Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Range day bummer

Those varmageddon bullets are extremely accurate. A buddy of mine found some on clearance, at Walmart, last year for $14/box and he called me and asked if he should buy them. I said hell yes and told him to buy all he could at that price, since I load for him. They work great in his 223 and his 22-250. In fact the last time we were out at the range, I brought out some AR 500 plates to shoot at and those varmageddon's almost put a hole through the plates at 100 yards. I told him no more shooting at the plates with his 22-250. Those were the screaming fast 40's though, they work well on yotes too. No problem with penetration.. I can understand why you like them.

No I haven’t messed with them. They are cheap enough I should buy some to try out.

So to be clear, there is absolutely zero and I do mean zero on Hornadys site about optimal twist in the 53 VMax. Did find reference to it on Accurate Shooter, Benchrest central and Midway USA which really fugging sucks donkey balls when you buy from a retailer in Grand Island Nebraska.

https://www.hornady.com/bullets/rifle/22-cal-224-53-gr-v-max#!/

Thanks for clarifying Swifty. I did see the reference on Midway's site, when I was checking prices. It clearly states for 12 twist and faster. Hornady should definitely clear that up on their site. I'm also thinking I may have a complete fail when trying these bullets through my Tikka varmint, but the Stevens with the 1 in 12 will eat them up and probably love them. I loaded up more last night with AR Comp. I'm hoping to try them out and shoot them over the chronograph as well...

Interesting subject we got here. After Swifty said he is getting tumbling in everything he's tried the bullet in, I am going to say again, bad lot of bullets. Contact Hornady buddy.. I tried to get these things to tumble today, but sorry it didn't happen. This is the load I worked up for my new to me Winchester model 70 XTR FWT. It shoots sub moa in that rifle, after extremely minimal load work up. One of the beauties in this bullet. Here's how it did today in 2 other 22-250's:

1 in 12 twist Stevens 200:

Jump to lands is .072", so it is not an optimum load for this rifle, yet is still an honest sub moa load......

1 in 14 twist Tikka varmint 22-250:

I started out shooting these mofo's fast, just to check to see if the bullet was going to stabilize. First group on left is big for that reason. Then I said fu ck these are stabilizing just fine. The group on the right was shot for accuracy. Still an average that is sub moa for 10 shot groups. The first 3 shots went into the same hole. One reason I generally don't take pics of 3 shot groups with my varmint rifles. Its pointless. After 5 shots downrange, I walked down and took a pic of the target. It was a ragged hole. Take if for what it is, but these stabilized in the 1 in 14 just fine.

Now, check out this picture. Right down on the bottom of the load data, Hornady states that these bullets are not for use in a 1 in 14 twist barrel:


I'm thinking Swifty has a Hornady load manual? Maybe his is older. I'll have to check my older manual and see if that verbage is in that one as well...

Close up of the bullet holes:


It has also been said more times than 1 around here that bullets tend to stabilize better, the further out you shoot them. That has not been my fu cking experience. I'll shoot them at 4-600 yards and see how they do. Again, for those of you having issues with this bullet, don't blame the bullet. It's actually pretty fn good. I've been using them since they debuted and have never had an issue with them.

Seafire, let us know how they do for you. Thanks. I think our buddy Swifty has a bad barrel or bad lot of bullets. Wondering how many thousands of rounds he has on that 220 swift barrel, and that AR must suck balls.. I could work up a load for my AR's, but it would prove nothing. The bullet would prove to be sub moa again. Go figure..

Damn, you just gotta try and prove that you have azzholeitis. Guess you couldn’t comprehend this statement “ that caused me to dump everything Hornady and quit buying their products in the 90’s. ”

Yes I have one and only one Hornady manual circa 1991. 😳 Damn kinda fits that statement above.
My Cooper 220 Swift has <800 round s through it and the fastest I have pushed is 3800 after burning out the first tube.
My AR is minute of coyote @300 + not a piece of [bleep]. I don’t handload for it because I have roughly 4500 rounds of 55 and 62 grain factory that only cost 23 and 28 cents per.

