.224 Valkyrie

#1,501
Alliant Power Pro 2000-MR is nearly impossible to obtain. If I found some online with Hazard and shipping fees, it would be almost $90 a lb. A gun store known for its high price had some for $69 a lb. Well, now I have some.
I have some 75gr ELD and 80.5 Berger Full bore. Does anyone have any suggested loads to begin with? My 224 Valkyrie is WOP with a 23" Krieger 7"twist
 
#1,504
I ended up going with 30.0gr CFE223 and 55gr Sierra GameKings for coyotes. From my 20" barrel I'm around 3400fps depending on temp. Accuracy is acceptable and last fall/winter/spring I killed about 40 coyotes with that combo. A few were with 75gr Federal and a few with 60gr Vmax, but the 55gr SGK's seemed to do the best.

I have about 100 of the 55gr SGK's loaded and I found some 55gr Speer Gold Dots in stock. I wanted to try the 62gr GD's but the 55gr GD's should be fine for now. They are a flat base bullet vs the boat tail of the 55gr SGK's. I'll back off a grain and work back up to check accuracy and velocity.

I'm using an iRay Hybrid 50 this year, last year I had the iRay Alpha. The Hybrid's image is better than the Alpha to me and I like the button s layout better. I do prefer the Alpha's focus toggle though. I need to the get the rangefinder for the Hybrid. The farthest shot with the Alpha last year was right at 350y and I had a couple at or just under 300y. I think with the Hybrid and a bit more accurate load, I can get there again.
 
#1,507
Slightly off topic but with the 62gr VT having what essentially a 88gr ELDM jacket. Is hornady offering two 22 ARC reamers? like a small frame reamer and a bolt gun reamer?

My Valk has the .115" FB so I'm pretty excited to try the new 62gr.

But like you, I've got a lot of irons in the fire. Looks like I'm focusing on ELR for the foreseeable future.
 
#1,508
The owner of Varminter.com has a pre-release batch of bullets he just got. Might see if he's posted anything there yet....

ETA: Yep. Eric has already got an initial report up...

 
#1,509
Interestingly, when Eric and I chatted (we've been friends for 20+ years), I mentioned that it looked like the jacketing was thicker up near the nose. Not sure if it's just the lighting, or how he sectioned the bullets, but it certainly looks that way.

 
#1,511
Not that it matters much to people here, but I was able to take my 88 eld load out to 1080 yards last weekend. Don't get me wrong, conditions were perfect as there was little to no wind, but out of the 30 rounds i shot, 7 missed at 1080 yards. Of those 7, the last 5 was when the winds showed up and I was just off the right side of the target.
 
#1,512
Went out this weekend with my brother hunting coyotes with thermal. He was using his 6ARC and I had my 224V with the 55gr GameKing load from above. We ended up killing 10 coyotes.

Yesterday I purchased a Wilson Combat 20" barrel with 1:6.5 twist. I haven't been real happy with the overall accuracy with the 20" POF 1:7 barrel I have now. I know I am risking it going to a faster twist and shooting 55gr bullets at 3400fps, but we'll see how it goes. If the 55gr bullets don't work, I can always go to 60gr, or 62gr, or 70gr, or 77gr, or 80gr, or 85.5gr etc etc. I just know the WC barrels I have in other calibers have all be awesome shooters. I had other issues with POF and this 224V rifle so I don't have much confidence in it overall. If the Wilson Combat shoots better, then great. If not, I may let go of the 224V caliber and move on to something else. Maybe a 6CM bolt gun... hmm.
 
#1,513
With my 224V, it liked the 80 gn eldm. Was like the perfect compromise between MV and heavy weight bullet. Really worked better than 88 gn ELDM on all levels, for me. I know a couple of others who also swear by the 80 gn.
 
