****Mods, I'm not posting the group for bragging rights; I just thought it was neat to see evidence of the rounds right on the edge of their capability. I will remove the pic if it violates the shot group rule.****
I honestly didn't know that it would do it, but thought I'd give it a try for fun.
On my last range trip I was quite pleased when I got a couple of 5 - 7" five shot groups at 620 yards with 69g SMKs over 25 grains of Varget. Problem was that sometimes the groups would open waaaaay up vertically, and I had erred on the faster side of the node that I had found earlier. I backed my load down to the proven 24.5 grains of Varget, and I got consistent vertical dispersion of between 4 - 5" for several five shot groups this past weekend at 710 yards. Cool thing was - and the reason for this post - is that almost all of the rounds were just starting to de-stabilize, and would make either a slightly elongated round hole or hit straight on. Shooter for Android said 700 yards was the end of the line for these loads, so that extra ten yards must have been tuff.
It's the frown shaped group right above the target marked "223 700yds." Guess I found the absolute outer limits of my little home defense carbine.
My gun started life as a DPMS AP4 lite, and as the name implies has a 16" lite barrel that shoots great for not being match grade. Velocities averaged 2,582 fps for these loads at 16ft elevation, 60 deg temps, and 30.04 pres. The gun wasn't zeroed to the 24.5g loads, but to the 25g ones; I was just dialing in on a guess from the difference of the 25 grain loads to see if they would hold a consistent group. Wind didn't pick up til the afternoon, and at last light I was chasing a balloon around forgetting to add adjustment for the 10 mph breeze. Also, I still had the original 29 MOA dialed on, and didn't bring it up.
This carbine shoots better than my Krieger barreled LR308 which has been giving me fits finding a consistent load for. It seems to like 43.3 grains of RL15 in a Winchester case with a 175g J4, but it sometimes drops a round down low which may be my LEE not-so-Perfect Powder measure. I noticed that sometimes the top few grains of extruded powder get jammed up in the measurer, and a quick tap makes it fall out. That may be it.
A parting shot of the bean field where I shoot:
I'm excited that next time I shoot I will have at least one rifle that I'm not developing loads for, and can instead work on popping balloons or slaughtering helpless groghounds at range!
I honestly didn't know that it would do it, but thought I'd give it a try for fun.
On my last range trip I was quite pleased when I got a couple of 5 - 7" five shot groups at 620 yards with 69g SMKs over 25 grains of Varget. Problem was that sometimes the groups would open waaaaay up vertically, and I had erred on the faster side of the node that I had found earlier. I backed my load down to the proven 24.5 grains of Varget, and I got consistent vertical dispersion of between 4 - 5" for several five shot groups this past weekend at 710 yards. Cool thing was - and the reason for this post - is that almost all of the rounds were just starting to de-stabilize, and would make either a slightly elongated round hole or hit straight on. Shooter for Android said 700 yards was the end of the line for these loads, so that extra ten yards must have been tuff.
It's the frown shaped group right above the target marked "223 700yds." Guess I found the absolute outer limits of my little home defense carbine.
My gun started life as a DPMS AP4 lite, and as the name implies has a 16" lite barrel that shoots great for not being match grade. Velocities averaged 2,582 fps for these loads at 16ft elevation, 60 deg temps, and 30.04 pres. The gun wasn't zeroed to the 24.5g loads, but to the 25g ones; I was just dialing in on a guess from the difference of the 25 grain loads to see if they would hold a consistent group. Wind didn't pick up til the afternoon, and at last light I was chasing a balloon around forgetting to add adjustment for the 10 mph breeze. Also, I still had the original 29 MOA dialed on, and didn't bring it up.
This carbine shoots better than my Krieger barreled LR308 which has been giving me fits finding a consistent load for. It seems to like 43.3 grains of RL15 in a Winchester case with a 175g J4, but it sometimes drops a round down low which may be my LEE not-so-Perfect Powder measure. I noticed that sometimes the top few grains of extruded powder get jammed up in the measurer, and a quick tap makes it fall out. That may be it.
A parting shot of the bean field where I shoot:
I'm excited that next time I shoot I will have at least one rifle that I'm not developing loads for, and can instead work on popping balloons or slaughtering helpless groghounds at range!
