Finally after months of waiting I got my Rem 700 back from the gunsmith. It has a new Jewel trigger and a Lilja 26" barrel 1 1/8 in diameter in 22-250. the twist rate is 1 in 14. I started reloading for it using Redding Necksizing Comp bushing dies. The first 12 loads were not too good using H380 and Sierra, Berger and Nosler bullets all 52 gr. Average groups center to center of the 5 shot groups were 3/4". Then changed to IMR 4064 and the group size dropped to under 1/2". Two of the groups using 33gr of 4064 with a Nosler 52gr Comp bullet were .19 and .22. Looks like I have a successful rebuild. I will reload more of these but will still keep trying other powders. The reloads varied from .005 to .003 off the lands. All loads were within .002 OAL of each other.
Reloads for rebuilt rifle
- Thread starter Poconolg
- Start date
603Country
New member
I think you have the right powder. I'm a big fan of imr4064 in my 220 Swift.
Getting that close to the lands may be preventing still tighter groups. I've measured bullet ogive variation before and it is enough that you may be making the amount of gas bypassing the bullet before it jumps to obturate (block off) the bore inconsistent. This gas bypass is what physicist Dr. Lloyd Brownell believed is responsible for pressure variation with seating depth.
I would look at either developing the load jammed into the lands about 0.010" or, start about 0.020" off the lands. I've seen one video by a fellow varying the jump from zero to 0.015" and feeling like he picked out an improved spot in between, but his groups didn't appear to me to provide a statistically significant difference in that range. They were all fairly small. But they weren't bugholes.
The late Dan Hackett wrote that he had a 40X in 220 Swift that he had trouble getting to shoot 5-shot groups under half an inch, and they were sometimes 3/4", like you had. He was also shooting bullets in the 50 grain range. At the time he was loading with about 0.020" bullet jump to the lands, trying out different bullet makes, but not getting the groups any smaller. (At one time, 0.020" had been frequently held to be a universal best jump distance in the benchrest community.) During a loading session, in switching to loading a short Nosler bullet that needed to be seated out further than the previous bullet Hackett was loading in order to make 0.020" jump, he accidentally turned the micrometer adjustment thimble on his seating die the wrong way, seating the bullet deeper, so it had 0.050" jump. He had 20 rounds loaded before he noticed the error. He said he considered pulling the bullets and reseating them, but decided just to shoot them for practice instead. To his astonishment, he got two 0.25" groups and two true bugholes in the ones (the center-to-center distances that were 0.1-something, extreme spread) using that big jump. Far better than the gun had ever shot before.
So much for 0.020" being the best jump distance. So much, in fact, for any particular distance being "best". You have to test for best jump with your bullet and load in your chamber. Berger used to recommend jamming their secant ogive VLD designs 0.010" into the lands, and expected shooters would just accept that they would shoot well in some rifles and not others. But they got so many reports from people getting them to shoot better with some jump that they experimented and found that while the jam method worked in some guns, they had to be as much as 0.150" off the lands before they shot well in others.
You can read Berger's method of finding the best jump distance. Keep in mind that it is for the long nose secant ogive. A short radius tangent ogive, as you like will be shooting, makes a bigger change in the gas bypass gap annulus for a smaller change in seating depth, so I would use test spacing increments about half of what Berger calls for with secant ogive VLD's in that article with your bullets. But in some guns it can still have to jump long for best effect.
I'll add that my Remington 600 in .222 Remington (also a 14" twist) shot many a cloverleaf with flat base bullets, but never liked boattail match bullets. It would outshoot the Sierra 52 grain BT MatchKing with a flat base 50 grain Hornady SP consistently. So you might want to consider some flat base bullets, such as Berger offers in 52 and 55 grains, and Sierra offers in their 53 grain MatchKing. Bryan Litz has pointed out that it is intrinsically easier to make a perfectly symmetrical flat base than a perfectly symmetrical boat tail. I'll add that the boat tail takes time to clear the muzzle, during which it is subjected to the accelerating blast of muzzle gasses which must deflect off of it with perfect symmetry for best effect.
