Several years ago I bought 500 of 62 grain FMJ lead core bullets from midway. They were sold as factory seconds. (sold in 100 round boxes).
Looking around online, I think these are hornady. The pictures seem to look like what I have.
I loaded 100 of these up with some win brass, cci 400 primers, and some TAC (since I have around 8-9 pounds of it).
I shot 50 rounds through two different rifles. One was a 20 inch heavy barrel AR, the other was a 24 inch heavy barrel bolt action. Both shoot sub MOA groups with good quality ammo or my handloads.
I could only get about 2 MOA out of these. I got a couple groups that were almost 1.5 MOA, but mostly it stayed around 2 MOA.
Now this is a sample size of 1 powder and 1 load, so there is lots of other powders to try. However I was hoping I could use TAC since I have so much of it compared to other powders, and I do not use it much.

Just curious if anyone else has loaded these bullets and if so, what accuracy are you getting out of them? If 2 MOA is about what to expect out of these bullets then I will not waste my time trying other loads. But if they can shoot better, I will keep going.
Also, there is the chance this might by why they were sold as "factory seconds". I have bought lots of factory seconds from midway over the years and never had any accuracy issues with them. Usually it was only a little tarnish or cosmetic issues. When I was able to ID the bullets, they all shot just as good as the factory firsts.

Full metal jacket and accuracy do not fit together.

FMJ is made for combat.

If you want accuracy use a match bullet.

I get the 62gr Hornady FMJs from midsouth in a 250 round baggie.  Dunno if they are the same as what you are getting... but with enough W748 (21.8gr) to move 'em at 2750fps-ish from my 26" Savage barrel they are just at MOA accuracy.  Haven't tweaked the load looking for better... or more velocity since I'm just punching paper and banging steel at 200 yards.

This is usually where @molon comes along and spanks everyone.

Using factory Hornady black with the gen2 62gr fmj...out of a colt 14.5 socom...I believe he was seeing 1.32"

With load development I bet you can get close to that 1 moa.

Decent plinking load in my 12” near the top end.  Not a match load by any means but they are a good readily available plinking bullet that replicates the 62gr BTHPs that I like to shoot in my SBR.  

26.2 got me to 2713fps with a SD of 11.2, ES of 35.

The strange thing that I still can’t figure out is why they shoot about 1.5MOA to the right of the BTHPs.



-Mike

Damn you have a good memory!

#39


Hornady Black 223 Remington 62 Grain FMJ







Hornady has produced at least two different versions of their all-lead-core 62 grain FMJ projectile, which I’ll refer to as Gen 1 and Gen 2.  Both versions are standard construction copper-jacketed (gilding metal), lead core bullets. They do not have a steal “penetrator” like M855.

This lot of factory loaded ammunition is topped with the Gen 2 version of the 62 grain FMJ bullet.  The Gen 2 version (pictured on the right below) is longer than the Gen 1 version.  The Gen 2 version has a longer boat-tail than the Gen 1 version and the Gen 2 version has a narrower diameter of exposed lead at the base of the bullet than the Gen 1 version.











I tested the accuracy (technically precision) of the Hornady factory loaded 223 Remington 62 grain FMJ ammunition using a free-floated Colt M4A1 barrel.  This is a 14.5” chrome-lined, NATO chambered barrel with a 1:7” twist.  











A 10-shot group fired off of sand bags at a distance of 100 yards had an extreme spread of 1.32” and a mean radius of 0.35”.






When chronographed from a 20" chrome-lined, NATO chambered Colt barrel with a 1:7" twist,  the 223 Remington 62 grain Hornady Black FMJ load had a muzzle velocity of 2961 FPS with a standard deviation of 24 FPS.


...

Well it appears the factory loaded hornady ammo can get better than 2 moa, so I would assume I should be able to get better than 2 moa with some load testing.
Looking at your pictures, it appears the ones I have are the "gen 1" bullets.
Well at least now I know to continue with some load testing.

I am fully aware FMJ bullets are not match bullets and do not expect match grade accuracy from them. However if I can get better accuracy with them than I am currently getting, then why not?

But just because they are FMJ does not mean they have to be inaccurate. I have shot many accurate FMJ bullets over the years. Not all are created equal.

I've used a bunch of bulk lead core 62 FMJ bullets.

Leftover Winchester and Federal bullets, along with commercial Hornady, Speer, Armscor amd Prvi.

Armscor and Prvi lead core 62 grain were terrible in accuracy, even though 55 grain FMJ and 62 penetrator from Prvi had decent accuracy.

Then the American ones, Winchester wasn't great, Federal was so-so, but Speer and Hornady were best and pretty good.

When Speer changed owners, Speer quit selling .224" 55 grain and 62 grain FMJ bullets, along with quitting .308" 150 grain FMJ and .310" 123 grain FMJ bullets.

This was said to be due Speer was buying their FMJ rifle cartridge bullets from Hornady and the new owner didn't want to buy bullets from a competing bullet maker.

The Hornady bullets have always been the most accurate of the 62 grain lead core bullets I've loaded.

They are not in constant production.

Hornady makes runs for their own commercial sales and also makes batches for contracts with other companies.

There are periods that they aren't available though.

IMR-8208 XBR was developed in Australia to load 62 grain penetrator bullets and meet NATO specs in accuracy, velocity and gas port specs.

They also use it to load export military 55 grain bullet ammo and current Australian 5.56 cases have the same capacity as Lake City cases, unlike older Australian 5.56, with their smaller capacity.

Australia quit making their own primers in 1999 and now imports American CCI primers for 5.56 and 7.62 and imports German RWS primers for 50 BMG.

