Which Group Is Best?

[sapper]

I'm getting ready to load some
223 tomorrow. I'm trying to decide my powder weight....
Which weight would you pick?
Using 62 gr. Fmjbt with CFE 223.

 

[kludge]

25gr

 

[red_zr24x4]

Now play with your seating depth and tighten it up some more

 

[stymie12000]

Now play with your seating depth and tighten it up some more

is that a trial and error process or is there a proven method.

Sorry if I'm thread jacking. I will be starting loading rifle and am curious.

 

[straight-shooter]

It's basically to find how the bullet likes to be seated in relation to the rifling. Usually .003 to .010 from the rifling will do the trick. Each rifle likes something different. Of course different seating depth will also affect the pressure of the round being fired.

Then there's pushing the shoulder of the case back a couple thousands and there's neck tension. Crimping for semi-auto and no crimp for bolt. Lot's of interesting things come into play with rifle reloads. Fun stuff!

 

[Sniper 79]

If its plinking ammo let the 25 roll and shoot away. Looking for more? Clean your gun and load another test string starting at 25 ,25.2, 25.4,and 25.6 reshoot and see what happens then tweak seating depth if you are able.

It is loads of fun although can seem like work sometimes especially if the range is far away.

 

[stymie12000]

It's basically to find how the bullet likes to be seated in relation to the rifling. Usually .003 to .010 from the rifling will do the trick. Each rifle likes something different. Of course different seating depth will also affect the pressure of the round being fired.

Then there's pushing the shoulder of the case back a couple thousands and there's neck tension. Crimping for semi-auto and no crimp for bolt. Lot's of interesting things come into play with rifle reloads. Fun stuff!

Ok, after doing a lot of handgun loads. I am looking forward to getting my feet wet with rifle rounds. Thanks for the info!

 

[sloughfoot]

Since I don't know you or how well you shoot or what barrel you are shooting in your....AR? I have two questions.

What distance did you shoot these groups? Are any of the flyers "called"?

OAL length experimentation is usually useless with the cavernous leades of 5.56 and most match chambers. For example, Wylde and 5.56 require an OAL of 2.550 to get a 80 grain Sierra to within .010 to .030 of the lands. I doubt that any 62 grain bullet can be seated that long. Neck tension should be .001. Nothing else matters or is possible. You can't make it any tighter because the bullet is a constant size.

 

[Broom_jm]

Looking at the target in a vacuum, with no additional information, I would choose 25.5 grains as my standard load. This is based on using the OCW method of load development and is particularly true if that is how these rounds were shot. The reason I like 25.5 is that the group on either side of that charge weight was also pretty good and overlapped a fair amount. With that said, I would start at 24.8 and go up in smaller increments of three tenths to see if there is an even better weight in there. If you really want to just pick one of these and load up a bunch, 25.5 is the charge weight to go with.

 

[sapper]

Thanx for all the help guys . Yes I am loading these for my at. So I'm pretty much limited to oal of 2.26. That's what oal these were loaded at. These are my plinking rounds so I'll probably pick a weight and load some up. Its a new gun and I'm trying to figure out it's flavors.
When I load up some 69 grain. I'll load them in .2 grain increments.
Targets were 100 yds.

 

[BE Mike]

With just 3 round groups it's a roll of the dice, but having said that, it looks like anything from 25.0 gr. to 26.0 grains should be fine. I'd probably opt for the 25.0 grains because gun powder is so precious these days.