Thread: .223 77 grain TMK

Here’s my first foray down the reloading rabbit hole….
So tried 3 rounds each using BM2 23.0gr @ 2810fps, 23.5gr @ 2875fps, and 24.0gr @ 2906fps. Seated 0.050 off the lands, no particular reason other than I had the mag length, and wanted to go through motions of finding lands and working off that ( COAL 2.37in). No pressure signs, groups were all similar (small sample size I know), decided to settle on 23gr for further testing, as that speed should be plenty to achieve what I want for know.
Loaded up 40 rounds, and headed out full of confidence…
10 shot group at 100m gave me 0.9moa, I think the load could probably do better with a different operator, but I was reasonably happy with that.
Held 1.1 Moa for 3 shots each at 410m and 565m (also the furthest I have shot any rifle), then burnt another 2 to hit a gong just for fun.
I had moderate to strong wind coming from about 7:30, and my god does it push those little pills around at that distance!
Anyway the conclusion of all that was it’s plenty good enough for hunting at distances I want (sub 300m).
Now for the reloading rabbit hole… 18 shots Fired, SD 21.7 , ES 69.9 . Which direction to go if want to try and tighten things up?
One thing I had noted when seating the bullets, was there was a fair bit of empty space in the cartridge, so just pondering whether seating them deeper, to try and achieve closer to 100% case fill. ( I listened to an Applied Ballistics podcast that @gimp sent me about this topic and the answer was……. Maybe

In the meantime, the remainder of the rounds will making their debut on a hunting trip next weekend, hopefully with some splendid results to post on the 223 thread.

To improve velocity SD:

What brass are you using?
What scales are you using?
How are you sizing brass? Is it fired in your chamber and how much are you bumping the shoulder?



But almost certainly: don't worry about it