None of the data presented here is endorsed by me, this website's staff or ownership.  It is presented as the finding of an unusual experiment.   The reader is advised.

There being a renewed interest in my teaching people to shoot and my son having developed an interest In predator calling, I've been looking for something to bridge the gap between .22lr and .223.  The gun budget being currently reserved for more practical pursuits, it had to be cheap ideally utilising primarily parts already on hand.  I set a goal of replicating .22 WRM loads in .223 cases with reliable operation.

Knowing that most reduced .223 loads would not operate a standard carbine, I procured a 14.5 barrel with pistol gas from Bear Creek Armory for the princely sum of $40.  Why they made these is anyone's guess, but it provided a very convenient and inexpensive platform for proof of concept.

Once the barrel arrived, I stuck it onto a random available upper to get a quick and dirty test using a FA bolt carrier and standard carbine buffer.

Safety Note:

Alliant Blue Dot has a long history of use in small rifle cartridges and magnum revolver rounds, despite the fact that Alliant no longer recommends the practice.  I don't recommend you attempt to duplicate my results.  Not only does Blue Dot produce unstable pressures outside of a certain range, it is also bad about bridging powder measures.  I am going to look at other powders, but this was on hand and I made and informed decision to take the risk.  Don't try this at home.

Before attempting and handloads, I ran a couple of boxes of steel cased Wolf through the upper.  It was overgassed to be certain, but there were no problems.

I was able to get down to 10 grains of Blue Dot under a 40 grain VMax with 100% feeding and locking the bold back.  This is probably 2200fps +/- 150.

9 grains of Blue Dot fed reliably, but did not lock the bolt open on an empty magazine.  I replaced the cabine buffer with one from which the weights had been removed.  No difference.  This load is likely very close to the desired velocity.  It was also giggle inducing to shoot.

The 8.5 grain loads was a hot mess.  Right on the edge of operating the action it failed to extract, failed to eject, and failed to feed, sometimes simultaneously.  It just failed.

I think this project has some merit.  I'lll be getting the chronograph out next time, trying out more powders and shooting for accuracy.  Any feedback or suggestions are welcome.

Let me know when you get around to this.  Because reliable operation means nothing if you can't hit anything.

$40 BCA barrel.  Not exactly a fair test of accuracy.

Most likely, but you might be surprised

This. I like this. At first I was going to suggest an 22 WMR upper. Rayvin makes one. However I enjoy seeing people experimenting.
I'm looking forward to seeing further results with different powders and how accurate you can get.

Jake

I like to run subsonic on a few different ones that I have, to get them to run reliable I open up the gas port and put  an  adjustable gas block on it.

What velocities are you looking for?

22 WRMish.   Call it 40grains @ 2000fps.

What are your subsonic loads?  How big gas port?

I'm thinking about trying get to run these loads with the gas block wide open and see it I could make Wolf run with it restricted making more versatile and a training tool.

None of the data presented here is endorsed by me, this website's staff or ownership.  It is presented as the finding of an unusual experiment.   The reader is advised.

New attempt. All testing done with empty buffer.

Decided to try Hodgons Longshot since I had it on hand.  It is a shotshell powder like Blue Dot, but more dense.  Hodgdon does still lists loads for handguns contridges, but like Blue Dot it is suspected of pressure instability at the top end and blamed for destroyed guns.  I found erratic pressure sights early and discontinued testing.  Pity, as it operated the rifle well.  It really is too dense.  Powder position and fill were better with Blue Dot.  Not worth the risk.

Aliant Unique is sometimesa mentioned with reduced .223 loads and people occasionally claim to operate AR's with it, so I gave it a shot.  No dice it would occasionally pick up the next round, but even at my maximum of 9 grains there was little hope of making it work.

Next up was Hodgdon's Trail Boss.  Trail Boss is a powder marketed toward cowboy action shooters, but can be loaded in just about anything.  This is the fluffiest powder on the market.  So much so, they can't fit a full pound into a standard size can.   This powder wasn't really on my radar as it was the fastest powder tested.  But it is a easy powder to safely load substantially reduced power cartridgesnand my next choice, Alliant Steel, isn't available locally.

I was shocked then that my start load of Trailboss worked about well as max load of unique.  I worked my way up to a 100% load denisity (Trail Boss's party trick) and was able get a couple of rounds in a row to chamber although ejection was  weak and a few cases were mangled.  This really encouraging, so I decided to abandon my powder testing and attempt to get this load  to function.  $40 barrel, so why not?

I opened up to gas port a bit and was immediately rewarded with more feeding an better ejection.  I decided to go for broke and reamed the port to 3/32".  This bought me 80% function, but it really seemed to want to work.    I clipped 2 coils from the buffer spring and assembled my 30 remaining bullets with the same charge.  I loaded 10 rounds each into three PMags.   100% function and the bolt locked back on empty magazines.  Primers looked great and cases seemed to seal well with no excessive soot. Velocity should be close.

