What twist rate is it that you have? It seems that you have stumbled on what many shooting .223 already swear by. A 69 or 77gr SMK over 24gr of Varget or RL15 = magic.
I shoot these loads out of my AR. I shot this group a few weeks ago.
The target dot is 1" in diameter on a 1/2" grid. That's 20 rounds fired in under two minutes. It's really hard to be precise for that many rounds, but all 20 went into 1.2" with 15 of them going into .7". Yeah, I threw five of them out. Sometimes I forget to hold my breathe and then sometimes I forget to breathe. I have problems with that when I shoot 20 round groups.
Are you just getting into shooting .223 for accuracy? Those are some killer groups that you posted. I just got into it a few months ago and have the fever bad. In case you're just getting into it, a few things that I picked up are:
Separate your cases by brand and lot (or by weight if the lot is unknown).
For the utmost in consistency, I weigh each charge. I use a Hornady Auto Charge. For plain old pretty darned accurate ammo, I just load progressively. I use Reloader 15 and it's pretty forgiving in terms of small fluctuations in charge weight and flows through a powder drop better than Varget.
I've started using bench rest primers. I found Remington 7 and 1/2s at Cabelas on sale for $30 a thousand, so I loaded up.
I love the Sierra Match King bullets, but you might also want to try the Hornady 68gr BTHPs. I know guys that have had really good luck with those. If you have the twist for it, you might want to try the heavier bullets too. Some say that 100 yards is too short of a distance for the heavier stuff, but I've had good luck with it.
By the looks of those groups that you posted, getting to a consistent sub 1/2 MOA might not be too hard to achieve.
BTW, which scope are you using? Man, that rifle looks like it's one heck of a shooter. You're getting very consistent points of impact. It looks like you know what you're doing on the trigger too. I'm still working at it.
