Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Off Season: Make your 223 a 22 Mag Equiv?

for those of us that do off season shooting and practice...

one of the things I enjoy doing, is developing loads that won't wear out a barrel...

Setting targets at 100 yds, but use smaller targets...

Plenty of sites where you can down load targets to print...

I like downloading NRA match targets, where they have available something
that is sized at 100 yds, to look like what the target would appear at 300, 400, 500
and out to 800 yards....

Currently been adding to the economy of that, by using a load in a 223 that will
duplicate 22 Mag velocities... is much more accurate... and sorta in the price range
of 22 Mag ammo...

7.5 grains of Unique... Small Pistol or Small Rifle primer...

MV in the 2000 fps range... depending on Barrel length, and bullet weight... and primer used..

50 or 55 grain bulk bullets....one can order Speer Bullets in 50 TNT, 52 HP and 55 SP..
for right at 1000 bullets at $100 for a box of 1000....

The 50 TNT and 52 HP are especially accurate... the 55 grainer is more an AR Blast Real Fast
kind of bullet...

my shooting is with a bolt action, single shots each time...

Low recoil.. real easy on both brass and your barrel's Throat and doesn't heat it up
very much unless the shooter just gets carried away....

and a pound of Unique lasts for about 950 shots...and is about $20 a pound around here..

less in bulk.....

Recoil is nil and the blast is pretty darn low also...

especially in a varmint rifle with a 26 inch varmint weight barrel

taping pennies to a sheet of paper, using shipping tape also makes a little bitty
target to shoot at...

Shooting pennies is going to cut into your powder savings.

It just means that it costs him $0.17 per shot rather than $0.16 per shot.

Thanks, John!

Ed

You da man..........

Not really...

you have to give credit to boredom and winter rains... and throw in Cabin Fever...

Varmint season starts coming along in March....

That is just a short 18 months of rainy weather and cabin fever...

Not when I miss...

those are still 16 cents!

Quarters are a lot easier to hit, but are a lot more expensive per shot
especially when you hit'em....

and your welcome Ed!...

Good stuff, John. Thanks for being on the fire.

So why now Unique and not Blue Dot?

Just an alternate source...

I play with this stuff, when I am bored, indoors, experiencing winter cabin fever...

When It isn't raining and I'm not tied up with other things, play hookey and go to
the range....and see how this stuff works out...

I'm always getting requests to see if I have done any work with this powder or that powder..

Have been working with Steel lately also... and Universal is on the request list...

when I find results worth sharing, then I do so...

If not worth sharing, due to lack of accuracy and consistency, then I don't bother...

beats watching TV constantly like my wife spends her time doing...when she at work at the hospital.

Seafire, have you ever sent your .223 Blue Dot, or Unique loads to a pressure testing facility?

I'd be real curious as to what kind of pressures your loads are running.

Ya know, for those that need to.. I'd recommend that...

but haven't seen the need to, using one's head...

a reference point is from Cast Bullet manuals...and jacketed bullets aren't going to jack
up pressures that high...

When I share stuff, it has been worked up further than the max loads I list..

as with a lot of these types of pistol/shotgun powders... your chronograph
will show no real increase in velocity, but the extraction will start showing resistance..

you learning doing this, there are some powders you learn to trust in consistency..
and some you learn not to touch...

shotgun and pistol powders is not all I mess with off season...

been playing with 3031 as of late also...

but if people are worried about anything I wouldn't recommend playing around with it..

that is the shooters individual choice.. and their own responsibility..

all I ever guarantee is that the loads I share are safe in my firearms...

Naythsayers, ( not saying you are one) always jump on that pressure testing stuff right off the bat...

do the same shooters really know what the pressures are on the book loads they use?

evidently not.. because anyone hand loading enough has had loads way below book max, that blows
primers and more in their individual rifles...

if this stuff is confusing or vexing to someone, they should leave it alone...simple as that..

you are working with stuff that explodes...works fine for those who know what they are doing...
who also have to know they accept certain potential risks along with that..

but managing it and using one's head... eliminates a lot of that issue...

I'm using 50gn V-max and RedDot for the same thing.

John, I may have asked you this before but wanted to ask again. I have a TON of 204 Ruger brass and am interested in using 40 grain bullets to create some 22 mag velocity loads. Would you recommend this or should I stay away from this caliber for this purpose?

Cliff,

When I had a 204 Barrel on a Ruger Action, I did this sort of stuff with it all the time...

due to brass availability, I pulled the barrel and went with a 20 Practical done by
a gunsmith that did a couple of rifles for us when I was doing the Veteran Christmas
Projects... strictly due to the Practical is done by just necking down the neck of 223
with a neck sizing die..

