quick question on 223 and 3031

my uncle called me tonight and he is trying to load 223 with 3031.. advised varget or h335, but he insists... don't know why.. but anyway, his spear manual is saying 26.0 is max, my hodgdon and sierra both say 24.6, and hornady is in left field with 22.8...

so I just thought i would see what personal experience has been if your using this combo on a 55gr sp

I load 26.0 grans of varget... so you can actually load 27.5 3031..

he isn't trying to use one for everything, cause he went out and bought this.. the back story is he told me all this a month ago, and so I gave him a couple powders that I and many on here have found to be ideal for this cartridge, and I also gave him some 3031(i use it in 45-70) just to get it out of his sysem.. he shot the best groups with the 3031... so who knows, maybe it shot better maybe he put extra effort into proving to himself he wanted to use it... I don't know.. it is not my first choice by any means.. but it does have decent data for it..

I am mainly looking for some personal experiences I can relay to him on what people are experiencing with this combo

20" AR15... looks like you guys are coming up with most of the same data I did.. I just thought maybe someone would be able to give some insight on their experience with it...

he had worked up to 25.0 grains based one the speer manual, which puts him 1.0 grains under their max. and accuracy was pleasing. but when I started looking at everyone else' data I got a little nervous and told him to consult a few other manuals... and I said the same thing move back down to 24.5 or even 24 and see how that works if accuracy is good leave it alone, and I think his accuracy was fine at those charge weights