Has anyone tried pull down .223 55 grain projectiles?

[Matt Dillon]

Folks, I recently purchased 1000 of these for ~$88.00 and was wondering if anyone had tried them and had any results to report? I am planning to load them to 2.230 inches on top of 25.5 grains of H335. Thanks in advance for sharing your results!

 

[rcmodel]

Mmmmmm?

25.5 grains is at least .5 to 2 grains over max with any 55 grain bullet according to Hodgdon & Hornady manuals.


Maybe yor gun has a loose enough bore to use it?

Regardless, that is not a good place to start testing!

Always Start with the suggested Starting load and work your way up.

Rc

 

[longhill]

Pull down 223 bullets

I bought 2K and had problems with them not being sized correctly.
Ended up resizing them all, just because a few of them didn't fit the case gauge.
Not so much of a deal, having to buy a sizing die and running them all through the die.

 

[Matt Dillon]

My Speer manual lists 24-26 grains for h335 and .223 55 grn. FMJ.

 

[rcmodel]

Well, that still doesn't mean you should start out 1.5 over the start load, and .5 under the listed max.

rc

 

[Matt Dillon]

That is the load I have used in the past with other 55 grain projectiles, very successfully. Hogdon must have reduced their max charge in their data. I never want to go over max, so I will probably go with 25 grains of h335 and see how they shoot.

 

[RustyFN]

I have found the cheap Hornady FMJ-BT to be quite a bit more accurate than pull downs. I use 24.7 grains of H-335 with a 55 grain bullet and have very accurate ammo. I have to agree with RC about not starting that high.

 

[grubbylabs]

Ya they work out great for me. I buy them a thousand at a time. I run them around 25 grains, I would need to look to see what the numbers are fore sure.

 

[johnny.44]

I just loaded up a couple hundred Hornady 55 g sp H-335 26 gr. Lyman book says 27 gr is max. Started at 23.5 and worked up by .5 gr each in bunches 5 rounds. Lower charged rounds scattered 2-3" groups at 100 yds. The 25.5-26 gr powder ones shoot in dime or nickel. That's out of a Bushmaster Predator 1-8" twist. Everything I read says you should use heavy bullets in that fast of a twist but they cost to much and don't shoot that great.

 

[Wildbillz]

I have been using them for several years. No issues with them for plinking ammo. I have been loading them with Win 748 and AA 2230. I have not sat down and shot them for a grouping.

WB

 

[wgaynor]

Any time and Every time you change a component to reloading (wether it's type of bullet, brand of primers, ...) you should re work your load from the starting point (10% under published data is what I do) on up.

I know this wasn't what you were asking about, but it was wise advice that someone gave me once.

 

[FROGO207]

I have loaded a metric buttload of 55 grain FMJ projectiles in 223 for blasting ammo. Great for blasting where accuracy is not that critical but MOA they usually are not. Also agree that for anywhere near semi-accurate you need to run them through a sizing die. Otherwise 3 moa at best is what I expect. YMMV