Considering what I am doing here with Unique.. max load for so a 50 grain bullet
is about 11 grains of Unique...7.5 grains is way below max load....

Take a 204 Ruger, the neck is a smaller diameter, but the case is a little bigger...
then consider you'd be doing this with a smaller grain bullet.. say a 32 to 40.

To duplicate a 22 Mag velocity, you could copy the 7.5 grains of Unique load...
its all load technique at the bench to not double charge...

Actually my favorite bullet in 20 caliber is the Hornady 24 grain NTX, a lead free plastic tipped
bullet.. sadly they have made them off an on.. don't know if that is a marketing dept thing or not..
but its as long a the 40 V Max...

I enjoyed that bullet launched at about 2000 fps out of the 204 or the 20 Practical...

if you wanted to goose up its velocity to WARP 9... it would safely launch at 4750 fps
with a load of RL 10, or H 322...

cheers and best regards!

Thank you my friend.

Any time Cliff....you're in the preferential treatment crowd anyway...

I use John's Blue Dot loads in my .223 for most of my shooting anymore. I also only neck size and haven't had to FL size in years. For a load that gets me MOA that is all the data I need. If I was even close to normal pressures every few reloadings would need a FL sizing and trim.

Thanks for the info.

What have you heard about IMR's new line...Red, Green, Blue, Target, and Unequal? I keep seeing them on the shelves, for the same price as rifle powders. Wonder how they would perform in similar reduced rifle applications?

I've tried IMR's Blue, using Alliant's Blue Dot load data I developed...

I didn't find IMR's Blue, for this kind of application, as consistent and predictable
as Blue Dot...

Velocities were erratic....which I translated as pressures spiking some, or depressing
at other times..

and that was playing with it, in the 223, 22.250, 243, 260 and 30/06....

in the 223 for example, 13.5 grains with a 55 grain bullet is what I recommend as max
with Blue Dot...

anything over 10 grains with a 55 grainer with IMR Blue, is all I will personally use...

when the pound I picked up of IMR Blue is gone... I won't buy any more of it, as it
doesn't fit any of my needs...

others may have different experiences than mine...but overall I wasn't impressed...

I kinda thought they were attempting to redo the ole blue dot, red dot, green dot powders...kinda tough to beat the originals in many of my rifle applications without the extensive work and load development.

Despite the new, latest and greatest it's sometimes best just to stick with what you know works, and spend that extra time behind the trigger rather than the press handle.

I have used the "cast bullet" manual myself, quite a bit.

tried the 700x in my .243 from 65 grain to 100 grain bullets..

fun and cheap.

just be smart and load each case.......one.....at......a......time.

best one is a.223 load...... 36 grain hollow point with 1.5 grains of bullseye in the case.....yes, 1.5 grains.

it works in my .223 bolt action and is HELL on rats and mice.

EXTRA CHEAP IS......22 caliber pellets from walmart....stuffed in a .223 case and charged with the same load of bullseye..


Best..

Heavy

Tag for 50 gr Ballistic Tip Varmint out of a Tikka.





P

Seafire do you have a favorite 55 grain bullet for your unique 223 loads

Very good information....thanks.

I might have to try something like this for the wife. She is too cheap to practice with regular ammo.

Actually playing with it...

currently running 8.5 grains of Unique, playing at the range...at 100 meters..

have tried 55 grain Hornady, Speer, Sierra and Winchester... Plus some Nosler VG..
none are really showing any more accuracy than the other, at least to speak of..
all would more than enough to be minute of sage rat or gopher at that distant..
which is all I am really asking of it...

for targets I am using the Midway Rifle targets with 4 targets on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper..

at that distance... am doing as I care to say, minute of sage rat...some groups tighter than others..

also tried some 50 grain bullets...

50s, Hornady, Speer TNT, Sierra SMP, Winchester... same points of impact as the 55s at 100 meters.
none more accurate than the others..

Blue Dot does give tighter groups, I can tell ya that..

but hey, its off season, getting in range time... experimenting and playing around....

all of these are more accurate than any 22 Mag I have tho...

Rifle that has been road testing these loads is a Howa Mini Action, I got thru Whittakers
chambered in 223, 1 in 9 twist...

hey, this is low enough recoil, cheap enough to shoot, and accurate enough,
I think even some of our campfire snowflake trolls could hit something with it at 100 yds,
well on second thought, maybe 50...

if they got off their asses, out of mom's basement.. or their dumpy apartment
and actually went shooting.. if they even really own a firearm...