#1,515
224V and 6arc thermals from this past weekend

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#1,516
It took awhile to get the 224 Valkyrie working, like it should, one of the worst get it to group in the AR 15 platform.
Took it apart several times and changed the barrel to 6.5 Twist, checked everything, squared the reciever, glue back in...better but not there.
I usually center the bolt carrier, but it's usually a smaller improvement...not so with the 224 Valkyrie. It responded in a big way
I shoot the 95 gr SMK at 2700 fps into nice groups.
 
#1,518
It's a long barrel, with 6.5 Twist especially purchased for the 95 gr SMK...made with no muzzle threads or muzzle device on this one... going for maximum accuracy. Plus it weight needs no brake.
 
#1,523
Hello all...I need a little help.
I have been shooting the american eagle 75 grain factory ammo group size 1.5 inches at 100 yards..not what I was expecting.
My AR has a 20" 1-7 twist barrel.
Should I try the heavier 90 grain match ammo?
I hope I gave enough info, if not please let me know what else you need.

Thanks in advance
 
#1,524
Have you tried 80 and 87 grain Hornady? I use the 80 and 87 gr match bullets, but I also hand load. If you can find some 84 (I think it’s 84) grain Berger they are exceptional.
At 20” and 1:7 twist the 90 grain is questionable depending on MV. Since you don’t load your own you have no real way to boost speed to help stabilize. If 1:6.5 your chances would be better
 
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#1,525
The 7 works with 90s that was a myth the 6.5 vs 7 … they were trying to blah away a different issue, so they blamed the twist rate.

The 75 should be fine, my JP is a 7 twist and shot them into 1 hole they just only work well to 500-600, the 80.5, 85.5, and 88s all work

SG Ammo had a bunch of Valkyrie factory in different weights try them





The 7 works fine
 
#1,526
Okie dokie! I seem to remember, years ago, using a stability calculator and the 90 would work at 7 with sufficient velocity. The length of the cartridge limitations some rifles had, can make it difficult to reach the necessary speed. At best it was a borderline situation. I would not tell someone it can be done knowing they had to rely on factory ammo.
But that’s me. It may be perfectly ok, but I am not certain. There were guys in our group working with 95 grain bullets. Some yes, some no @ 1:7.
 
#1,527
I mainly shoot factory ammo with the Valkyrie, I rarely reload it, but when I do, I'm using the 85.5s

I bought 4000 rounds of Federal 90s from SG Ammo, they dumped them at $15 a box so I grabbed 4k. The only issue is the speed, my rifle shot them at 2750, and they worked but only to a degree. Accuracy was fine, but you had to be on top of it and 2750 was far too slow, you couldn't see anything when they hit, and it was a struggle but they were perfectly stabilized.

I still use them, but the 80.5g load is way better, faster, 2900fps, they hit, and impact great, but that is the speed. The 85.5g at 3000fps are awesome, same if you increase the speed of the 90s.

The original excuses were all bullshit, it was them scrambling cause they fucked up and they knew they killed it before it even started. They purposely reduce the FPS to 2750 because of gas guns, which is why it works great in a bolt gun, we brought the speed back to it. They could have easily gone 2900 but they got scared.

We even tried talking to Federal about a "relaunch" at higher speeds cause we see the advertised results, they said no, it was dead they moved on to 6ARC and now 22ARC. They wanted a short frame caliber that worked 200 to 800 with an AR hold and they keep messing it up. But in reality that is what they are doing with all these, the ARCs, the Valkyrie, etc, is trying to get an AR hold to Long Range Shots.
 
#1,528
I will not disagree with that, as you point out the import of muzzle velocity as I did. With some of the 224V the magazine will not allow the length you need to take advantage of the heavier bullets. Therefore I recommended 80-85 grain. They work great and with no fuss, no muss lol. I also moved on lol. 224 V had much promise but, exactly as you stated, they muffed it all up. If I remember the 80 ELDM were my favorite. Someone called them little red rockets lol
 
#1,529

You need to shoot match ammo if you want tight groups. The 75gr stuff can shoot sub moa, but it can go over moa just as easily from the 3 lots I’ve tried. It’s plinking ammo.

