how to tighten groups. 223?

[Axis II]

my savage hb loves 55gr v max and can put 5 shots I can cover with a quarter. I started loading 55gr fmj-bt and the best group I can get it the one attached. I cant seat any father to the lands it has a very short chamber. is there another way to tighten these groups up or try another powder? I went from start h322 up .3gr until close to max. cci 400 primers.

I have on hand benchmark, h332, h335. cci 400 and 450 primers. I'm trying to use the extreme powders for better temp issues.

http://s1030.photobucket.com/user/martpjin2011/media/IMG_0931_zpste1z03mu.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0

 

[spitballer]

The conventional wisdom is that FMJ's simply aren't as accurate as other bullets, but there must be differences in FMJ quality which affect this equation. I've always thought that with enough pressure, an open-based, closed-tip bullet would expand and conform to a barrel just like any thin jacketed bullet.

Whether this is related to the higher pressures used for military rounds I don't know. I quit experimenting with them.

 

[Axis II]

they shot a lot better than SP for me. SP was worse than that. just wanted some cheaper rounds to target shoot.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

H322 is the powder that was used in a lot of wins when the .222 Rem was king. It is also accurate in the .223 Rem, more than H335 and even Benchmark.

Bullets are very important to accuracy. Barrels will "like" certain bullets more than others. Primers can change accuracy but to a lesser extent. BR or Match primers can help. Brass is also extremely important to accuracy. Most time quality new cases will be most accurate over any once fired or multi-fired cases. Of course using new cases every time for playing at the range will not be cost effective but bullet choice cane keep costs down while improving accuracy. (all IMO of course)

Sierra has 52gr and 53gr MatchKing bullets that might be more accurate in your barrel than the 55gr bullets. If you would rather stick with Hornady they also have several 52gr Match bullets and one in 53gr. Find the sales and give some a try especially the Hornady 52gr ELD Match bullet that has been getting great reviews. I have yet to try them but I will.

 

[Walkalong]

my savage hb loves 55gr v max and can put 5 shots I can cover with a quarter. I started loading 55gr fmj-bt and the best group I can get it the one attached.

That answers your own question.

 

[cougar1717]

is there another way to tighten these groups up or try another powder?

Nope. The 55gr fmjbt is almost always the cheapest .224" bullet. You could try to use extruded powder and keep shooting groups until you get a trophy group, but accuracy has a lot to do with the consistency of the base of the bullet. If shooting small groups is the goal, the jacket opening is going to have to be at the tip. While it is true that your rifle might not like 55gr SP, it might just be that brand of bullet, ogive shape, or length to the lands. I never had much luck shooting hornady 55gr SP until I loaded them to the cannelure and let them jump. Still not as good a vmax/nbt, but not too shabby.

 

[kingmt]

Turn them over & shoot them backwards to what is conventional.

 

[horsey300]

My best accuracy comes out of a 50 sxsp with 23 gr h322 wsr primers and mixed brass=1 ragged hole at 100yds. Your savage should have a fast enough twist to utilize longer bullets (as evidenced by your vmax) but if you want cheap, why not try a bulk midway dogtown or midsouth varmint nightmare? I don't know what brand you're using, but hornady fmjs run 13.something for 100, sx nightmare and dogtown are cheaper. Flat based bullets should get you more accuracy than you know what to do with until you start bucking the wind at distance. A soft tip or HP will save you money. And you can still have fun using them in the field if needed or wanted. Just remembered something! They're not THE cheapest, and not match grade, but Speer makes a HP tnt in 50 (idk about 55) long and thin for a high bc like a boattail and they're not super expensive. Also the varmageddon might be exactly your middle ground, cheap but accurate. My Cva don't like vmaxs so that Speer is the closest I can stabilize, gonna try them if I ever run out of these sx

 

[Axis II]

That answers your own question.

I'm lost walkalong. I do have some good news though.

 

[Axis II]

Nope. The 55gr fmjbt is almost always the cheapest .224" bullet. You could try to use extruded powder and keep shooting groups until you get a trophy group, but accuracy has a lot to do with the consistency of the base of the bullet. If shooting small groups is the goal, the jacket opening is going to have to be at the tip. While it is true that your rifle might not like 55gr SP, it might just be that brand of bullet, ogive shape, or length to the lands. I never had much luck shooting hornady 55gr SP until I loaded them to the cannelure and let them jump. Still not as good a vmax/nbt, but not too shabby.