I think you may have found your powder, though I note you are running below Hodgdon's listed starting load for a 52 grain A-max bullet, so you may do better with a warmer charge. Chris Long's OBT calculator suggests, via QuickLOAD, that 33.1 grains will produce one optimum barrel time point of 1.106 ms, where QuickLOAD thinks you have 1.109 ms now. Not enough difference to matter. QuickLOAD thinks about 35 grains of Accurate 4064 (a middling load in their data) would give you the same barrel time, but about 120 fps more velocity, and that because it will run at closer to normal pressure and burn more completely in the barrel, it may be worth a try (if you can find any). It also thinks a slightly compressed load of 36.5 grains of IMR 4064 will hit another barrel time sweet spot node (0.966 ms, from Long's calculator), but this load is about maximum using a Winchester case and WLR primer, so work up to it slowly, especially if those are not your components.
I would look at either developing the load jammed into the lands about 0.010" or, start about 0.020" off the lands. I've seen one video by a fellow varying the jump from zero to 0.015" and feeling like he picked out an improved spot in between, but his groups didn't appear to me to provide a statistically significant difference in that range. They were all fairly small. But they weren't bugholes.
The late Dan Hackett wrote that he had a 40X in 220 Swift that he had trouble getting to shoot 5-shot groups under half an inch, and they were sometimes 3/4", like you had. He was also shooting bullets in the 50 grain range. At the time he was loading with about 0.020" bullet jump to the lands, trying out different bullet makes, but not getting the groups any smaller. (At one time, 0.020" had been frequently held to be a universal best jump distance in the benchrest community.) During a loading session, in switching to loading a short Nosler bullet that needed to be seated out further than the previous bullet Hackett was loading in order to make 0.020" jump, he accidentally turned the micrometer adjustment thimble on his seating die the wrong way, seating the bullet deeper, so it had 0.050" jump. He had 20 rounds loaded before he noticed the error. He said he considered pulling the bullets and reseating them, but decided just to shoot them for practice instead. To his astonishment, he got two 0.25" groups and two true bugholes in the ones (the center-to-center distances that were 0.1-something, extreme spread) using that big jump. Far better than the gun had ever shot before.
So much for 0.020" being the best jump distance. So much, in fact, for any particular distance being "best". You have to test for best jump with your bullet and load in your chamber. Berger used to recommend jamming their secant ogive VLD designs 0.010" into the lands, and expected shooters would just accept that they would shoot well in some rifles and not others. But they got so many reports from people getting them to shoot better with some jump that they experimented and found that while the jam method worked in some guns, they had to be as much as 0.150" off the lands before they shot well in others.
You can read Berger's method of finding the best jump distance. Keep in mind that it is for the long nose secant ogive. A short radius tangent ogive, as you like will be shooting, makes a bigger change in the gas bypass gap annulus for a smaller change in seating depth, so I would use test spacing increments about half of what Berger calls for with secant ogive VLD's in that article with your bullets. But in some guns it can still have to jump long for best effect.
I'll add that my Remington 600 in .222 Remington (also a 14" twist) shot many a cloverleaf with flat base bullets, but never liked boattail match bullets. It would outshoot the Sierra 52 grain BT MatchKing with a flat base 50 grain Hornady SP consistently. So you might want to consider some flat base bullets, such as Berger offers in 52 and 55 grains, and Sierra offers in their 53 grain MatchKing. Bryan Litz has pointed out that it is intrinsically easier to make a perfectly symmetrical flat base than a perfectly symmetrical boat tail. I'll add that the boat tail takes time to clear the muzzle, during which it is subjected to the accelerating blast of muzzle gasses which must deflect off of it with perfect symmetry for best effect.
