Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Best Subsonic Recipe for Rem 700 223 Bull Barrel 1/12 twist?

I am looking for a subsonic recipe that will work good on game and remain quiet(hog, coyote, etc.) I have trail boss, and various types of bullets ranging from 50 to 69 grains. Concerned with bullet choice and penetration at 50 yards (from the back porch). Any recommendations? Thanks

Trail Boss if you want it idiot proof.. the heavier the bullet the better it will penetrate, unless you go fragile like a SPSX or Blitz.. with the twist, for heavy best choice are the 63 gr Sierra SMP or the Speer 70 grain SMP...

after that, I'd go with a HP or a plastic tip varmint bullet..

Unique from cast bullet data manuals would be a good second choice for powders.. .Cast Bullet manuals will give you plenty of choices for the desired velocity.. at least enough to figure it out.. just work down from cast bullet load data..

Seafire thanks for the reply. I will look at some of the bullets you recommend (if I can even get anything now). I will also look through some of my manuals on the cast bullet recipes.
My question on the plastic tip/varmint bullets, are they designed for higher velocity and will not provide decent performance, or will it be the opposite and actually perform better than the soft point? Thanks again.

I found a link to a Trail Boss http://www.hodgdon.com/PDF/Trail%20Boss%20Reduced%20Loads%20R&P.pdf

Trail Boss in ANY case has one restriction... don't compress it...

beyond that you are good to go...

hope it works out for ya there ParkP.

Hodgdon Lil' Gun is magnificent with reduced loads. I've had great success with it.

All that being said I think the 223 is a poor choice for a caliber for reduced loads for hunting medium game. I'd look at something like at LEAST 30 caliber and my favorite is a 21" 44mag Contender barrel poinking them out the muzzle at about 600-800fps with a sound signature like a hand operated staple gun.

If you're gonna go slow you need to carry some weight along with you for medium game, especially hogs.

Study 300 Whisper data... IMO it's the best of all worlds for medium game but I just got stuck on my 44mag because it's so dang easy to load for and you don't require anything at all special to buy or load for it.

Unique works too but Lil' Gun is the BOMB...

LDHunter and experience with 308 in subsonic?

I loaded some subsonic loads for my 223 using universal clays. Accuracy was fine but penetration was of the charts using just about any bullet though I mostly used 52 gr. match style bullets. I usually found the bullets would penetrate a water filled 5 gallon bucket and enter a second. Penetration was far from straight line with the bullet always tumbling. For head shots I bet it would work most of the time.