Thinking of a 200/300m target load for my varmint rifle. Here's the components I'm contemplating.

Lake City once fired brass, a 68/69 grain HPBT, Varget & Remington 7 1/2 primer.

If Varget is a flop CFE 223 might be a good fallback.

I use a single station press, so slow & steady is my game.

Anyone have advice, shoot away....

Twist?

Turn bolt?

1 in 8 twist. Heavy 20" fluted stainless

RRA LAR-15

Don't load for speed. Load for accuracy. We don't buy ammo for our AR's, we load it.

Sweet spot for me is usually 85% of max load from starting load for most loaded ammo. I can't think of a single load that was ever the most accurate for us at the top of the range.

Start low, work up. 5 round groups with 0.3-0.5 grain spread each step up the ladder. You'll see where it starts to tighten up. Go to 0.2 grain increments up and down from where your best groups are. My starting steps in my load ladders are 0.5 grains. Saves time and powder over 0.1-0.2 grain steps.

One tool you should have for AR reloading, Lee factory crimp die. Best thing Lee makes. Period.

Assuming you have everything else.

Don't get set on a bullet weight just because the cool kids are using it. Be prepared to change up weight and bullet style. 62 grain bullets have taken their toll. BLC-2 and TAC are other good options for powder, but Varget and CFE 223 should suit you well.

If that's the original barrel, it's a Wilson Arms and typically they are shooters.

Excellent advice from DF.

An 8 twist will stabilize up to 75 HPBT's within mag constraints. Hard not to love 75's, H335 and 400's. IIRC, read a survey of NM shooters a few years back and most in the top tier were burning H335, and surprisingly, R15.

To save time, I'd do it a little different than Andy. Using published data for a given bullet, load up a handful of rounds at 0.5 grain increments that go to that max or slightly above (to weed out conservative data, and slippery moly'd bullets will easily let you go a tad above published max). Start at the bottom and go up until you see pressure signs. 2 or 3 pokes from the hip will usually define the max for *your* rifle with that bullet/powder/primer. (Obvious liability disclaimer: pull the remaining bullet or two) Pretty damn important data point determined right quick. Drop back 0.5 grain as an upper limit for your AR and play around as much as you want from there. Report your findings....

Thanks guys.

Do love the Lee FCD, have one for every rifle cartridge that I load for.


Picked up a box (50) of Black Hills 75 grain HPBT .223 ammo & am going to shoot some tomorrow. The blue box has the once fired Lake City brass, so I can kill 2 birds. Find out how this bbl likes the Hornaday 75 grainer & recover some good reloadable brass.

If I can keep 5 shots under 1 MOA I'll know I've got a shooter.


c/22

Well.... made it. This decent factory ammo will shoot sub MOA without any issues. Even on a wind blown rainy late winter day.

Looks like 2700 fps, will try 200m next time out & hope for better shooting weather.


Now its time to give the bore a good scrubbing & load up some 75 grain HPBT reload testbeds.

If anyone is interested in the Black Hills ammo I was shooting, here is an interesting link.



https://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=3&f=16&t=450860

I will try & recreate this ammo, might need to locate Winchester 748 to match BHA velocities, that per my latest Hornady reloading manual.

Wind WAS howling! That's some good shooting.