I did a search and could not find anything on this, but what 223/5.56  ammo is the fastest burning?
Thanks, Steve

Don't post advice in this forum unless you have first hand experience.  Especially advice that is flat wrong; it's not even a good guess.  AeroE

 








 

Sticky problem.... the fastest burning powders for .223 are also ( IMHO ) the weakest when it comes to enough gas to operate the AR15 system... so you might end up with a round that doesn't push the BCG enough to cycle the rifle.

I have seen many weak rounds do this.... resulting in failure to feed / short stroking, failure to lock the bolt back on an empty mag, ....

yeah , no



 

OP:
Why don't you explain why you are asking the question and maybe you'll get better answers?

It appears that I am getting a lot of fouling from unburnt power, so I was thinking of trying faster power...steve

 

H322 and H4198 are among the slightly faster burning powders that have been shown for .223 loads.

Give it a shot. Pun intended.

Go to http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/  , choose the pistol icon, and plug in the .223 Rem. caliber and the 55gr bullet and you'll see that both those powders show up in the powder selection box.
Keep in mind that the powder box also shows much slower powders (like the BLC-2) so choose your powders carefully. However, both of the ones I mentioned should work well, but stay at the lower end of the recipes unless you know how to look for over-pressure conditions or use a chrono to check your loads.

I use AA 2230 and AA 1680, didn't get far into the 1680 yet tried a few with plan on revisiting due to only using(off the top of my head)19gr instead of 24.5 of the 2230 for 55grfmj.

My pistol is a 7" pretty sure you will waste powder either way.

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Might try searching for Thompson Contender loads, seems like I saw a special section for them in a reloading manual once.
The people that like that firearm tend to handload also, and they've been launching rifle rounds from pistol length barrels for a long time. Of course they don't have to cycle anything.

What will work depends on your gas port size too. H4198 is probably the fastest burning powder that can be used to load lighter (<55 grain) bullets in .223 AR-15's. H4198 will not function reliably in some 20" barrels. H322 is a better all around choice. Both of these powders give excellent accuracy and velocity in .223 with light bullets.

Your pistol/SBR upper may need a slower burning powder (they use heavier powder charges) to create enough port pressure to run the action. Velocity is always lost when running short barrels and very little can be done about it. You give up velocity to gain maneuverability and concealabilty. It's more important that the ammo you use feeds and functions 100% than travel 100 fps faster. Test for reliability before pursuing more speed.

The 40 grain varmint bullets can be run faster velocity wise and use the fastest burning powders. I would load 23.0 grains of H322 with 55 grain Hornady SP's or FMJ's and not worry about speed. Good Luck.