Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Your go to powder..........

I almost parted out and sold all my AR's except one carbine after years of horrible accuracy.

2000-MR, CFE, Varget, BLC2, 75 BTHP, 52-55 Vmax's and the list goes on.


I bought a case of Federal Gold Medal Match 69 SMK's and every 223 AR including a PSA pistol shot less than 1.5" five shot groups at 100.

Any clue what powder Federal uses for this load?

I suspect but don't know for certain, I may just be pushing them too hard.


Currently using 'lever and like it but I have a bigly amount of 2000-MR.


The latest build is a 6 Grendel and the first trip out and it was shooting less than 1.25" five shot at a 100 with 105 BTHP's, surely I can get the 223 handloads sorted out.

I'm always perplexed when people say something sucks when performance is dependent upon multiple variables that are use case specific. A powder may not work for one person's use case and firearm, but for others it may work beautifully. For most of my AR use cases and unique variables, I've settled on CFE223, Reloader 15, and XBR8208. These three powder's cover me for various .223, .308, and 6.5 Grendel loads.

My Sig likes CFE-223 and I haven’t seen any issues even with temps over 90 degrees. I tend to work with the lower end of the bullet weights in the OP’s post.

H335 for 223/556 and reloader 7 for 25x45. The 25x45 makes the 223 almost anemic.

For 77 grain: IMR 8202

For 62-65 grain: CFE223 < out of this at the moment so using PP Varmint. Almost as good as CFE223.