Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles 14 Twist Swift and 60 Grain Bullets

Recently bought a M77 in .220 Swift and am looking for good loads with a 60 grain bullet, preferably the 60 grain Nosler Partitions. Anybody have any good ones they'd like to share?

I have a Ruger in 220 Swift. The twist is 1 in 14 and the barrel is only 20” long. I can, under certain weather conditions, stabilize the 60 gr Partition, barely. Maybe if I had a 26” barrel and a bit more velocity, it might stabilize. Maybe. Some folks can use it, but unfortunately I can’t.

The bullets I tried were as follows:

60 gr Partition - results as explained above
64 gr Nosler Bonded Solid Base - a bit worse results than with the Partition.
65 gr Sierra Gameking - at 100 yards, I have no idea where the bullets went.

The 60 gr NPT should work in that rifle.. If not the 63 gr. Sierra SMP is sure worth a try. They are both 'short/fat' bullets designed to work in 12-14 twists.

Yes,I used the 63 gr Sierra For many years. As for the Partition, it would not quite work for me. Almost would. So, as I said, if I had a longer barrel and a bit more velocity, I think it might have worked. My barrel, by choice, is only 20” long. I bought it used from a New Mexico cowboy that cut the barrel so the rifle would fit on his truck dash.

The 60 grain partition did OK in mine. I wanted to shoot the 62 gr Barnes for pigs, negative in that idea!

and so is the good old, often overlooked, Speer 70 grain SMP....

Guy around here has a 1941 production model 70 that his grandpa bought new...
it served as his one rifle, for deer, and elk ( grandpa)...

the rifle is in spectacular shape..

from the time it came out, Grandpa fed it the Speer 70 SMP...
and pretty much each year accounting for his fill of deer, bear and elk each season.
back when Southern Oregon was full of game, and being a logger, you knew just where to find them...

and evidently, back in the 40s, 50s and 60s that rifle harvested game that wasn't exactly checked in to F&G...
back when folks needed meat, they just sorta took it when the opportunity was there...

I have never loaded a 60 grain bullet in the Swift but if I were going to IMR-4064 would be my first choice and if that didn't suit me I would try IMR-4350.

I have been shooting 1-14" swifts for a Loooooong time, never had consistent results with anything heavier than 55 grainers, favorite powder H414/W760

I had an FN Mauser .22-250 with a 1 in 14" Lilja barrel that was very accurate with most bullets of 50 to 55 grains, though it also did well with the Sierra 60 HP and 63 SMT. I tried the 60 Partition and got a five-shot group of 3.2". In a Ruger 77 MKII .223 with a 1 in 12" twist, the 60 Partition did 2.3" while the 60 Sierra HP grouped into .7".

60 grain VMax in my 222 (14 twist) give me 5-7" groups with some weird looking bullet shaped holes in the target.

the 220 Swift is my favorite varmint cartridge i use H414 but i use my rifles in the Swift mostly when its cold coyote hunting. i rebuilt a new Ruger #1 with a new 220 Swift barrel i believe i used a 1-10 twist Brux barrel this rifle shoots 60 gr. Nosler Partitions excellent,but it will not shoot 50 gr. bullets very well with this faster twist barrel.my first shot at a animal with this Ruger #1 220 Swift was at a bigger Minnesota coyote standing 300 yards away and that 60 gr. Partition knock that coyote down dead and hide was not ruined either. my friend kills alot of coyotes runnin dogs with his 220 Swift Ruger #1 "red pad" using 60 gr. bullets too , his #1 Ruger still has standard Ruger varmint barrel on it too, we try to not ruin any coyote hides that`s why we use 60 gr. bullets like partitions.

The 60 grain Hornady SP flat based bullet shot fine in my 1-14 twisted 22-250 so it would seem it would work in a Swift. I used it on several deer with satisfactory results. I would thing the Hollow point 60 grain Hornady flat base would also have a chance of shooting well also.

I've never had much success, accuracy-wise, with the 60gr Partition in anything 14 twist.

Here is a site that you can run the numbers and find out. http://mcgowenbarrel.com/twist2/