Try the FGMM 80.5’s or handload 80eld’s. The FGMM 80.5’s are around 2920fps from my 24” and 2880fps from my 22”.
 
#1,530
Hmm,

I am loading them 1.795" to Ogive, and they work, here is my handled with an 85.5 and the factory 80.5g load below it, using an MDT Valkyrie mag, they seem to be pretty spacey.



Ya there is a color change in the edit, I made it stand out in Lightroom.

I found speed to be pretty easy, and loading it a bit longer. Originally I got this load from Kevin in PA, his exact load for me was like 3200fps in my rifle. (Bartlein LH GT ) so I backed it off from 28g of CFE223 to 27.5 and it gave me 3025fps, he was 1.6" to Ogive too.



His rifle was a factory MPA


 
#1,531
80.5 Bergers should be fine, even in AR mag COALs, in terms of having full powder space utilization. 85.5 are about 8 thou longer when loaded to the same intrusion into the powder space.

IIRC these are the min COAL numbers based on SAAMI spec drawings (right column).

223 Rem224 Valk
73gr2.382.15
75gr2.422.19
77gr2.442.21
80gr2.472.25
80.5gr2.462.24
85.5gr2.542.32
90gr2.622.39
 
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#1,532
Interesting. That jives with what I was getting with 27grs of CFE223 and 77gr TMK's (2950fps). A devastating PD load BTW. I often wonder if the LH GT barrels give us a little extra speed at times though....they sure do eat just about anything without any accuracy differences.

BTW, my 27gr load was a matter of convenience more than anything. I had another shooter with us, shooting PD's with a 233 and 55gr Nos BT's, and his load was 27gr of CFE223. And, well, I'm lazy and didn't want to change my Harrels powder measure, so said, "Fuck it, this'll work"... LOL!
 
#1,533
I liked cfe 223, specially regarding barrel cleaning particularly when used in conjunction with hBn. Kept the barrel slick as greased owl shit lol
The only thing I didn’t like about the cfe223 was the temp instability. But that is easily adjusted for as long as you remember. Me lately and remembering is not so good 😂
👍👍
 
#1,535
I was running 1.750 bto with mine. That wasn’t max for my mags but it wasn’t far off. I think I remember 2.30 was max coal but not sure. Hunting for my data lol. Been a while.
 
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#1,540
I personally had mixed results with the 88 grain Hornady. It shot good enough for a gas gun but sometimes I think I’m on the edge of the twist rate or something with the 88’s as they do odd things. I’ve picked up some 80.5’s but I’ve not loaded them yet.
YMMV
 
#1,542
The 80.5gr full bore shot really well for me but they hardly sat inside the case neck with the longer free bore. I'm sure if they were in an AR they'd shoot well and be seated properly.

The 88s are cheap and shoot well for me. If I want to spend berger money on a bullet I'll be shooting something more substantial.
 
#1,543
If you can get the 80 eld-m’s over 2900 with accuracy they will be a great 1k choice. My 24” AR barrel likes them at 2920fps. They have a G7 of 0.258. The only quirk they have is they want 0.035” plus or minus 0.005” jump to work and this can be a problem unless you have windowed mags.

The 88’s like anywhere from 0.035”-0.090” jump and are way more forgiving. They also liked 2725fps in my 24” Bbl.
 
#1,548
Is that data for something like a 60gr Vmax? Wondering about bearing surface differences. If that is for the VMax, I would think it would be good data to use cause those things have very long bearing surfaces. I don't have a Hornady manual.
 
#1,550
I'm surprised its not faster than that, the 16" barrel must hold it back a bit. I've got a 20", so we'll see where it goes. Factory 60gr loads are moving 3150ish for my in my gun, so thats my target for the ELD-VTs.
 
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