The original reason Australia developed IMR-8208 XBR was because their SAS wanted to use M4 Carbines, along with available M4 optics and accessories and their original 5.56 ammo didn't meet the gas port requirements of the M4.

It's a pretty specialized powder, as it isn't easy to meet NATO specs with a single base powder and most other countries use a double base powder.

It also overlaps the gas port specs of some non-NATO spec 5.56 firearms, such as the Steyr AUG, so it has a wide range of functionality.

I have not messed with the Hornady 62s, but the Hornady 55 fmj over warm cfe223 does extremely well in every rifle I’ve tried it in. Most of mine rifles are a true 1 minute 5 shot groups. Some a little smaller. For a cheap bullet and a powder that meters well this is a great option. Would not thing and .07-.10 cent bullet would shoot this well.

One thing about FMJ rifle bullets is consistency - or lack thereof.

Hornady’s 55 grain FMJ BT bullets are for lack of a better term “clones” of each other.  Exact copies for all intents and purposes.  The base of these bullets has a generous amount of jacket rolled over the lead core, so the base is far more consistent than most bulk bullets.

In comparison, I have several boxes of Midway USA-repacked bulk 55 grain FMJ BT bullets - they appear to be Winchester, but I could be mistaken.  The lengths are apparently “close to the same”, and weights (from memory) are anywhere from half a grain under to half a grain over stated weight.  Their cannelures are…not located very consistently.  And their bases are all over the place.  They shoot OK, but if this is “normal FMJ construction,” then I can see why the accuracy standard for M193 is so crappy compared to what folks can achieve with Hornady’s bullets.

So I would expect Hornady 62 grain FMJ BT bullets to be at least as consistent as their 55 grain bullets.  And as long as they’re loaded consistently, and shot consistently, they should beat the pants off of typical FMJ load accuracy.

That post help me to decide to buy my colt 14.5 socom barrel. Thanks by the way!

they work perfectly.

i have used them in 10", 10.5" 12" 14.5" 16.1" 18" 20" barrels.

the 62 grain fmj performs great.

i have gone with h335 and imr 4895. better results with imr-4895 to be honst.

Hornady 62gr FMJ reloads with 25gr of H335 is one of my favorite loads. I get just over 1 MOA and very consistent SD as opposed to bulk FMJ. Its all I shoot unless I'm doing sloppy CQM type stuff or I need match 77gr loads.

What primer are you using?

Hopefully I will have some time in the next 2-3 weeks to try some more loads.
All my loads will be 223 pressure/velocity. I have winchester standard small rifle primers, and cci 400's. No magnum primers or mil primers. I have used hundreds of standard primers with reasonable loads with excellent accuracy.
Never had the need to load any so hot I need mag or mil primers.

I will report back when I have tested some more loads.

Life has been getting in the way a lot lately, but I am still on track to test these out.
I have come up with some loads using a couple loading manuals and quickload.
Gonna try the following powders:
X-terminator
W748
CFE223
H335
BLC2  
These are the ball powders I have. I have other powders that would work, but they are stick powders. I want to use a ball powder because they work so great in my powder measure and it throws charges of ball powder that never vary more than .1 of a grain if it ever varies at all. I will load 10 rounds of each power. Yea 10 is not really a good thorough test, but it should give me a basic idea of how each one performs. Again, not looking for sub MOA accuracy. I would just be happy with 1.5 moa or better.
Gonna load a basic "safe" load of each of these powders and if one stands out noticeably better than the others, I can tweak the load from there.
I also found out why these are factory seconds. The canalure is all over the place! Not gonna be able to crimp them, but they will still shoot fine without a crimp. Funny, the first box I opened did not have this issue, but this box I just opened they are all over the place.
Will work on getting these loaded this week in my spare time after work. Depending on the weather will dictate when I get to test them.

nm.

Well 5 different powders, none did any better. Still right at 2 MOA.
All the groups have a few that were a good group but then there would be 2-3 fliers and it open up the groups. Every group did this. If it was a random 1 or 2, I would suspect me or the wind, but I am shooting in a valley that had virtually no wind in it, and I got fliers on every group with all the powders.
So I am guessing the cannelure issues must not be the only part that made these 2nds. Guess these are just going to be 2moa plinking ammo.
I have bought many factory 2nd bullets and never had any performance issues. But I guess there is a first time for everything.

Never did expect them to give match grade accuracy. Was not expecting sub moa, was just hoping for slightly better than 2 moa.
Oh well, blasting ammo it is!

I have never tried Sierra's FMJ's, but Hornady's FMJ's are a bargain. Purchased in bulk they are under 8 cents a bullet and they are more accurate than any other FMJ I have tried. Under 2 moa for any FMJ is excellent performance.

I load a LOT of the H62’s (lead/copper - no penetrator).

Gun is SERVICE RIFLE configuration. White Oak Armament (Wilson barrel) upper.

I use TAC powder.

23.0 grains when using shitty thin primers.
24.0 grains when using CCI 450 primers.

All firing done on NRA “SR” target at 200 yards.
10 ring is just an RCH wider than 2MOA.

These loads RELIABLY land 100% inside the 10-ring WHEN I DO MY PART holding the damn gun still. Which I admit I often fail, as the intended purpose of the SR target is for firing from OFFHAND (unsupported), and SITTING  (sling-supported) positions. Anything not in the 10-ring reliably lands “on call.”

I have fired these same loads from sling-supported PRONE position also at 200 yards. The 24.0 grain load usually shoots a small knot. But not as small as I can shoot with Sierra 77’s or 69 RMR’s.

I did shoot some H62’s with an oddball slow-burning powder, and which produced only about 2500 FPS with a cram-full case of powder. Those loads were poor accuracy.

Keep your velocity up, and the H62’s will be pretty darn accurate - at least to 200 yards - based on my experience.