*I originally posted this in the general reloading forum, dryflash advised me to cross post here*

Hey all, looking for some powder tips... I have an 18" spiral fluted 3 gun barrel in 223 Wylde from ar15performance.com and about 1000 69gr Sierra matchkings as recommended by the barrel maker. I do not have a chrono.

I am loading 1x fired LC and MKE headstamp brass trimmed to 1.750", wet tumbled and swaged. Currently the barrel groups about 1.5" at 100yds with cheap 55gr factory loads for break in. I loaded up 5ea of my prepped brass to 2.250" coal with a ladder of Reloder 15 at 24, 24.3, 24.5, 24.7, and 25gr. The 24.3 grouped best, but all groups had flyers which I could not call, and the best group was just under 1.5". I went back and loaded more at 24.2, 24.3, and 24.4 but they all shot the same. Occasional bullseye with an array of random flyers.

This was with CCI 400 primers. I have more of the 400, also have lots of 450s and about 500 Federal 205M.

Obviously the RL15 did not do well. My other options on my shelf are 2000MR, H335, CFE223, and IMR4166. I do also have a couple pounds of Varget, but I'm trying to reserve that for my 308.

If any of you out there have experience loading for this barrel or care to recommend which powder to try next, I'm all ears.

Thanks

*
Additional info from my other thread:

The results had me questioning myself for sure, but I'm not new to this.

I was shooting off a bench with bipod and rear bag. The bipod is one I machined myself, low wide f class style with adjustable rubber feet. Rifle is built on a trued CMT billet upper with lightweight bcg, 15" ff rail, rifle length gas and buffer, Nikon Black FX1000 6-24 mrad and a Triggertech diamond turned down to 1.75lb. 10rd pmag.

I run the same setup at the same range with an Aero M5/Viper 6-24/MBT2S/165gr Gamekings over 44.5 Varget in Fed cases with gmm primers and shoot clovers at 200.

While I dont have reloading info, if I recall that website  that you bought the barrel from is a website that cannot be named here. May want to take that part out.

My 18 inch La Rue likes Varget better than RE-15.  RE-15 is what my .308 really shoots well.

Try Varget with the same brass prep at around 23.5 grains.  Shoots very well in my gun.  Be safe, work up, etc.

Edit - Transposed numbers, should read 25.3 grains of Varget.  FYI, it's shown as the Accuracy Load in my  Hodgon Reloading Manuel.

Thanks. I didn't want to dip into that stash, but I guess it will help rule out the powder as the issue.

I just did some load development for that bullet with Varget in my 16” WOA barrel. I settled on 26.0gr Varget. Velocity was just above 2700. Sierra says their accuracy load is 25.3gr of Varget, same as the previous poster said.

In the AR I've bothered to try loading 69s for, it shot pretty dismal groups until I got near a max charge of ARCOMP and switched to federal AR-match.

I tried the same load with #41s and it didn't do so well, nor did TAC.

I don't expect amazing results, it's a faxon barrel with a gatelock silencer on it, but it wouldn't shoot the 69s worth a damn until then. I need to make up more as the max was only a 5rd test along with lesser charges.

Perfection lies with Varget with Rem 7.5 primers in prepped cases
69 OTM from Sierra or Nosler
Magazine length
Varget
You should find the sweet spot lies between 24.7 and 25.3gr of Varget.
TAC should be another option.  I found CCI 450's and TAC were a good combo especially with 69 or 77gr OTMS's

I load 69 SMK's with 24.7 RL15. Did you play with seating depth? I am averaging about 3/4 Moa out of a 1/8 MP 16" barrel. I have mine set at 1.820 BTO, about 2.220 OAL.

Clean the barrel thoroughly and and use .3 grain increments when loading for accuracy in .223.

RE-15
VihtaVuori N140
Varget
H4895
IMR-8208-XBR are all known accuracy powders for heavier bullets.

There is no reason why RE-15 shouldn't give you good results with powder charge tuning.