I think you may have found your powder, though I note you are running below Hodgdon's listed starting load for a 52 grain A-max bullet, so you may do better with a warmer charge. Chris Long's OBT calculator suggests, via QuickLOAD, that 33.1 grains will produce one optimum barrel time point of 1.106 ms, where QuickLOAD thinks you have 1.109 ms now. Not enough difference to matter. QuickLOAD thinks about 35 grains of Accurate 4064 (a middling load in their data) would give you the same barrel time, but about 120 fps more velocity, and that because it will run at closer to normal pressure and burn more completely in the barrel, it may be worth a try (if you can find any). It also thinks a slightly compressed load of 36.5 grains of IMR 4064 will hit another barrel time sweet spot node (0.966 ms, from Long's calculator), but this load is about maximum using a Winchester case and WLR primer, so work up to it slowly, especially if those are not your components.
603Country
New member
In my 220, I found best accuracy at near max load with imr4064. Also worth mentioning is that the Nosler loading manual's recommended accuracy loads for their various bullets are very close to the same as my most accurate loads. That can't be just a coincidence.
And what Unclenick mentioned about flat base vs boat tail bullets might explain why, years ago, I got such great accuracy in that Swift when I switched to shooting the 63 gr Sierra SMP bullet in my first Swift barrel as it approached end of useful life. I had been shooting boat tails, the barrel throat was eroding, and the 55 gr boat tails were giving me bigger groups. Seating them out further helped a bit, for a while. Then a buddy wanted to borrow a rifle for pig hunting, and the Swift was the only extra rifle I had back then. The only bullet I could find that might work for pigs was that 63 gr Sierra, so I loaded some up and quickly found that they shot great (and worked quite well on medium sized pigs). Maybe it was the bullet's flat base that brought back the accuracy. But that wasn't the bullet I wanted to shoot, so shortly after that I had it rebarrelled.
And what Unclenick mentioned about flat base vs boat tail bullets might explain why, years ago, I got such great accuracy in that Swift when I switched to shooting the 63 gr Sierra SMP bullet in my first Swift barrel as it approached end of useful life. I had been shooting boat tails, the barrel throat was eroding, and the 55 gr boat tails were giving me bigger groups. Seating them out further helped a bit, for a while. Then a buddy wanted to borrow a rifle for pig hunting, and the Swift was the only extra rifle I had back then. The only bullet I could find that might work for pigs was that 63 gr Sierra, so I loaded some up and quickly found that they shot great (and worked quite well on medium sized pigs). Maybe it was the bullet's flat base that brought back the accuracy. But that wasn't the bullet I wanted to shoot, so shortly after that I had it rebarrelled.
Berger 22 cal 52gr FB are not VLD and Rem used those bullets for the 2-5 shot test target that where furnish with 40X that had 1/14 barrel twist.
Poconolg, I knew you shot those groups 100yds since you already posted about Hart barrel 308 and test group you shot 100yds.
I have Kreiger barrel 1/14 twist 223 on Rem action, Lilja barrel 1/14 twist 222mag, Bartlein 1/14 twist 22BR, H&S 1/14 twist 222. Most 1/14 I've shot they seem to like 50gr to 53gr FB or BT.
Most of the custom guy's like BIB give pressure ring size on 22 cal
http://www.bibullets.com/products/
Well good luck
Poconolg, I knew you shot those groups 100yds since you already posted about Hart barrel 308 and test group you shot 100yds.
I have Kreiger barrel 1/14 twist 223 on Rem action, Lilja barrel 1/14 twist 222mag, Bartlein 1/14 twist 22BR, H&S 1/14 twist 222. Most 1/14 I've shot they seem to like 50gr to 53gr FB or BT.
Most of the custom guy's like BIB give pressure ring size on 22 cal
http://www.bibullets.com/products/
Well good luck
Went to the range yesterday and shot 10 5 shot groups. I was using the same load that I did good with last week. 33gr IMR 4064 with Nosler 52gr comp bullet. I was varying the distance of the lands from .003 to .007. The .003 did the best 2 groups of .20 and .28. Eight of the other groups varied from .31 up to .49 with 1 group .63. Next week I will move my bullets closer to the lands and see what happens. I am also going to try a different powder either IMR 3031 or IMR 4895. Have not been getting good groups with Berger 52gr or Sierra 52gr. Someone told me to try Sierra 53gr Flat Base.