.22-250 Twist Rate Question

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Theinkman

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Recently starting having some issues with my .22-250. Remington 700 SPS varmint with a 1-14" twist. Currently have around 400 rounds fired through it. When new, I bought a number of boxes of Hornady V-max 50 gr bullets and could never seem to get those to group at all. I'm talking 3-5" at 100 yards with the occasional round being completely off the target. Having owned several .22-250s in the past, I couldn't figure out why these rounds wouldn't group. Tried different lots, same result.

Put a different scope on the rifle and went out to the range to zero it. Started at 25 yards and got the scope adequately zeroed but noticed that one of my shots keyholed. At 25 yards. ***? So I moved to a 50 yard target and began seeing about 1 in 5 or 6 shots was keyholing and my groups were really spread out. Shot more of these same rounds, again various lots, same result.

Thought I would try a different bullet weight so I loaded up some 45gr Sierra spitzers and accuracy was right there-about .65" on my first load. So I'm thinking my barrel has too slow of a twist rate to stabilize the 50 gr V-max. Doesn't make sense to me-50 gr is probably the most common bullet weight in a .22-250 and mine won't stabilize?

Barrel is clean, no crown damage, no apparent reason for the 50 gr bullets to not perform. Any body have any thoughts or things I should be looking at? I'm thinking about replacing the barrel but haven't done anything yet.

Tim
 
Bullet stabilization in flight is actually a function of twist rate and bullet length, not weight. It's just that, with normal profiles / ogive shapes, weight roughly correlates to length and since we talk about bullet weight for other reasons (sectional density, for existence) it's just cheap and easy to use weight as a colloquial measure of likely rotational stability. It may very well be that the VMAX is just too long for a 1:14" twist rate barrel because of its ogive / profile, even though it's not expected to be 'long' given its weight.

Personally, I'm not a huge prairie dog shooter and so I'm not a fan of super-fast 40gr-50gr bullets. I believe that 55gr can do everything that a 45gr-50gr does, with a little more margin for bigger critters. Since I'm wanting to use 55gr-75gr bullets in my 22-250s, I've moved up to a 1:8" twist rate for my builds. Even if you're sticking with 45gr-55gr only, I can see no reason NOT to at least get a 1:10" and give yourself some margin for the lower-drag bullets.

I'd probably shoot out the barrel with stuff that you know works, and move to a faster twist rate when it's time to rebarrel.
 
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I can think of a couple of things.
First is that your rifle just doesn’t like that bullet.
Second is that Hornady let some bad bullets escape the plant. (I’ve seen this before on more than one occasion.).

My .22-250 with a 1/14” twist barrel shoots marvelous with anything Sierra up to the 63gr Semi-pointed soft points. It’s not fond of most Hornady plastic tip bullets. It shoots shotgun patterns with the 55gr Vmax, and won’t hit a berm at 100yds with the 60gr Vmax. The 63gr Sierra shoots 3/4” groups, and 55gr GK’s shoot .4’s with occasional .3’s (one hole groups). Ditto 50’s.
I don’t shoot it much, but when I do, it’s with Sierra’s.....
 
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Thanks for your responses. I have some Barnes 50gr Varminators which I am going to load up and see if they perform the same as the Hornady 50gr. These are HPs so no plastic tip. I suspect they will be fine. I am OK shooting the 45gr Sierras at prairie dogs, but would like to have a 50gr load to give me a little more wind resistance. I find it interesting @GooseGestapo that your gun doesn't like Hornady plastic tips; have heard that from some of my pdog shooting partners about their guns also. Not only .22-250, but also .204 Ruger and .220 swift.
 
Theinkman said:
Thanks for your responses. I have some Barnes 50gr Varminators which I am going to load up and see if they perform the same as the Hornady 50gr. These are HPs so no plastic tip. I suspect they will be fine. I am OK shooting the 45gr Sierras at prairie dogs, but would like to have a 50gr load to give me a little more wind resistance. I find it interesting @GooseGestapo that your gun doesn't like Hornady plastic tips; have heard that from some of my pdog shooting partners about their guns also. Not only .22-250, but also .204 Ruger and .220 swift.
Click to expand...
Are those Barnes copper? If so, they will also be long since copper is less dense than lead.
 
Mic a few to see if they are .224 diameter and not. 223 or smaller diameter. The smaller size is for cartridges like 22 hornet. Too small of a diameter will cause bullet to strip rifling and not spin.
 
stillquietvoice said:
Mic a few to see if they are .224 diameter and not. 223 or smaller diameter. The smaller size is for cartridges like 22 hornet. Too small of a diameter will cause bullet to strip rifling and not spin.
Click to expand...
This, this right here. My dad's 14 will run 50 vmaxs just fine, if you're sure they're .224" check out Speer hp bullets, both the big hp and less splodey wind buckers should work.
 
I have a Browning B78 in .22-250 that has a 1:14 twist as well. It took a lot of experimentation to find really accurate loads - the best of the best is a 40 grain Nosler FBHP (#17225) over 36.0 grains of Varget. That gives me under 1" groups out of a rifle that's not really known for its accuracy. Other decent loads top out with 52 and 53 grain bullets, but the rifle likes the little light Noslers the best. When I went as high as 55 grains, the groups started to spread. That's what I found. If you're stuck on trying to get a good load for a 55 grain bullet, you might try one of the Berger Varmint or Target bullets, which are a physically longer projectile. It might help you out.
 
Theinkman said:
Recently starting having some issues with my .22-250. Remington 700 SPS varmint with a 1-14" twist. Currently have around 400 rounds fired through it. When new, I bought a number of boxes of Hornady V-max 50 gr bullets and could never seem to get those to group at all. I'm talking 3-5" at 100 yards with the occasional round being completely off the target. Having owned several .22-250s in the past, I couldn't figure out why these rounds wouldn't group. Tried different lots, same result.

Put a different scope on the rifle and went out to the range to zero it. Started at 25 yards and got the scope adequately zeroed but noticed that one of my shots keyholed. At 25 yards. ***? So I moved to a 50 yard target and began seeing about 1 in 5 or 6 shots was keyholing and my groups were really spread out. Shot more of these same rounds, again various lots, same result.

Thought I would try a different bullet weight so I loaded up some 45gr Sierra spitzers and accuracy was right there-about .65" on my first load. So I'm thinking my barrel has too slow of a twist rate to stabilize the 50 gr V-max. Doesn't make sense to me-50 gr is probably the most common bullet weight in a .22-250 and mine won't stabilize?

Barrel is clean, no crown damage, no apparent reason for the 50 gr bullets to not perform. Any body have any thoughts or things I should be looking at? I'm thinking about replacing the barrel but haven't done anything yet.

Tim
Click to expand...
I've shot 55 VMAX in a 1-14 twist. I'm surprised the 50s don't shoot in yours.
You may have a slower than 14 twist. I've seen faster than advertised and slower.
You have a bullet it likes. So don't sweat it.
 
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