Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Anybody reloading the .224 Valkyrie yet?

I am getting dies and bullets together to start reloading for a .224 Valkyrie I just bought and was wondering if anyone had any powders they might recommend to start of with. I couldn't find any 90 gr Sierra's, so I ended up with some 80 gr Sierra's to try since my twist was 7" and wasn't sure 90s would stabilize by what I read. I was looking at the Sierra web site and was thinking about the CFE 223 powder. Like the idea of less copper fouling, Dyna Koting the bore before I start shooting it, but was wondering if it "erased" copper build up, why doesn't it start "erasing" my brass also. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer by no account, just pondering. Thanks in advance for any advice, Chuck.

90 Sierra's work fine in a 7 twist.

Glad to hear that. I couldn't help but wonder if that magic 1/2" shorter twist would go from not working to great accuracy all by itself. I believe the difference in barrels of the same twist has more to do with rather a 7 twist would work or not with the Sierra's 90s.

90s ALMOST stabilize in a 7 twist 223 with 20 inch tube. They would slightly oblong holes at 300 yards... at 100 you never knew it was happening...

I believe that will correlate that 7 in the valk will be fine.

Jeff, is that JLK 90s or Sierras?

Sierras are totally different beasts from JLK and even Berger 90s. The Sierra is much shorter.

I shot a few of the sierras and bergers fulll throttle loads as they came out in our 7 twists just to see. Just like the JLKs. They oblonged the holes at 300 maybe a bit more than the JLKs did, but it was just to see, 7 twists are Kriegers.

Both sierras and bergers shot fine from our 6.5 twist pac nors. But the JLK had it on BC and IMHO the Berger and SMKs don't offer enough of the BC to be of much if any advantage over a VLD 80.

All the above in 223 of course. And full throttle N500 loads, coated bullets, coated bore, 3 groove stuff so the bullets were not as pressured as a 4 groove bore might...

Hmm.. 90MKs shot just as well out to 600 as the 80s from a 7 twist Satern 5R.

Some years back I loaded up some 90gr Sierra in the 223 case, and shot them from my 20" 1/7 Colt. Muzzle velocity was around 2550 if I remember correctly.

I tested them at 400 yards. They were cutting clean round holes.

This was done in summer weather at 4000 ft elev.

I think 1/7 is real iffy with the 90s.

I agree at typical velocities out of 16-18" barreled 223/5.56.

But at velocities available from the Valkyrie, the SMK will be OK; maybe not so though with the longer, VLD / JLK 90 grainers & I wouldn't want anything less than a 6.5" twist for those.

But with BC's & velocities available out of the Valkyrie, I think that 80 grainers will perform at least as well as some for the 90's.

I haven't built one or bought one yet but if I do, I will likely look to focus on the 80 grainers.............not sure if all the really long 90's will even fit the magazine, & for me the real advantage is a better bullet in a mag length package, as I have no interest in single loading the longest & heaviest bullets to squeeze out a wee bit more performance.

Anything that won't fit the mag is of no real interest to me at all.

MM

I dunno, with the extra umph I think even the JLK types would be just fine with a 7. As I've said it was VERY close to stable with 90jlks for sure, at 300 just showing a tiny bit of oblong, that was before I swapped from N550 to N540 and gained speed.
FWIW it was at 250 feet ASL, usually around 80 -90 degree temps, and humidity at testing time was usually fairly much 50% or higher.

I do not recall the initial test MV, but I THINK it was in the upper 2500 or lower 2600 range as I think my end load in a 6.5 twist was about 2750ish in 223.

CFE, Alliant Power Pro 2000. Re17 works but to get any velocity you must use compressed loads. Save some time and buy a windowed mag and load the 90 and 95smk, all of the ELDs long either .005 off the lands or .005 into the lands. There will be a bunch of changes over the next year.

The windowed magazines you are speaking of, are these pmags? I wasn't aware that pmag made 6.8 magazines. Pmag is always my first choice, but not sure which magazine you are talking about, but appreciate the advice.

No, windowed in the front so you can load longer than 2.29" They are usually PRI mags that have been cut.

I'll look for some. Thanks.

I think Cavity Back Bullets sells the long load mags.

I looked at the JP Enterprises and the Criterion Valkyrie barrels both are 1-7 twist.

I've accumulated enough brass to try some reloading. I split the neck on a resized case and it appears that a 90 gr Sierra HPBT measures 2.310" to touch the lands of my chamber. COAL of 2.285" gives me .025" jump and fits thru the magazine I'm using. Sierra recommends COAL of 2.260". Anybody foresee any problem with .025" jump or should there be more for an AR? Reloaded a lot for bolt actions, not so much for an AR.
Thanks, Chuck.

I was able to do a little reloading today with the 90 gr and 80 gr Sierras. I tried RE 15 and CFE223 powders. Both bullets measured COAL of 2.310" in my chamber. I suppose the difference in length of the bullets must be in the straight .224 part of the bullet. I only tried loading toward the upper Max load data listed on the Sierra website, thinking the biggest advantage of this round was being able to push long bullets at high velocity. My barrel just didn't want to shoot the 90s, 2 1/2" groups at 100'. The holes appeared round in the paper, but wouldn't group well. I loaded the 80 gr HPBT Sierras at COAL of 2.275", 26.5 gr. of CFE223 powder using 400 CCI primers in Federal brass. I was getting an average of 2841 f.p.s. 8' from the muzzle. The factory American Eagle 75 gr load listed at 3000 f.p.s. at the muzzle on the box and 2981 f.p.s. 8' from the muzzle on my Ballistic app was measuring 2885 f.p.s. in my 20' barrel. I'm sure all the published data is with a 24" barrel. With this handload I was able to get several 7/8" 5 shot groups with this load. I was a little surprised at how bad the 90s shot in my 1 in 7" barrel. This looks like what I will probably shoot for a while. This was the listed Max Load with the 80 gr HPBT Sierra, but at .015" longer COAL, so I suppose in theory a little less than Max pressure. Primers showed a little flat, but they seated extremely easy on first reload as I think the federal Brass may be a little soft, along with the primer pockets. No real signs of over pressure. I guess that the 1 in 6.5" or better yet just go to a 1 in6" twist barrel would be the best way to go.
Your Mileage May Vary, Chuck.