223 AI

[WestKentucky]

I bought a contender barrel on Gunbroker (see image). I paid a bit more than I really wanted to but it comes with reloading dies and a Wilson case gauge so that eased the expense a bit. I wanted an AI and a 223 contender barrel, so merging the ideas it was either 223, 30-30, or 22 Hornet In the AI flavor. This was for sale and came with extras, and was in a length that seemed to make sense, so here we are.

This barrel is a TC factory barrel and my understanding is that they were a short run and all had 1-12 twist barrels. With such a slow twist it seems I need to crank velocity up and use light bullets to get the best accuracy, but that’s going by traditional wisdom for 223 Remington, not 223remAI. My thought is to shoot 62 gr or lighter in this one, which will be nice as it will overlap with the 55 and 62 gr bullets I already had ordered for 223 Remington for use in the AR. I suspect I would push the ultralight .224 bullets too fast to drop down into the 40 gr range, and would prefer to only stock a couple .224 bullets for use in both guns. I’m open to suggestions. The 223 rem is an ar pistol 10.5” so realistically there is a lot of overlap in usefulness anyway. The 4 inches of barrel and 8% capacity increase will just drive bullets faster out of the AI (and confuse the hell out of me when I’m trying to figure for bullet drop at long range).

 

[Lee Q. Loader]

I think it sounds like the perfect setup for my personal favorite bullet - 40 grain Tipped Varmageddon. I shoot that bullet at 3250fps in a 1 in 9 barrel and it's my most accurate bullet.
In a 1 in 12" barrel that bullet would be good to go up to 4200fps...If I did my math correctly
Same applies to the 40 grain VMAX. I shoot it at about the same velocity.