rate of twist and .224 bullets

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1000 yards with a 223... are you kidding?

1000 yards is a nightly long distance for a minuscule 22 bullet.
 
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1000 yards with a 223... are you kidding?
1000 yards is a nightly long distance for a minuscule 22 bullet.
Click to expand...

Well thanks for clearing that up 5 years later.:rolleyes:

And yes, people do shoot .223 at 1000 Yards,
 
While the military rifle teams tried for years to get their 5.56mm M16's and commercial variants to shoot good scores at 800 to 1000 yards, they never quite did as well as the 7.62 NATO round in M1A's and Garands. The services no longer had any of those great M14NM rifles that did as well. So, in 2011, the US Army Marksmanship Unit got the NRA to allow the commercial AR10 chambered in .308 Win. to be designated a "service rifle" so it could be used in long range NRA matches' service rifle divisions. Then they won matches and set a new team record at 1000 yards at the Nationals with them. The 22 caliber ones don't cut much mustard past 600 yards.

Regarding the assumed greater rifling angle a 1:7 or 1:8 twist has in 22 caliber barrels than a larger caliber; calculate the ratio of the circumference of the bore diameter to the twist length to make comparisons. If the ratio's the same, so is the rifling angle. Example: 22 caliber 8" twist divided by 22 caliber bore of .219" times 3.1416 divided into 8 equals 11.63. Ratio's 1:11.63

A 1:8 twist in 22 caliber barrels has the same rifling angle to the bullet as a 1:11 twist in a 30 caliber barrel. 22 caliber barrels with a 1:7 twist has the same angle of rifling as a 30 caliber one with a 1:9.6 twist.
 
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Art, I can speak on what the 220 (mine) will stabilize with a 14 twist.

Will: 55 gr cup and core type, on up to 63 gr Sierra SMP. Also will happily shoot all smaller bullets I've tried. I don't know about that 70 gr Speer that the Lyman 49th says will stabilize.

Won't: 60 gr Partition. 64 gr Nosler BSB. 65 gr Sierra GK. Darn it. Almost will stabilize the first two, but won't even come close on the 65 grainer.

In the 223, which I use for varmint control (coyotes and smaller), I normally shoot the 40 gr Nosler BT. Amazingly deadly on coyotes and good about fragmenting easily, so no ricochet.
 
Getting back to the original question... it's all market driven. The AR 15 platform is very popular and people want to shoot these guns at long distances (600 to 1000 yards) hence the faster twist rates and heavier bullets to reach out there. The slower heavier bullets from a 223 will out perform the 22-250 and even the 243 winchester shooting bullets in the 55 grain range at higher velocities
at ranges beyond 800 yards.
 
Here's Sierra Bullets' software 1000-yard wind drift per mph of wind for three cartridges:

.223 Rem, 80-gr HPMK leaving at 2850 fps.... 11.5 inches

.22-.250 Rem, 80-gr HPMK leaving at 3050 fps.... 10.4 inches

.243 Win, 107-gr HPMK leaving at 2850 fps.... 8.2 inches

Same cartridges and bullets at 1000 yards.

.223 Rem, 80-gr HPMK leaving at 2850 fps.... 6.8 inches

.22-.250 Rem, 80-gr HPMK leaving at 3050 fps.... 6.0 inches

.243 Win, 107-gr HPMK leaving at 2850 fps.... 4.9 inches

Looks to me like the .243 has both the 22 caliber ones beat; it drifts less in the wind.
 
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