5 shots of 55gr SP would take a baseball to cover the group, maybe even a softball.

 

[Axis II]

Well guys I guess I should try other things before getting all bothered and asking 20 questions. I was running out of bullets so decided to do 3 shot workups with benchmark starting at 22gr and ending at 23.3gr with a cci450 primer, lc brass mixed years but all trimmed to same length. the circle is 23gr benchmark and cci450 primers and the diamond is 23.3gr benchmark. benchmark tightened my 55gr v max rounds up a lot and now doing this so I think I'm sticking with it for my powder. I will still play around with the h322 and h355 I have and see if I can get any better results but I'm thinking permanent loads are with BM.

I gave the rifle a good scrubbing before I went out and got about 5 patches back black as coal so I will give it a good cleaning and try h322 again and see how it does.

http://s1030.photobucket.com/user/martpjin2011/media/IMG_0953_zpstiselukk.jpg.html?sort=3&o=1

http://s1030.photobucket.com/user/martpjin2011/media/IMG_0955_zps0uvklfcn.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0

 

[Swampman]

You don't actually say what brand of 55 grain FMJ's you're using. The Hornady's always seemed to be among the most accurate to me with pulled M-193 being about the worst.

As has already been mentioned, FMJ's in general aren't noted for being particularly accurate.

If you want to shoot cheaper, less inherently accurate bullets, the only sure fire method of tightening up your groups may be to move the target closer.

 

[Axis II]

You don't actually say what brand of 55 grain FMJ's you're using. The Hornady's always seemed to be among the most accurate to me with pulled M-193 being about the worst.

As has already been mentioned, FMJ's in general aren't noted for being particularly accurate.

If you want to shoot cheaper, less inherently accurate bullets, the only sure fire method of tightening up your groups may be to move the target closer.

55gr hornady bulk. I was trying to shoot cheaper than v max and the hornady SP shot horrible too. I attached 2 photo bucket pics of my groups. I'm very happy with what I got today. I'm going to get 100 more from my local shop and do a 5 shot group with that load and if it does it again ill run them for fun shooting.

 

[Blue68f100]

I shot close to 1000 of the Hornady 55gr FMJ-BT trying to find a load that would give me <1" group at 100 yrds in my cheap Anderson 18" Wylde Chamber. Probably shot the barrel out trying to get a load to work. I did not not have any success with these cheap 8 cent bullets. I used CFE-223, H335, H4198, W748, Varget, Tac and maybe 1 more. These were all shot using LC-15 brass, fully processed including annealed. This barrel does not not any thing less than 65gr, even the A-Max was >1". I would average 1-2" no matter what I tried. I do have a 24" min spec 223R Match barrel in 1 of my AR's. With Tac I average closer to the 1" group but still get fliers. I did have 1 8 shot group that gave me a dime pattern. This was just a fluke. I was alternating shots between 2 targets and it happened. The other target was closer to 2". Tac gave me the best group overall with the FMJ-BT. Shooting 52gr HPBT-Match bullets gives you dime size groups very consistently as well as the 69grs.

Just use the FMJ-BT for general blasting and use match grade bullets if you want to test your skills.

I seam to have better luck with Sierra bullets over Hornady. Don't know why just have better groups after full workups.

 

[horsey300]

Another option would be to compare bullet length to your 55 vmax here: http://www.jbmballistics.com/ballistics/lengths/lengths.shtml and then price them out and go from there. Looks like you tightened your group and I don't know about you or anyone else, but part of the fun of reloading for me is the experimenting! At a glance 55 gr bullets in comparable length to the vmax would include nosler ballistic tip and Sierra blitzking with .811 vmax .810nbt .822 sbk. Alternatively, I've had decent luck with comparing bc within a weight whilst shopping for alternative bullets. Either the length or the shape will make the difference.

 

[Axis II]

I'm going to run two 5 shot groups of these loads again and if I get this same result of at least 3 touching each other im very happy. when I shot these 3 shot groups tonight I was like a kid opening a Christmas gift.

 

[Walkalong]

55gr hornady bulk. I was trying to shoot cheaper than v max and the hornady SP shot horrible too. I

Maybe your gun simply didn't like that bullet, but a good solid base bullet (That your gun likes), will out shoot a good open base FMJ all day long.

