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Good deal man. Where did you find the CFE223? and how much? (if you dont mind) my loacal guy still has not got any yet. from what i read and heard about this powder after 64 grains of bullet weight the powder doesnt do so well. It looks like you had some decent shooting with the hornady bullets. the match kings not so much. how does this gun shoot with other ammo. how was the flash? were the cases clean? is it very differet than BLC-2? have you noticed any of the benifits of the CFE?
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also what was the velocity work up like? i mean if you add half a grain what was the velocity gain? when does the velocity gain taper off? wondering because # gun is killing my varget stash and i would love the CFE to work as it proposed.
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here is the full 52 smk data i am going to go up to 29.5 in the next test because it was just getting it stride at 28.5
no pressure signs even at 28.5gn 27.5gn CFE 223 52gn smk 1)2786 2)2831 3)2849 4)2833 5)2854 High:2854 Low:2786 E.S.:68 Ave.:2830.6 S.D.:24 27.8gn CFE 223 52gn smk 1)2847 2)2854 3)2851 4)2918 5)2842 High:2918 Low:2842 E.S.:76 Ave.:2862.4 S.D.:28.1 28.1gn CFE 223 52gn smk 1)2920 2)2925 3)2872 4)2928 5)2907 High:2928 Low:2872 E.S.:56 Ave.:2910.4 S.D.:20.5 28.5gn CFE 223 52gn smk 1)2917 2)3039 3)2917 4)2930 5)2938 High:3039 Low:2917 E.S.:122 Ave.:2948.2 S.D.:46.1 |
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Quoted: Got CFE 223 from Powder Valley. $132 per 8lbs. IIRC $18.50 a pound.Good deal man. Where did you find the CFE223? and how much? (if you dont mind) my loacal guy still has not got any yet. from what i read and heard about this powder after 64 grains of bullet weight the powder doesnt do so well. It looks like you had some decent shooting with the hornady bullets. the match kings not so much. how does this gun shoot with other ammo. how was the flash? were the cases clean? is it very differet than BLC-2? have you noticed any of the benifits of the CFE? Only bullet I have tried with CFE 223 is the 69 gr SMK. I was getting .75 10 shot 100 yd groups with work up loads. This matches results with IMR-8208 XBR with the same bullet, primer, case combo. Flash? didn't notice, I was shooting groups. Cases get dirty just like with other powders. I like BLC2, but CFE 223 is more accurate in my AR with precession loads. Benefits; great accuracy and since it's a ball powder, it measures great. No premium price. You don't need a $250-$300 electronic powder dribbler to drop charges. A powder measure works fine. |
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and i payed 19 a lb at a local fun show. i have never shot blc-2
had to getup to 27gn or so to get the soot down on the cases. |
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thanks for the write up and all of the info. It looks like the velocity keeps climbing with the more powder you put in the case. At 28.5 grain how full is the case? any room for any more powder? were there any pressure signs at 28.5? what chrono are you using? any loss of fouling?
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Got CFE 223 from Powder Valley. $132 per 8lbs. IIRC $18.50 a pound.Good deal man. Where did you find the CFE223? and how much? (if you dont mind) my loacal guy still has not got any yet. from what i read and heard about this powder after 64 grains of bullet weight the powder doesnt do so well. It looks like you had some decent shooting with the hornady bullets. the match kings not so much. how does this gun shoot with other ammo. how was the flash? were the cases clean? is it very differet than BLC-2? have you noticed any of the benifits of the CFE? Only bullet I have tried with CFE 223 is the 69 gr SMK. I was getting .75 10 shot 100 yd groups with work up loads. This matches results with IMR-8208 XBR with the same bullet, primer, case combo. Flash? didn't notice, I was shooting groups. Cases get dirty just like with other powders. I like BLC2, but CFE 223 is more accurate in my AR with precession loads. Benefits; great accuracy and since it's a ball powder, it measures great. No premium price. You don't need a $250-$300 electronic powder dribbler to drop charges. A powder measure works fine. have you shot enough to notice the difference coper fouling? Is it more or less smoky/ dirty than say H335 or BLC-2? |
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thanks for the write up and all of the info. It looks like the velocity keeps climbing with the more powder you put in the case. At 28.5 grain how full is the case? any room for any more powder? were there any pressure signs at 28.5? what chrono are you using? any loss of fouling? i am using a ced m2 chrono. i think i can get another grain in the case we will see and i will report back. i had no pressure signs period so i am going to go up at .3 intervals till the case is full or i get to 29.5 with the 52 and i am going to go to 29 with the 55sp. i just like to see what i can get safely and then i will back off to the best group. barrel looks real good i think i am going to leave it and not clean it till i am done with the cfe testing then i will run my borescope in it to see what it looks like. |
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Quoted: No. Every time I shoot CFE 223, I also shoot other powders. Not something I worry about.Quoted: Quoted: Got CFE 223 from Powder Valley. $132 per 8lbs. IIRC $18.50 a pound.Good deal man. Where did you find the CFE223? and how much? (if you dont mind) my loacal guy still has not got any yet. from what i read and heard about this powder after 64 grains of bullet weight the powder doesnt do so well. It looks like you had some decent shooting with the hornady bullets. the match kings not so much. how does this gun shoot with other ammo. how was the flash? were the cases clean? is it very differet than BLC-2? have you noticed any of the benifits of the CFE? Only bullet I have tried with CFE 223 is the 69 gr SMK. I was getting .75 10 shot 100 yd groups with work up loads. This matches results with IMR-8208 XBR with the same bullet, primer, case combo. Flash? didn't notice, I was shooting groups. Cases get dirty just like with other powders. I like BLC2, but CFE 223 is more accurate in my AR with precession loads. Benefits; great accuracy and since it's a ball powder, it measures great. No premium price. You don't need a $250-$300 electronic powder dribbler to drop charges. A powder measure works fine. have you shot enough to notice the difference coper fouling? Is it more or less smoky/ dirty than say H335 or BLC-2? All powders in an AR make it dirty. I really don't understand why this question is asked. Must be important to some, to me a non issue. I clean my AR after each range outing. Just old school.
