Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Any body tried 80 grainers with a bushmaster varminter?

I have a varminter that shoots great with 55-69 grainers ,i wonder how it would do with 80 grainers ? I imagine i would have to single feed but would the 1/9 barrel be accurate with them? Anybody tried it?

9 is on the edge. Have to try it to find out. I have a buddy that speficially shoots 9s with 80 sierras. But he is on the edge a bit too of stabilization but that comes from his BR days.

What I can say, pick the shortest/fattest 80.. and run it as hard as you safely can.

Then if its a true 9 you should be fine. 2800 fps from a 20 inch tube minimum.

Be aware that not all barrels are true and if its leaning towards 10 instead of leaning towards 8 you may not have any luck.

I'd suggest you put up a quest for someone with a bunch of 80 sierras to sell you about 20-50 of them just to see. Then you will know.

If not there are a passle of 75ish ones. But be aware I"ve often thought the 77 sierra harder to stabilize by a tiny bit than the 80, due to bearing surfaces not allowing as much speeed when set to mag length safely... so even though its about the same as an 80, the 80 might work and the 77s not... 75 and 73s should be easy though.

I measured the twist with a cleaning rod and it is a 1/9" twist and my barrel is a 24" . I cant seem to figure out what OAL i need to seat my bullets at,im using nosler 80's .

Im guessing you will be single loading these?

single load is just like your deer rifle. Find out where the rifling is or if you can even get to it, and go from there to what you normally do... engaged or freebore.

Personally, in a non match setting, it doesn't make sense to me to shoot anything that wont fit in a standard AR magazine. To me thats the whole point of shooting the AR.

Ever load 80s to mag length? I suspect not.

He wants to run 80s so thats why I"m answering the way I did.

Jeff

Nope. Didn't know you could run them at mag length. I guess I thought they would seat too deep and limit case capacity or seat beyond bullet bearing surface. I have never seen anyone shoot mag length 80's.

I've loaded Berger VLD 80's to mag length and ran them with TAC out of a 223 1:8. They shot but not too good. Around 1.75-2" for 5 at 100. I want to try them out of my 1:7 after I get 77's worked up. I don't seem to have a lot of luck with TAC. Benchmark seems to group better in my guns. I haven't tried Benchmark with 80's yet, but I will.

Have you? Do they work better than the 77's from a magazine? I figured if they worked better than the 77's from a magazine more people would be shooting them.

Some don't take into consideration magazine limits when considering new loads, thats why I posted my comment.

Tied up this weekend with fire calls it seems.... I'll get back to this Monday if I can remember...
Jeff

No i dont want to run them mag length,i have lighter bullets for that.

Back with a bit of time...

As noted I"m telling him how to single load because thats what he wants to do.
You post up no sense in single loading for an AR.

My input about mag lenght 80s was its basically not a workable thing, and not everyone needs a mag full of ammo just because they have an AR.

Kind of a personal thing. I have mag length loaded 75 amax and done just fine though.

But the man asked about 80s, not 77s or 75s etc....

80s will trump the lighter ones in the wind, and for some but not all folks some are thinking longer shots, more wind issues and want to be able to have the best wind bucking round working in the AR. And not worry if they have 19 more rounds quickly.

Just different uses for the AR.

I agree with that completely. I was just offering my opinion based on the OP's question. I missed the part in his original post about being aware of single loading.

Ain't none of us perfect right? Grins.

PS don't tell my wife...