Savage Axis .223 WOW

[swampratt]

I have an accuracy goal with this gun, I may not get it but will try.
It is 1" at 200 yards for 3 shots, that is my goal.
I kept trying to get 1" at 300 yards with my .308.
It is a little over that .. but good enough for factory barrel..We will see if I can coax some accuracy from this .223

My next loads will be shot at 200 yards. 100 proved little during the ladder test.

 

[chazroh]

A buddy has had good results with 69gr tmk over arcomp

 

[swampratt]

200 yard results.
Here is a picture with 3 fliers in it..Federal cases always gave me Fliers.
Now i called one while it was being loaded..The bullet seated much easier than the others.

Anyway Load #3 is 25.5gr Varget and load 1 is 24.5gr.#2 is 25.0gr.

Now the combined group measures 1.365" if you discount the fliers.

Load 3 measured .717" for 3 shots and shot 4 was a flier.
Shots were one right after the other.
Varget shots were performed after shooting a different powder in some other .223 loads i built..Could account for the fliers.


But I think i have a winner for sure.
Here is a picture of the 3 different loads of varget at 200 yards.
My scope covers 2" at 200 yards..So that big X i could not see it.
If i want smaller groups i feel i may need to step up from that Tasco.




60gr Amax and i shot a deer neck with it today.That was a bow harvest deer that was already cleaned of all meat except for 5" of neck below the head for bullet testing and was being tossed in the fill ditch.
Tiny hole in and golf ball exit.. I will stick with those bullets for now. Not real picky on seating depth either .
As i seated them 2.305" and some 2.250" deeper with a load of BLC-2. All hit the same place at 200 yards

 

[Larry Morgan]

Nice shooting! .223 is a blast to shoot and load. Tons of options. Looks like you are already on the fast track to good results.

 

[swampratt]

Thanks ,,I just got a box of Lapua brass for the .223 and will see if it can eliminate those pesky fliers.

I will load some LC-13 brass and some Lapua brass and see if either can shoot a good 200 yard group.
As in under 1" with no fliers. High expectations may bite me.

 

[jc5420]

Thanks ,,I just got a box of Lapua brass for the .223 and will see if it can eliminate those pesky fliers.

I will load some LC-13 brass and some Lapua brass and see if either can shoot a good 200 yard group.
As in under 1" with no fliers. High expectations may bite me.

From my 6 or so years of experience loading the .223 I have found that the only thing lapua brass offers me over sorted, and prepped lake city is primer pocket life. I have also found that extensive case prep on the little .223 goes a long way with accuracy, mainly with ES and SD numbers. If I can find one of my ladder test I ran at 300y I will post pics, but basically with LC brass and about 2 whole grains in overall charge weight difference I was printing consistent 1.5" groups at 300y. I believe the load I landed on was giving .5" groups at 300y and excellent results at 1000y. This was with a factory barrel on my Remington 700. I think your goal is easily doable.

Keep in mind I do not measure horizontally when measuring for load stability.

 

[swampratt]

Thanks jc5420... I do spend a lot of time prepping cases. I recently got a flash hole uniformer tool.
Figured if I am going to use range picked up cases I might as well give them a fighting chance.

I have sorted by weight but I also use a small ball powder to measure volume and sort that way after the weighing of the cases.
Normally with Lapua i do not do that,,But i am not a competition shooter either.. just a regular Joe that likes to shoot a lot and experiment and tweak things.

 

[jc5420]

Lapua brass you can skip a few steps like primer pocket uniforming and flash hole deburring. I have ran a few thousand lapua cases over a primer pocket uniformer and I would say about 2 out of ever 100 need the attention and it is very slight when they do. The way I load currently I am seeing SD numbers around 20-30 fps, but when I took my time I was seeing SD numbers around 5-6 fps. It is all in how much time you want to spend at the reloading bench, also another huge factor is annealing. It made quite the difference in my .223 bolt actions.

 

[swampratt]

I annealed all the cases I experimented with ,, My 30-06 loved R-P cases and best accuracy is obtained if I anneal every time.

I do not anneal because I think a neck will split. I do it for even neck tension.
I have modded my 505 beam scale so that you can see easily less than .1gr..I will trickle to the granual.
Takes longer but it is not wasted time.

Well if you feel your gun and you have the ability to shoot small groups.

 

[jc5420]

I annealed all the cases I experimented with ,, My 30-06 loved R-P cases and best accuracy is obtained if I anneal every time.

I do not anneal because I think a neck will split. I do it for even neck tension.
I have modded my 505 beam scale so that you can see easily less than .1gr..I will trickle to the granual.
Takes longer but it is not wasted time.

Well if you feel your gun and you have the ability to shoot small groups.

I may try and make a video showing my RCBS Chargemaster that I have tuned to dispense extruded powders without EVER over throwing and weighing to the kernel. However, I am unsure how accurate the scale is on registering the weight accurately. I may have to put it up next to a Prometheus or a lab scale and run a test to check the accuracy of the Chargemaster. Though I am running single digit SD#s in my match rifle without any special attention to brass prep. Post up some more results, I love seeing success on a budget!