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heck yeah man leave it dirty. Im placing a order tomorrow with powder valley. Im going to use it for the 1500 z-max bullets i got. Man with those velocities in a 16 inch they are going to be great for 3 gun. What primers are you using? can you get some pics of the cases. Sorry to ask so many questions.
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have you shot enough to notice the difference coper fouling? Is it more or less smoky/ dirty than say H335 or BLC-2? [/div]No. Every time I shoot CFE 223, I also shoot other powders. Not something I worry about.[div] [/div][div]All powders in an AR make it dirty. I really don't understand why this question is asked. Must be important to some, to me a non issue.[/div][div] [/div][div]I clean my AR after each range outing. Just old school. [/div][/div] I ask this questions because the ammo will be shot suppressed and i also like to clean my guns offen but if the gun is half way clean then thats less time I spend doing it. Im mostly concerned with sopper fouling. Thanks. |
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One of the magazines recently had an article about that powder where they showed photos of the bore, before and after, from the photos the stuff really works to remove copper fouling, it was impressive in how it actually cleaned out copper fouling that was already there.
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heck yeah man leave it dirty. Im placing a order tomorrow with powder valley. Im going to use it for the 1500 z-max bullets i got. Man with those velocities in a 16 inch they are going to be great for 3 gun. What primers are you using? can you get some pics of the cases. Sorry to ask so many questions. here are the pics of the cases. 55sp on the left and 52 smk on the right eta: they are rem 7 1/2 primers i noted that in the original post http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y124/BIGGDAWG800/main%20album/IMG_4705.jpg http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y124/BIGGDAWG800/main%20album/IMG_4704.jpg http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y124/BIGGDAWG800/main%20album/IMG_4703.jpg http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y124/BIGGDAWG800/main%20album/IMG_4702.jpg Thanks very much. Man now i can wait even more. when are you going back with the loads with 29 grain? |
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Thanks very much. Man now i can wait even more. when are you going back with the loads with 29 grain? i may get out this week sometime if not it will be 2 weeks, busy next weekend but it is supposed to be in the 70's tues wed so hopefully i can get out. |
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Quoted: have you shot enough to notice the difference coper fouling? Is it more or less smoky/ dirty than say H335 or BLC-2? [/div]No. Every time I shoot CFE 223, I also shoot other powders. Not something I worry about.[div] [/div][div]All powders in an AR make it dirty. I really don't understand why this question is asked. Must be important to some, to me a non issue.[/div][div] [/div][div]I clean my AR after each range outing. Just old school. [/div][/div] I ask this questions because the ammo will be shot suppressed and i also like to clean my guns offen but if the gun is half way clean then thats less time I spend doing it. Im mostly concerned with sopper fouling. Thanks. Ok, I don't have a suppressor. Now I understand. [div] [/div] [div]I'm using Rem 7 1/2 primers.[/div] |
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thanks for the write up and all of the info. It looks like the velocity keeps climbing with the more powder you put in the case. At 28.5 grain how full is the case? any room for any more powder? were there any pressure signs at 28.5? what chrono are you using? any loss of fouling? i did some measuring tonight and a lc 10 case trimmed to 1.752 will hold 31.5 grains completely full and 30gn to the bottom of the neck |
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man that is some dense powder. thanks very much for the write up.
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I trim my .223 brass to 1.748. Looks like 26.4g of CFE223 stops right where the brass stops straight walling.
Brad |
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CFE 223 has been very accurate so far. 52 gr.SMK's in .520 (5 shot) groups, 68 gr. BTHP's at .528 and 50 gr V-Max in similar size groups. This is out of a 20" 1/8 twist mid length(Sabre).
