Thread: 223 mag box length

Originally Posted by Steelisreal

I finally got a 223 about six months ago and have been having fun setting it up to be a light, easy to shoot hunting rifle.

I settled on a Howa 1500 short action(not the Mini) for a few reasons, a big one being I despise the plastic magazine well/trigger guard/detachable box magazines they come with. This decision process predated the Jefferson bottom metal flush magazines and the Ken Henderson Hi-Tec stocks becoming available for the Mini.

Another consideration was that when I looked at the conventional internal double stack magazine in the Howa, it seemed quite simple to be able to modify the blocked magazine box (was about 2.35 previous if I recall) to accept rounds loaded to around 2.46 or so. This was combined with the 1500 having arrived in NZ in Jan 20 finally sporting the 1/8 twist! And the last factor was the Howa Alpine stock (very slim and light proportions, shortish foreend) I had scored a few months prior just sitting there waiting for a barreled action to be acquired.

I had the barrel trimmed slightly so the Gunworks 35mm suppressor cleared the foreend - barrel ended up at 18.5 inches.i could have gone shorter (didn't feel any need to ) by using a DPT or the Gunworks 41mm suppressor as the over-barrel section is much shorter on those.

Next step - hunting loads. Short version is the Hornady 53g V-Max was selected for initial experimentation as its BC is much higher than most projectiles in that weight range. A bit of experimentation found a load that shot nice groups at 3140 fps. Game on. Go shoot some wallabies! This load works devastatingly well. Anything this side of 300m is in big trouble provided the wind isn't blowing really hard (it often does up on the hills!).

So this wind question as well as the possibility of seeing bigger critters while wandering about has me sorting a heavier bullet load. Two schools of thought on this one - go long and sleek ie 75 Eld-M - again, high BC and being used successfully by many on goats, fallow and red hind size animals with careful shot choice and placement. But it is a VLD style projectile (as is the 53g to be fair) and as such is very fussy about seating depth. It has been challenging to get close to the groups I would like for this load. In comparison I put a few 69g TMKs on top of a dose of 2206 and promptly shot a one large hole group - very forgiving bullets!
The second approach is a heavier built bullet, the 75g Speer Gold Dot. This seems like a good choice to have on hand if pigs or deer are spotted. This has been quite easy to get to shoot good groups with as it's a very forgiving shape like the Sierra TMKs - the down side being they don't hold velocity anywhere near as well as the very pointy ones.

Well that turned out waaay longer than expected, but hopefully gives you some more ideas.

PS Also have a wicked reduced load thanks to @Pommy doing some reloading nerd wizardry on GRT - did this to duplicate what a 17 HMR can do without buying another rifle! ��

I was about to suggest this as a solution as I still have one of those 223s listed in the FS section. It is simply a case of pulling out the spacer at the rear of the mag well and extending the follower....