Now, 30 rounds isn't really a huge test sample, but I feel sure this could be made to work.  Further tuning and testing to come.

Cool info thread right here. I too have an interest in some reduced power loads for my ARs. Would like to get close to 22 Hornet levels if I can. Don't know where you are but I volunteer to run some through a chronograph if you'd like me to. I'm in the DFW area.

I'm outside Tyler.  I might take you up on that.

I wonder how N32C at 60-70% load density would do.

Check the info, you cant trust my brain.

I'm sure Iv seen a 4.5gr titegroup , 55gr subsonic load.

Also IMR has a power that you can reduce like 60%

You should post this in the reloading forum.

Armory/ reloading.

Good info on all this

On my list to try.  It should be a viable candidate.  This is a small budget project that is going to be spread out over a couple of months.

I honestly didn't think the gun would be so easy to sort.

Get a sprinco yellow buffer spring.

It would be nice to use a standard spring so that results would be more easily replicated by anyone interested, but the budget is basically loose change in the couch cushions at this point.

Try some H4895 it is approved for reduced loads ask in the reloading section for the rule as it is a % of the max load

found it 60% of the max load is the lowest they approve of

http://www.hodgdon.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/h4895-reduced-rifle-loads.pdf

Hodgdon says 3.1 max for a MV of 1,064 fps.

You CAN use 4895.  It would probably work to get .22 Hornet loads while functioning with carbine gas.

I haven't messed with it because I wanted to go lower in velocity and 4895 isn't know for great accuracy when downloaded that far.  I have some and I may eventually try it.

None of the data presented here is endorsed by me, this website's staff or ownership.  It is presented as the finding of an unusual experiment.   The reader is advised.

8.1 grains of Trailboss functioned with 55 grain Speer TNT.  It was going too slow to expand much in gallon jug of water.  Maybe 1500-1700fps.  Neat hole in, slightly ragged hole out

The 40 grain Vmax load, in contast, blew water jugs in half and a large part still exited.

My son and I visited Full Mag Sports outside of Whilehouse, TX yesterday looking for bullets.  The owner didn't have anything suitable on the shelf, but gave us some samples out of his own supply for reloading his .22 Hornet.  He'll be getting more business from us.

None of the data presented here is endorsed by me, this website's staff or ownership.  It is presented as the finding of an unusual experiment.   The reader is advised.


Red Dot under the 55 grain TNT functioned the action as low as 6.0 grains.  6.5 locked the bolt back and was all I was comfortable with using.

Also tried the 6.5 grain load under 35 grain VMax bullet for the .22 Hornet.  It didn't give the bolt carrier enough stroke to pick up the next cartridge.

I never thought it would be possible to get to this level.  Now I'm beginning to think fast powder subsonics might be possible with a lightweight bolt carrier.

Cool stuff here. Lots of new stuff for me to tinker with.

Offer still stands for chronographing.

Sent site IM.

Are you using QuickLoad? I scaled down The Load and got 4.0gr. 5.0gr was the highest I dared.

I have Quickload, but find that farther you get from normal loads the less trustworthy it becomes.  There are people that are using more Red Dot under 55grain FMJ, but I wouldn't.

None of the data presented here is endorsed by me, this website's staff or ownership.  It is presented as the finding of an unusual experiment.   The reader is advised.


The Hornady 50 grain Soft Point Varmint over the 8.1 grain Trail Boss load functioned the action and locked back when empty.  Not much expansion was expected, none observed.

The 35 grain VMax Hornet bullet failed to function over 8.1 grains of Trail Boss.  Pity, as the terminal effect was promising.  Water jug captured a variety of small fragments and three larger fragments exited.

This is the 55 grain TNT over 7.4 grains of Trail Boss from a known accurate rifle @40 yards.

The 55 grain Nosler Varmagedon HP did nearly as well.

Accuracy from the BCA barrel is mediocre at best.  Groups run .7-1.2" or so at 40 yards.  One of the better groups:

How many rounds through the barrel so far?

300 or so.

The 40 grain Vmax/Trail Boss load showed some promise.  More testing at the range at any rate.  I think it will be fine for calling in coyotes.  A long shot will be 50 yards.

The 40 VMax recovered from water:

This is pretty cool. It would be awesome to get subs to cycle reliably. I remember when those barrels went up for sale. Never thought about the use of it in this type of context. Pretty neat.

I don't see fast powder subs yet.  It seems there is less and less room between gas system function and high peak pressure (without the means to reliably detect) as bullets get heavier.

No saying it couldn't happen, but you'd probably need to do something else to make it work.

Bump.

Got some work, haven't made much progress.

Just trying to keep it out of archive for a bit longer.

Appreciated