You need a bags front and rear for group shooting with any rifle, even an AR-15. The rifle needs to be naturally aligned dead center on target using bags prior to each round fired. I find bipods are not as stable as bags. The higher the magnification (quality glass) your scope is the better your repeatability will be. Black bullseye's work better for me than red or orange. Have your scope aligned off the bullseye so you don't shoot your target up changing your visual picture.

I will load the maximum charge weight as listed by the bullet manufacture's data. At least five rounds at each powder charge. I will reduce the charge -.03 grains for example, 25.0, 24.7, 24.4, 24.1, 23.8 and maybe 23.5. I will shoot these charges starting with the lowest charge first. It doesn't hurt to make 8 rounds at the lowest charge so you can fire three fouling shots before shooting for groups.

Velocity is irrelevant to me when looking for accuracy. If 23.5 grains in the above example fired a tidy .5" group I say it's a keeper. The load has to be safe. The load has to function the rifle 100% of the time. As long as those two requirements are met I'm done.

Known accurate load windows with 69 grain Sierra's in .223.

24.0 grains of H4895 (close to max)
24.5 to 25.0+ grains of Varget
23.8 grains of IMR-8208 (close to max)
RE-15 24.5 to 25.0+
VihtaVuori N140 24.2 to 25.0

I did not play with the seating depth, but I'm willing to give it a try. Been busy eith work but I do want to try the Varget and I can make up a few more with RL15 while I'm at it.

This was load workup that my girlfriend shot with Varget (24.5-25.2gr), RL-15 should work as well, using similar charges. The highest charge started opening up, so we stopped after 3rds.

I think these were loaded at 2.245 COAL, but I’d need to check loaded rounds since we measure BTO.

Works in our 223wylde bolt guns I built and the 223wylde gassers (16-18”) as well.





Are you trimming after you wet tumble?

Distance and rifle used?

My process is:
Decap
Wet tumble
Resize
Trim
Deburr
Wet tumble
Hand prime
Throw charges with rcbs uniflow
Load on rockchucker

That was from a Remington 700 that I rebarreled. 100yds

I’ll try to take 1-2 AR’s out with it this weekend.

I’d be careful about wet tumbling after trimming and especially after sizing. I’ve found that more than 20-30 minutes can cause shot peening at the case mouth which may affect neck tension. I’d think that soft case mouths could also experience some deformation that would affect bullet seating as well if there isn’t a final sizing step. Just my thoughts

Interesting thought re: neck tension and work hardening of the brass. Shot peening by definition raises the surface tension(hardens) of the surface being peened. That would increase the tension by some amount, if one were able to measure it. An annealing process would be use to bring the material back to a relaxed condition, which would result in less neck tension.

I tumbled my brass for an hour mainly to wash off the sizing lube, 2hrs on the first go-round for cleaning.

I look forward to your results of that load in a gas gun, please do post back to let me/us know.

I think you’ll be surprised if you measure the neck of your case as it goes towards the mouth. 2hrs just seems like way too long. I’ve bought some 1x LC brass in the past that was cleaned (wet tumbled) and trimmed and couldn’t figure out why the case mouths couldn’t get a nice deburred rim till I trimmed them again. The reason that I’ve surmised, is that they were wet tumbled to hell to make them “pretty” vs functional. 20-30 minutes with no pins using just Dawn and a small amount of lemishine gets the brass clean (suppressed 223/6.5creed/.308 gas guns). 45mins tops is all that I’d go personally, and then I’d count on trimming the cases. When I first got my wet tumbler, I tumbled some 6creed brass “per recommendations” for 1.5hr. The cases were extremely shiny, but wouldn’t chamber due to the swelled case mouth, which sizing won’t eliminate. They just go right back after coming out of the die.

I know a lot of ppl dry tumble their brass to remove sizing lube, and while I’m setup to do that, I just use an old cloth to clean the cases. Less chance of damaging, but it can be tedious as I usually prep 150-300 pieces at a time.

Weather looks good for tomorrow. I’ve got 25rds of the Varget load leftover from the MOA #6 event. I’ll load some rounds with RL-15 going +/- .1 grs of the varget load.