In my new 16" 1/8 P3 stainless barrel, I am getting near one hole 3 shot groups. Sadly, the other two shots are puzzling me with the wild out of group placement. After more testing I will know if the optic on this gun is the issue or the nut behind the trigger. I played with 5 different powders on that outing. I am going to stick with CFE until I know what's up. Wind has been bad here for the last month, with wind warnings today. Looks like a load ammo day. Cheers :) |
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man that is bad ass. 27.5 looks like a winner. and no copper! I found 16 pounds in town im picking up friday. are you shooting a pistion gun?
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Im going to maybe 27.5 seeing as how this will be shot in a short barrel . My longest barrel is 14.5 shortest is 8 so im not too crazy about pushing them too fast. Are you going to start pumping any out in volume?
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Im going to maybe 27.5 seeing as how this will be shot in a short barrel . My longest barrel is 14.5 shortest is 8 so im not too crazy about pushing them too fast. Are you going to start pumping any out in volume? yep going to a gun show next weekend and going to pick up 8lbs and a couple thousand hornady 55sp to load up. also loading up some benchmark loads i get about 75fps faster out of it on my accuracy node about 2920fps at 25gn but the groups are just a bit larger 1/4-1/2 inch larger. |
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I haven't done as much testing as you, yet, but my first tests with Hornady 55 FMJs seem to agree with yours. My best groups by far were with 27.5 grains at about .75" shooting from a 16" RRA 1/9" with Eotech and 3x magnifier. (I know, not the best set up for testing accuracy. I have a scope now). I don't have a chrono, so I don't know what the velocities were. I went up to 27.8 grains (book max) and never saw any pressure signs at all. I also found an accuracy node somewhere in the 26s (don't remember the exact charge atm), but it wasn't as good as the 27.5 ones. Apparently this powder likes to be pushed.
I have some 50gr Vmaxs to try out, too.
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Nice! My 20" 1/8 likes the 52 gr SMK and 28.0 gr of CFE. The 68 gr Hornady is putting 5 into .5-.6, but I haven't done as much shooting as above to find a sweet varmint load.
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53gn V-max @ 2.240, CCI #41, LC 11, 24" 1x8 28.5 CFE223 ES: 74 SD: 29 1- 3519 2 - 3520 3 - 3540 4 - 3466 5 - 3490 A - 3507 No pressure signs. 1MOA 5 shot group @ 100. Gonna go up to 29gn in increments of .3 and see how they do. http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/2589/imag0081w.jpg velocities look great. some pics of the targets would be great. i really like this powder going to try it in my new 6.5 grendel and see what it does. |
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53gn V-max @ 2.240, CCI #41, LC 11, 24" 1x8 28.5 CFE223 ES: 74 SD: 29 1- 3519 2 - 3520 3 - 3540 4 - 3466 5 - 3490 A - 3507 No pressure signs. 1MOA 5 shot group @ 100. Gonna go up to 29gn in increments of .3 and see how they do. http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/2589/imag0081w.jpg velocities look great. some pics of the targets would be great. i really like this powder going to try it in my new 6.5 grendel and see what it does. Just got to actually measure the 28.5gn group with a tape, not a micrometer. But the tape says 1 1/8" edge to edge. So a hair over 1MOA actual. But for hunting ammo, I think it's good to go. If your not pushing this bullet to 3400+, I don't think it's worth using for hunting. I'm hoping that pushing the charge a little further will open another accuracy node. As you can see, 27, and 27.3 were a real good accuracy zone. All these groups were on a warm barrel and high winds. No comp. for wind on my part at all, which leads me to believe the groups could have been better if I had the time to mess around longer. |
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53gn V-max @ 2.240, CCI #41, LC 11, 24" 1x8 28.5 CFE223 ES: 74 SD: 29 1- 3519 2 - 3520 3 - 3540 4 - 3466 5 - 3490 A - 3507 No pressure signs. 1MOA 5 shot group @ 100. Gonna go up to 29gn in increments of .3 and see how they do. http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/2589/imag0081w.jpg velocities look great. some pics of the targets would be great. i really like this powder going to try it in my new 6.5 grendel and see what it does. Just got to actually measure the 28.5gn group with a tape, not a micrometer. But the tape says 1 1/8" edge to edge. So a hair over 1MOA actual. But for hunting ammo, I think it's good to go. If your not pushing this bullet to 3400+, I don't think it's worth using for hunting. I'm hoping that pushing the charge a little further will open another accuracy node. As you can see, 27, and 27.3 were a real good accuracy zone. All these groups were on a warm barrel and high winds. No comp. for wind on my part at all, which leads me to believe they groups could have been better if I had the time to mess around longer. http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/7153/imag0082sw.jpg looks very good. you may find another node. this powder looks very forgiving to me. |
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I gotta thank you BD. You put me on this powder, and so far it's been great with the chosen bullet. If all goes well, I may end up with a 30gn compressed hunting load. I'll report back when I complete the tests.
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In a test in one of the magazines, the CFE223 actually cleaned the already existing copper fouling out of the barrel, verified by a borescope and photos posted in the magazine showing before and after, they had fired a couple of hundred shots using CFE223 between the photos.
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