Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles 77 grain SMK vs Hornady 75 BTHP?

Great thread guys. I was at the range yesterday messing with my 77TMK loads. Ran into an old marine guy i know and we got on the topic of these heavier bullets. He has been on the 77 SMK and 75gr hornady bthp kick and has tried to duplicate the MK262 mod1 load. He says hes tried TAC, but has had better luck with AA2520. He says his load is real easy to remember because he uses 25.2 grains of powder and uses that charge weight with both bullets the op is asking about. Ive seen him shoot this in his 18" barreled SPR and it does surprisingly well. He says hes averaging 2750 fps with these pills and load. Yesterday he gave me a magazine full of that load to try in my rifles. He laughed at me because i was having a hard time deciding which rifle id shoot his load in. I grabbed the Noveske and he asked, "why that one". I said because its the pickiest one there. I shot a 10 shot group and it was pretty damn centered on the orange dot. From looking through the scope, it appeared to be about a 1 1/8" group. I said, yeah that is a nice load. He said i have a lot of that powder at the house. I said rather than pay for the IMR 8208XBR powder that i just brought you, maybe we can just trade powders. He ran home, and brought me 2 pounds of AA2520 to try out. According to the books, i can get another 100 fps faster velocities vs the ar comp. Probably no where near as temp stable as ar comp, but we will see.

2520's a decent powder. If it had more lot-lot uniformity, it's probably rule the World!

Have you tried WW748?

2520 was a little less accurate for me than RL 15 with the 75bthp in my gun, but it was definitely the runner up, from the stuff I have tried so far.

The only thing 2520 is good for is lawn fertilizer..

I havent, but my friend has used a lot of it. Especially in his grendel.

What’s your rl-15 load?

Well I found a box of 69 gr TMK's that I lost interest in a while back. My initial loads were way slow and accuracy was pitiful. I picked em up and looked at the 77 SMK's, some 69 SMK's and then I noticed the TMK's were 60 grains not 69. If I knew they were 60's when I bought them I certainly forgot but I read up on them and the BC is .323 and thought they might do alright if I can get the speed up around 3000 fps in my 16" barrels. Made 2909 fps with TAC and have room to go higher. Accuracy was not there but getting better with more powder. We'll see.

I could probably run em up to 3700 in my 22-250AI, that wouldn't be bad.

And yes, I'm going back through my bullet stash with my new readers, who knows what I've got.

23.7 grains gives me around 2550 fps. Not the speediest, but decent accuracy. Left group is RL15, right group is factory Hornady 73 grain eld. 100 yds.

Thanks!

You are welcome. I need to get some 77s and try them out. So far that is about as good as I can do with the 75bthp. 5 shot groups are running between about 0.6 and 1 inch with the RL 15 for me, depending on how good I can do that day.

With 22.6 -23.0 grains of AR-Comp, you should be getting for 2725 - 2760.

MM

I was running 2744 fps average with 22gr of AR comp in one rifle. In my bolt gun, with 22" tube, I'm running 22.3gr to get 2680 fps average.
Generally I will not go over book max, but I wasn't getting any pressure signs in the bolt gun. Book max for the bolt gun is 21.3gr, according to sierra. The AR's were starting to show signs of being slightly over gassed and maybe the powder wasnt completely burning.. Loads seemed to be dirtier than I like... and 10 shot groups were slightly wonky with single or 2 flyers and some horizontal stringing.... All signs that the load is not what I want..5 shot groups, on the other hand were mostly sub moa or right at moa... One of the reasons we stress more shots per group. I did not see any adverse signs like these with my slower loads (2550 fps approx) in my AR's... I'll try some of the AA2520 powder when I can get my hands on some more 77TMK pills..My girlfriend snuck out and grabbed me some from Cabela's before she came out to visit.. Don't tell anyone ... I'm actually still surprised my bolt action shot them well and stabilized the 77TMK, considering it's a 1 in 9" twist barrel:


Bullet holes look pretty good (round) and no signs of tumbling... I know this is a thread on AR's and this weight of pill, but maybe some of your 1 in 9" twist ar's will stabilize this bullet as well as my predator does...Just throwing that out there.




Now, it might just be me, but i'd take a slower load that is more accurate any day of the week and twice on sunday, before going with a load that is wonky and unreliable and maybe 150 fps faster. 2550 fps load on 2 different range trips with new Windham Weaponry barrel:

I load the Hornady 75gr BTHP's because I got a good deal on 500 from MidwayUsa.

And they work quite well. But for winning the last in drift in competition the 77s beat the 75s. Just depends on what you are after.

IF you want max speed, avoid the 75s, they will get wonky when pushed hard. 75 amax never did. 75 BTHp always did. Sierras have always been the more accurate of the two over the years. But we too got good pricing on H so used them for practice and non important matches often.

Plus the 75 bthp kills well enough.

How about the Nosler Custom Competition 77 grainers? Anyone compared them to Sierra 77s or Hornady 75s?

I think they are Ok, in most of my guns..................not quite as tight of groups as the SMK, but right around a 1-1.25 MOA & usually cheaper than SMK's. I use the same loading as for SMK's.

MM

748 super temp sensitive in heat. Saw 2 ARs loads worked up in "winter" got to TX heat and blew the mags out of the mag wells... its never on my list.

That's true, but it's probably the velocity champion for those who only care about velocity.

Dunno, I suspect the speeds I got with N540 would top speeds I got with 748. I don't know that for sure though. But N540 was awful fast. Running 90s almost 2800 out of a 20 inch tube... generally ran a bit backed off but that was close to 2750...Not loosing primers or pockets. Relaoding cases up to 20 times....

I'm just going by book loads and the word of some friends who may/may not have ever used 540.
540 is not without it's drawbacks either. It is very hot, hard on barrels. But if you're used to using Varget, you may not notice the diff.