It has been tested, and measured:

Tumbling cases in stainless steel media does not work harden the entire cross section of the case wall. This contradicts our earlier findings. When hardness testing the neck of an intact case on a mandrel the diamond indent is made on the outside surface.

Measuring that way shows that 4 hours of SS tumbling hardens the surface of the case wall by 15  25 HV. When the same case is sectioned however, the cross section of the case wall can be tested. This showed that no work hardening occurs deeper into the cross section. The tumbling effectively creates a harder "skin" on the surface which is undetectable even under 200X magnification or higher.

The TL;DR version is that no, it doesn't increase the neck tension by an appreciable amount.  If a person was trying to shoot record setting groups in 1000yd BR or going for the new national record in 1000yd F-class, one might quibble over that.  For an AR... move on, this is not the problem you're looking for.

FWIW, in my experience, the amount of peening you get on the case mouths when wet tumbling depends on a number of factors.  Time is certainly one of them, but also case size, and the level of 'fill' in the tumbler.  The latter two items affect the amount of 'fall' that the cases experience as the drum rotates, and cases are carried up the side, and then tumble back down.  .223 cases aren't really big enough or heavy enough to do much damage to the case mouths (and the case mouth diameter is smaller, so the edge is better supported) over the short distance inside the drum of a wet tumbler.  Add in a decent amount of pins, and it should be a non-issue.  Bigger cases i.e. magnums are a whole 'nother matter...

A Thumler's Tumbler drum with some .338LM brass, and 4-5 lbs of pins, and the remainder of water... *might* be able to go an hour without developing a noticeable burr on the case mouth that absolutely needs trimmed off.  Maybe.  If you're lucky.

Same setup, with 100 pcs of .308 Win brass... an hour to hour and a half, no problem.  Might want to chamfer/debur after anyway to get a fresh edge, but the lip of the case mouth isn't going to be peened/rolled over to where it's going to cause an issue fitting in the chamber, or 'crimping' the bullet (seen both).  Two hours or more... you're going to start having issues.

Same setup, with up to 200 pcs of .223 Rem brass... can go hours.  Certainly way longer than you should ever need to actually get them clean, inside and out.  Again, I like a 'fresh' edge after processing my brass, and I have a Giraud trimmer, so I lean toward running them thru a trim/chamfer/debur cycle anyways whether they need it or not.

I've talked with people who packed that drum with god-only-knows how much brass and pins, and tumbled overnight, claiming they had no issues.  Can't say I entirely believe that, or maybe their standards for 'no issues' is different than mine.  I do know that when I first started doing wet tumbling (.308 Win) I did about an hour on the first batch.  I was pretty happy with the results, but the primer pockets weren't *quite* 100% clean, so I put the next batch in and left it overnight (like I used to do when dry tumbling with corn cob media).  The case mouths on that batch were so peened/rolled that I had to trim them 10 thou short, and *then* chamfer/debur.  Not fun at all.

Just want to clarify, I tumbled for 2hrs for cleaning purposes, and I was processing 1600rds of range pickup brass. Then I sized it all, swaged all the pockets that needed swaging, then did my trim, then tumbled for 1hr to clean the lube and brass debris off.

So far all the rounds I have processed in this manner have chambered properly in 3 different barrels.

When I process this brass on the next go-round, it won't be so dirty to start and I will likely just do a 1hr clean before sizing, vs 2.

This was my suspicion as well (tension change being too small to notice).

But, it does confirm 100% the shot peening effect as I described it.

The brass effect is only one part of the equation.

If the brass can flare out enough to cause issues chambering, it stands to reason that just before that point, there would be variations in how much force the chamber wall was applying on the case neck/mouth and subsequent bullet. I.e, the chamber is now impacting neck tension.

@SuperJlarge Did you get out to shoot today?

If they are seeing such a minimal change in surface hardness after *four hours* of wet tumbling, and basically none at all to the hardness of the 'meat' of the neck itself... it 'stands to reason' that any variations in neck tension are below the ability of the vast, vast majority of competitive shooters to see on target... and damn sure below where it's going to matter for mag-length gas gun ammo.