 

[morcey2]

The easiest way to get your groups smaller is to move the target much closer. I can shoot one-hole 20-shot groups, if you can make out the hole in the middle of all the powder burns.

I've never been able to get FMJ reloads to group well. I can get them to do better than the M193-ish rounds that I buy, but they still group at 2" out of my best rifle and 3" or so out of my other AR. I've had good luck with 60 gr Hornady soft points, but I'm not trying to milk every ounce of accuracy out of them. I get 1" 5-shot groups out of them consistently and can hit a soda can at 250 yards with them 9 times out of 10. Good enough for me. I have some 68 and 75 gr HPBT that I'm going to work up loads for in the "good" rifle (20" RRA Predator Pursuit upper and a good trigger) to see what it can really do.

Something else about the Hornady bullets is that most of them have secant ogives that are a little more sensitive to seating depth/distance-to-lands.

Matt

 

[IMtheNRA]

Try some standard primers while you're at it. Every time I experimented with magnum primers, my 100 yard groups got about 1/2" larger.

 

[sbwaters]

I may have missed, but you don’t say what twist. I can’t do spit with 55 gr with my 1 in 7" twist. It loves my 69 gr, though.

 

[horsey300]

He said savage, their standard is 1:9, I'd like a savage .223 after all the fun I'm having with the 12 twist I've got now, heavier loads would be nice.

 

[Load Master]

I shot close to 1000 of the Hornady 55gr FMJ-BT trying to find a load that would give me <1" group at 100 yrds in my cheap Anderson 18" Wylde Chamber. Probably shot the barrel out trying to get a load to work. I did not not have any success with these cheap 8 cent bullets. I used CFE-223, H335, H4198, W748, Varget, Tac and maybe 1 more. These were all shot using LC-15 brass, fully processed including annealed. This barrel does not not any thing less than 65gr, even the A-Max was >1". I would average 1-2" no matter what I tried. I do have a 24" min spec 223R Match barrel in 1 of my AR's. With Tac I average closer to the 1" group but still get fliers. I did have 1 8 shot group that gave me a dime pattern. This was just a fluke. I was alternating shots between 2 targets and it happened. The other target was closer to 2". Tac gave me the best group overall with the FMJ-BT. Shooting 52gr HPBT-Match bullets gives you dime size groups very consistently as well as the 69grs.

Just use the FMJ-BT for general blasting and use match grade bullets if you want to test your skills.

I seam to have better luck with Sierra bullets over Hornady. Don't know why just have better groups after full workups.

I'm happy with the results using the Hornady bulk #2267 bullets. My barrel is a 18" Wylde 1:8 twist.

 

[RandyP]

Can't say I've fretted over 'bullseye' type accuracy since my days long ago on an Army pistol team. But the question that quickly comes to mind from the first post is - If you have found that elusive combination that gives you terrific groups, why bother continuing to search for others? When such tiny group accuracy is actually needed, just use the V-Max. Or am I missing something?

Me? for many decades now I've maintained and am more than satisfied with my MOD (Minute of Dead) "accuracy" with all the firearms I shoot at the typical distances they are used. Normally meaning keeping all shots on a paper plate.This pic represents my eight inch

5 shot group using a friend's 300 Win Mag for the first time at 1000 yards.

 

[kingmt]

I like putting all my bullets through the same hole also. I tried to work up something with cheaper bullets myself when I first started reloading for rifle years ago. What I found was the cost I had in working up loads would have paid for the better bullets & they still wouldn't shoot as tight as I wanted. However it wasn't a loss as I had fun doing it. I still use cheap bullets when we are just blasting paper or cans but I use V-max when I need something that shoots better.

 

[jmorris]

my savage hb loves 55gr v max and can put 5 shots I can cover with a quarter. I started loading 55gr fmj-bt and the best group I can get it the one attached.

The most effective way I know of to make group size smaller is to get closer to the target.

If the grid on your attached target is a 1" grid, it looks pretty close to one inch and if your savage can put 5 v Max's close enough that a quarter can cover them, that could be .950". If we are only talking about a few tenths of an inch, might be a good time to be happy with the cheap FMJ's.

The "can" part is another question, what is the average group size between the two? If the best bulk bullet group beats the worst "premium" group, might look at other sources than load data for improvements.