Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints 221 Fireball accuracy?

What kind of accuracy are you getting out of your 221 fireball? Whats your favorite accuracy load?

Between .4 and .6 depending on how I'm doing. I like 40 VMs (14 twist) either over Blue Dot, or a legal load of Lil Gun.
Many people rave about LG, and I like it a lot, too.
One caveat...the 221 is a tiny case so a little powder change makes a big difference. Tenth of a grain matters.

That's also about what I expect from 5-shot groups.

I have a Rem 700 with a factory laminated stock I bought several years ago and the only thing I did was replace the firing pin ass'y with a Callahan and adjust the trigger. I wanted to test it to see how the groups went through three, five and ten shots so I stacked four targets on top of one another and fired three shots, removed the top target,fired two more, removed the top target and then fired five more. So what I ended up with was a target with the first three shots, another with the first five and another with the second five and finally, one with all ten shots. It was one of my really, really, really good (lucky?) days with no wind and all ten went into about .550 as best as I could tell. That was with Berger 40 gr HP Varmint and enough IMR 4227 to get 3200 fps. 40 B/kings do as well for five. Neat little rifle and it's not going anywhere.
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NRA Life,Endowment,Patron or Benefactor since '72.

GlennGTR: I have two Varmint Rifles in caliber 221 Remington Fireball.
One is a Kimber Ultra-Varmint with a Leupold 12 power scope on it.
The best group (5 shots at 100 yards) I have fired to date measured .420"!
The AVERAGE group (5 shots at 100 yards) over the last 6 trips to the range (ten groups) with this Rifle measures exactly .7001".
My Remington 700 Classic in 221 Remington Fireball with a Leupold 4x12 variable scope on it shoots nearly as well with an all time average (including load development groups) of .766" (again all groups were 5 shots at 100 yards).
Whenever the subject of 221 Remington Fireball accuracy comes up I always relay the performance of my old friend (now departed) "Doc" Mitchell of the Puget Sound country.
He purchased a factory stock Remington 40XB-BR KS in 221 Fireball some years back.
This Rifle was an absolute tack driver.
I saw him shooting it several timesover a 3 year period.
I fired it for group one day at the Seattle range and my five shots there at 100 yards were under 1/4"!
The 221 Remington Fireball cartridge IS capable of excellent accuracy.
My favorite accuracy (and Varminting) load consists of the Berger 40 grain H.P. bullet, Remington cases, Federal 205M (match) primers and IMR 4227 powder.
Best of luck to you
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I have a LVSF and it will shoot around 1/2" with 40gr V-Max and Lil Gun. Mine doesn't like federal match primers, which is wierd because everything else I shoot loves them. I use remington br primers and the fireball I have loves them. Great caliber, very efficient and effective for its size. T.S.

Mine hovers around MOA using AA1680, W296, or 4227. I am working with RL-7 now to see if I can shrink them a bit. Great little cartridge.

I use RL-7, a 40 gr. BT and a Rem. 6.5 cap.

It'll keep 'em under an inch at 200 all day long, so long as wind ain't nutz....

Never had one that wasn't sub-moa (usually .4 to .625) at 100 yds, and I've had 5 of them so far. My best accuracy came from RL 7, 40 Sierra BlitzKings and Rem 7 1/2 primers (though I may try Remington 6 1/2's after reading the above posts).

Usually MOGF (minute of grey fox).



This particular day and load, .430" +/-

GWB

With a 50 gr bullet (Sierra) I use 18.5 gr of Reloder 7 and a Winchester SR primer.

With a 40gr bullet, usually a Berger, I'm using 15.5gr of Lilgun. Same wsr primer.

Both loads are extremely accurate out of 2 different rifles.

Usual disclaimer: Start lower and work up. good luck!

Best accuracy for me came with 40 grain ballistic tips and IMR 4895. It shot "good enough" with 40 grain VMAXes and AA1680; the VMAX opened up quicker for me and my powder measure likes 1680 but I have to weigh 4895, so mostly I shot the VMAXes with 1680.

b-tips and 4895 usually shot in the .3s. VMAXes with 1680 were more in the .5 range. Since I was mostly shooting inside 200 yards that was plenty good enough.

Tom

Back during the squirrel wars, I used two loads. One load was with a 45g Hornady Hornet with a hot load of AA1680 and the other was a case full of AA2015 with the 45g Hornady Hornet.

If your rifle starts out with a short leade, you should get between 20K-25K rounds out of a barrel before it is shot out if you use AA1680 in the 221 FB...real easy on barrels even in target rich environments.

The 221 is my daughters rifle, LVSF. The accuracy load has been the 50 vmax over a max charge of RL7, 5 shots 1/2" at 100yds. I don't have my load notes handy, I believe the max published load is 18.5 gr. I need to try some 45gr x bullets for a deer load, it wouldn't group the 53 tsx.

Just mounted a new scope on my CZ .221 here are my sight-in shots.


Of course it ain't too bad of a predator gun either.