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Posted: 3/27/2010 1:45:33 PM EDT
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I'm going to a shoot that may have some night shooting fun, so I'm eyeballing some pulled .22cal projectiles at Wideners. Wideners suggests a hot powder at high velocity with a strong crimp for best performance. I have established 55gr FMJ loads with Varget and Tac and use a Lee FCD with all loads that feed the AR. Both of these plinking loads(Varget 26.0gr and Tac 25.0gr) are well off the max loads, do I need to go through a further load development to bump up velocity or try a faster powder to get decent(consistent) ignition? If the answer is do more development then I would rather just buy a few boxes of ammo. Load development would be a bitch as I'm sure these are not public range friendly. Anyone with experience with these pulled bullets please chime in. Thanks
Steve |
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I checked out polygunbag, I had forgot about that site, they have some cool stuff. The tracers I saw there are 62gr and I don't have much data on that weight of bullet vs. a 55gr. Oh well, if I can't get any info here I guess I'll have to take a different approach. I'm thinking I'll put together some 55gr loads that are hotter than what I usually use, bust out the chrono and send some actual M193 over it, then work the hotter loads over it till I come close to the M193s velocity. Seems like a lot of work just to shoot an evening of tracer fun, think I may just buy some assembled ammo if I can locate some.
Steve |
i have those tips, my public range has nothing posted about it so i shoot em there  They say 55gr but they are more like 53gr. Some will light, some wont, and some wont even have the compound in them to be lit. I use 25gr of h335 or did untill i ran out. I cant find it no more. Ive never tried another powder.
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| The 54 grain red tipped .223 tracer can be loaded with your 55fmj data however I reduce my 55fmj load by 1/2 grain. Now the 62 grain M856 orange tipped tracer bullet is very long and takes up a lot of case volume. Military data indicates they REDUCE the 62 M855 fmj load by 1.7 grains for the M856 tracer. I've had good success using WC 844 surplus powder and H335 which is nearly equivalent to 844. I reduce my WC 844 and H335 62 fmj loads by 2 full grains which makes my 844 or H335 load at about 23 grains for the 62 tracer. Start a little lower and work up and the longer tracer bullet does require a powder reduction to be safe. Maximum loads will not help ignite them any better than a mild load. A normal crimp may help. The 62gr tracer lights up about 75 yards or so and will burn out to 800 yards plus. The reliability of the tracer ignition depends more on the condition of the tracer compound itself rather than the powder and load. Some tracers just are deteriorated over time. Some have suggested that to take a pin and prick a hole in the cup covering to help them ignite? Haven't tried this myself as the tracers I've bought a good time ago seem to almost always light. Also, they WILL start fires in dry conditions. |
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Quoted:
The 54 grain red tipped .223 tracer can be loaded with your 55fmj data however I reduce my 55fmj load by 1/2 grain. Now the 62 grain M856 orange tipped tracer bullet is very long and takes up a lot of case volume. Military data indicates they REDUCE the 62 M855 fmj load by 1.7 grains for the M856 tracer. I've had good success using WC 844 surplus powder and H335 which is nearly equivalent to 844. I reduce my WC 844 and H335 62 fmj loads by 2 full grains which makes my 844 or H335 load at about 23 grains for the 62 tracer. Start a little lower and work up and the longer tracer bullet does require a powder reduction to be safe. Maximum loads will not help ignite them any better than a mild load. A normal crimp may help. The 62gr tracer lights up about 75 yards or so and will burn out to 800 yards plus. The reliability of the tracer ignition depends more on the condition of the tracer compound itself rather than the powder and load. Some tracers just are deteriorated over time. Some have suggested that to take a pin and prick a hole in the cup covering to help them ignite? Haven't tried this myself as the tracers I've bought a good time ago seem to almost always light. Also, they WILL start fires in dry conditions. Thanks for the excellent info guys and I will be careful of fire danger! Steve |
| I have loaded and shot thousands of .223 tracers. There are not a lot of powders out there that give good ignition. You do not need to push the "faster" you just need a good "hot" powder to light the incendiary. Two powders that work extremely well are H322 and H355 ... H355 works the best. I normally load them with a mid-range load and then put a good taper crimp on them. There is no need to approach max load or exceed it. Light rate is normally 80% or better. They are a lot of fun to shoot but you must do it responsibly and not during a dry season. Benchmark, Varget, IMR 4198 and other similar powders do not perform well with tracers. If using a Lee FCD do not overcrimp as it will result in the die pinching the brass and the case neck tearing upon firing. |
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I did a local group buy for 12,000 of those tracers.
My first attempt at getting them to light up was with H335, no matter the load, I never got more than 50% to light up Next was some surplus powder WC846T, this worked well as it was designed for tracers PMC cases CCI # 41 coal 2.230 Lee factory crimp AR 1-9 twist, mid length barrel. 22.5grs 25 out of 30 23.0grs 26 out of 30 23.5grs 21 out of 30 24.0grs 20 out of 30 24.5grs 18 out of 30 25.0grs 17 out of 30 25.5grs 12 out of 30 No high pressure signs on any brass or primers. What I found interesting was that the lower powder charges did better, I was not expecting that. I will retry the H335 with a slightly reduced powder charge. Since the WC846T is recommended to use BL-C2 loading data -10%, I'll try using the BL-C2 powder as well, as that is a much more common powder to attain. I only had about a 100 yards to shoot at last time out, since some tracers are designed to light up further out I will try to test the next batch at at least 250 yards. Hope this is helpful. |
on a rainy day.
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