.223

L

LAH

New member
Several years back I purchased a little over 13 pounds of IMR 4895. This was from a barrel of powder from who knows when. Broke it open to try some in my .223 Remington since I only have ‘bout 7 dollars a pound in it. The rifle is a 700 Remington, wood stock BDL, 24 inch barrel with a K10 Weaver from the 70’s. Nothing special about the rifle other than it has pillars installed & is glass bedded.

I have a several bullets from a bulk/close out purchase I made an offer on, again several years ago. These are the Sierra #1360, a 55 grain Sptz. flat base soft point. For primers there’s many Wolf SR on the shelf so decided to use them. I call this shooting cheap.

I laddered these loads & put them on paper. The usual place I shoot with concrete benches was occupied so I drove to another part of the range, set up on a picnic table & placed my targets at 100 yards & began.

I know there are better powder choices for this cartridges but overall the targets were good with all under an inch. Seems this charge is the one I’ll work with as I try a few other things like bullet seating depth & primers.


While there I tried a load with WC844 & the same bullet. The old gun liked that load. Here’s a target using that load.
 
IMR-4895 is a perfectly good powder for the .223 Rem. In fact, the most accurate load I have found thus far, for my Stevens 200, consists of 24.0 grains of 4895 under a 68 grain Hornady HPBT match bullet. That load will do well under 1/2" at 100 yards, in my rifle. I am still working on a 55 grain load with this powder.

So, don't count out 4895. It is well capable of excellent accuracy in the .223, with the right charge and bullet.
 
I got 32 pounds of surplus IMR4895 for $8/pound in 2001 from Hi Tech in Shotgun News.

Measuring the grains, it is 4895 alright, but it is bulk powder and this batch is faster than the blended controlled canister IMR4895.

The powder works just like H322 in the Quickload library. It makes the same velocity and pressure as case fill as predicted by calling it H322.
 
It's a great powder for the caliber . Not many better for accuracy IMHO . Now some will want accuracy and want the powder to meter well . IMR 4895 is not a well metering powder and I believe that has some to do with people not thinking it's as good as others .

My best service rifle load using a 77gr SMK as well as my best plinking load using a 55gr FMJBT both use IMR 4895 . Now I take the time to weigh each charge for my service rifle but because it does not meter well I use H335 and IMR 4320 for my plinking loads . The other powders throw from a powder measure much more consistently and I can load much quicker if I throw the charges . I give up a little accuracy with the other powders but I still hit what I'm aiming at .

FWIW I was looking at some old notes in my data book and noticed I had some really good results using IMR 8208 xbr . Looking at the results I'm not sure why I did not keep using it . I do know I've only ever bought 1# of it so It's likely I ran low and had other powders that were doing just fine . Long-ish story short . I'm on the hunt for some 8208xbr to do some more testing .
 
Thanks guys. I plan to hunt a few prairie dogs this summer and want to use "on hand" stuff. I'll be shooting more of this before deciding.
 
Back out today with the shooting the Sierra 52 gr. HPBT. The picture is 4 shots not 5 using WC844. I also shot several targets with IMR 4895. Those targets were much like the target below. I have no pictures because I destroyed the target by mistake after a photo of a few 22-250 groups which were on the same target.

With this bullet it seems the sweet spot is 26-26.5 grs. with WC844 & 25-25.5 grs. with IMR4895. Much work left to do but hopefully I'll be able to use the components on hand.

 
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