But have at it, just don’t let your azzholeitas turn you into Chuck on weird science 💩

The bullet’s stability increases as its speed decreases, but only until speed approaches the trans-sonic range. Also, a bullet that is barely stable can be perturbed by other factors like switchy winds.

I’ve said it already, but it bears repeating: the difference between stability and instability can be as simple as the air density difference between two locations/conditions, assuming all else is equal.

You mentioned that the rifle has a 7” twist. Are you certain about the twist rate? Have you measured it?

Yep. 2 1/4 turns over 16”.

Again thanks Jordan as it got me to thinking, also got me digging into articles I remembered. These 2 in particular

https://riflebarrels.com/effects-of-altitude-and-temperature-on-rifling-twist/

Good read. Which may explain why it might shoot in Oregon but not Nebraska.

https://riflebarrels.com/a-look-at-bullet-imbalance-and-twist/

Another good read. Think the man knows his stuff.

So yes it very well could be atmospheric and elevation differences, or it could very well be just bad bullet construction for that lot.

Again I appreciate your thoughts.

Roger. Just curious.

Yup, that's exactly what I had in mind.

I agree with your conclusion. If the bullets are keyholing from a 7" twist .223, then I'm leaning toward the latter possibility.

Sorry your feelings got hurt man. I just wanted to check to see if those dreaded 53's would stabilize in my rifles and it appears they do. Even in the 14 twists. 2 of them in fact. Now, if those bullets are tumbling in your 1 in 8 twist AR, I still say the bullets are bad. No reason they should be tumbling, unless Hornady screwed up. And they do at times. Like I posted earlier, I've had some bad Hornady bullets. Posted pics of those too and Hornady treated me right and sent me some new bullets. Pretty cool of them. As per always, I back up what I say with proof and "pics are worth a 1,000 words". You guys that are having issues with these bullets in 1 in 8 and 1 in 9 or even 1 in 12 twist rifles are doing something wrong. Developing loads is pretty damn easy, as shown above. Developed a load for one rifle and it even works in 2 other rifles. Not optimum, but it works. No one else here is showing 10 shot groups into sub moa, but you guys can keep carrying on with your bad selves... ha ha..

👍

Brings up a good point. I have a 30-06 Pre 64 that we have loaded Nosler Partitions in forever. This last hunting season I was running low and got a new batch of pills from SPS and proceeded to load them to my old specs and took them out to shoot. This gun has always shot under MOA by a bit, but that day it wouldn't come close to 2 MOA or a bit larger. Went home, loaded up some Ballistic tips in the same weight and all else being the same- seating depth, charge weight, etc.. and took them out and put them in a couple cloverleafs for 5 shots each.... I've been shooting Partitions for longer than I can remember and never had this problem with them. So, a bad batch of bullets is a definite possibility IMO... I've had the same happen with Hornady Spire Points also in a couple rifles.... made me scratch my head at the time...

Bob

This kind of stuff makes me wish the Juenke machine had become ubiquitous.

And the campfire clown is at it again.........

You are a fu cking idiot. You can not comprehend easy chidt. If his bullets are tumbling in a 1 in 7 twist rifle barrel, there is something wrong with the bullets. He has not given the lot number, so who knows when they were made. I gave lot numbers for bullets that stabilize fine in my 1 in 12 and 1 in 14" twist barrels. What have you contributed to the thread? Take up golf because you sure as fu ck don't know about shooting or hand loading.. Here's the bullet in question that swifty says is schidt. Shot it at 400 today, just to be sure it was going to stabilize in a 1 in 14" twist barrel. Some guys may read some of these posts and just assume the bullet is schidt. Others go out and check it out for themselves:



I shoot just a little bit. Those that get offended don't and are clueless. Much like yourself. Take up golf man, that is more your forte...

Guessing how much a person shoots that you dont even know…..priceless