IIRC, the technical term for what we (reloaders) call 'neck tension' is something like 'hoop stress'.  While that can and does affect consistency in seating, far more of what you 'feel' (or measure, if you have a hydraulic seating force gauge - which I do, for the stuff where it's relevant) is due to the surface condition of the inside of the case neck.  If you want smooth, consistent bullet seating, you can either a) not wet tumble, and leave the carbon inside the case necks, and give it a light pass inside with a nylon brush to knock off any excess, or b) replace that carbon layer with some sort of artificial lubricant, whether it's Imperial dry neck lube, something like One Shot or HbN on a q-tip, etc.  Either way, you're getting down into the 'excessively fussy' end of things, typically reserved for serious competitive endeavors - and generally not really applicable to gas guns.

@sebspeed

Just got back.

Started off shooting the Varget load with the black mag, but experienced double grouping with it. Each group has 2 and 3 shots in clusters. I found a different mag in my range bag and shot the RL-15 groups.

My take is both RL-15 and varget are suitable for the 69smk’s and they can utilize almost the same charge weight (which a lot of ppl have known).

Average was .70moa for all 5 groups.

I guess it just depends on when to say enough is enough.

If a properly setup AR (with the right mags) isn’t going to consistently yield close to 3/4moa, I don’t have any use for it outside of a plinker with a red-dot. When it comes to precision, it all matters. Even the shoulder bump matters. A case could still chamber but have a POI shift and opening of the group if it’s being sized during chambering. I’ve seen a load go from shooting 0.4moa to shooting 0.9 moa just because the wrong shell holder was used during sizing. That 4 thou difference in bump played a difference!!

Even though the “meat” of the neck is not being impacted, only the small portion at the neck, it can still have an impact. This is true with smaller cartridges like 223, perhaps more than larger cases since the charges are light and the nodes are smaller. It doesn’t take much of a shift in charge (think pressure) to go out of a node. If you increase the neck tension, or have it varying between cases, it’s equivalent to having different charge weights since the pressure generated isn’t the same.

Just curious... if you're obsessing over seating force like this, you're using a hydro seater, right? ;)

I think you missed the point of what I’ve been saying. I haven’t been obsessing over seating force.

But, to answer your question, no I don’t use a hydro seater. I don’t use any special equipment. I use the basic RCBS FL or Hornady FL dies. Even with a press measuring the force exerted, that wouldn’t come into play with what I’ve been discussing. If the case neck/mouth is oversized and is contacting the chamber with variation between cases, your neck tension won’t be the same, regardless of what fancy equipment was used to make the loaded cartridge.

Different barrel, similar results.

Previous was an 18” Rainier Rock Creek. This was a Rainier Arms 18” match.




I only had 4rds of the Varget load, but they grouped well from the 18” match barrel.

FWIW:

These folks have built and compete in ALOT of matches and win:

https://whiteoakprecision.com/info/reloading/

That data is from a 20" barrel but 18" would work too.

https://whiteoakprecision.com/info/reloading/

Made the link hot for you.

Also, this page is getting dated, but what is on it is still valid.

http://radomski.us/njhp/cart_tech.htm

If your set up doesn't shoot groups <1MOA with a Service Rifle Pet Load using a 69 or 77 SMK, then something needs to be debugged cause it isn't the recipe.

Thank you for those nuggets. Your last note isn't lost on me. I've been busy but plan to go back through the rifle for a sanity check.

Keep at it and don't give up.

I often recommend to folks, to keep some decent reference ammo handy for any times when they run into these situations.

For example, a box of Black Hills 69 TMK or 69 SMK to help debug a rig that acts up.

By having a good baseline with good reference ammo, you can start dividing the problem before you leave the range.

I have a 16" 5r heavy-ish barrel from the same company who shall not be named.

This barrel has been stellar. The most accurate load of everything I've tried is:

69smk
LC brass
CCI 400
23.2 grains of 8208xbr
2.255" COAL

Keep an eye out for 8208 and snag a couple pounds.

