10 for score and put 10 into 5-6” at 1000 and smoked a milk jug of water.

Before he took the gun he said are you sure this will shoot accurately. I was said “kid, the gun will do it”. That’s all he needed to know. Once he had the wind doped he was in there for accuracy and precision of guns costing a bunch more money than what my rig cost.

He went and got his own CTR this past week..

So like you’ve figured, you don’t need a pile of money to get a good gun that’ll do a lot of things right with a little bit of forethought. Plus I know this Tikka will shoot 40 BTs just as well as it does 77’s so while maybe it isn’t perfect it’s good enough for me and my dinking around.

Semper Fi