I certainly will. Finding time is tough lately, I may only get back to the rifle range a few times in the next couple months due to work and winter weather.

I've taken that referce enapproach before, and have some Federal GMM ammo stashed for that purpose for other calibers. I never did get any match grade in 223, and I'm not going to hold my breath for any now with everything going on. I have some SS109 and XM193, but I wouldn't really rely on that to tell me much, outside of getting an optic sighted in "close enough" to move over to better ammo.

I’ve used 24.5 of Reloader 15 with 69 SMK’s in multiple rifles with great results.  I’m using a Remington 7.5 primer, everything at mag length.

It shoots great out of a bolt gun and just about as good out of two different 18in WOA barrels.

My last range trip my shooting buddy ran some 69 SMK over 25.5 Varget out of a 16" factory Sprikes rifle and they were stacking on top of each other at 100 yards.

It's been a long 4 months but I finally got out on a nice 60f sunny day today and shot some more ladders I had made up.

My specs for this run:

LC 18 brass, prepped as before
69gr SMK
Rem 7.5 primer

CFE223, 2000MR, and IMR4166 tested

All fed from a 10rd SS Duramag (10rd pmag last time)

I got myself a Competiton Electronics chrono with bluetooth, the app is very neat, love that it is wireless.

Unfortunately, I forgot my calipers, so I'll measure groups later.

The best group of ~ 1/2" came from 22gr 4166 at an avg velocity of 2412fps - ES 58  SD 22 - unfortunately no bcg lock back with this load, it did cycle all 5 rounds well though.

I enjoyed seeing the ES/SD #s as it confirms the "feel" and everything I've read about loading ball vs flake vs stick powders. My best SD was 8 with the CFE. Too bad that low SD did not translate to small groups! At least, now that I know the 4166 works well, I can work on improving my metering of the powder and load a higher resolution ladder to hopefully tune in the group size.

My second best group was also 4166 - 23gr @ 2560fps ES 73/SD 26 ~1", dispersed vertically. I'm attributing that to my stock/rear bag relationship. Known issue, it's a new bag and a stock I designed and made, they don't play together as well as they should. I'm going to machine a removable bag rider and shop for a new squeeze bag (suggestions?). Bolt did lock back with this load.

I am going to load up 25rds, 5rds ea at 22.4, 22.6, 22.8, 23 and 23.2 and I'll trickle the charges to bring those es/sd #'s down.

Looking forward to stacking holes with this rifle!

Side note - do those velocities seem low? I had the chrono placed about 9ft forward of my muzzle, I am running a brake if that matters for placement.

I wanted to add that I used 5 rounds of 62gr ZQI M855 to warm up the barrel. It's rated at 3000fps and the chrono clocked an average of 3017fps for those 5rds.

20" usually launch at 2700-2900fps.

18" here

So subtract ~50-100fps. I consider your loads slow.

Most published data maxes out around 2800 fps for 68/69 grain bullets when fired from 20" barrels. Higher velocities than that are almost always fired from a 24" barrel or even longer.

I have found excellent accuracy tuning loads to 2750 fps +/- a little using most standard powders from a 20". H4895, IMR-8208, Varget, RE-15, N140.

Virtually all of my loads gain 100 fps going from a 20" to a 24" barrel. 2850 fps to 2900 fps would be normal velocities when fired from the longer tube.

IMO there is no good reason to hot rod any match grade loads. My personal standard competition (inside 300 yards) has been 24.5 grains of Varget under a 69 grain SMK seated at 2.250" for over ten years now. Other loads shoot great, but this load has been exceptional from every rifle I have fired it through. I use it for baseline accuracy tests on any new barrel just to see where it stacks up.

Sounds like I have more work to do.

Yup, these loads are a little weak for an AR platform with the SMK69.

Here is an oldie but a goodie link that you can study. If you see the typical speeds and loads for the 69, you will get an idea.

http://www.radomski.us/njhp/cart_tech.htm

You should be looking at more like 2900 at muzzle for a typical 20" bbl and you can fudge a down a little for shorter ones.