I recently acquired a bunch of Speer 64 gr Gold Dots that I want to load up for my AR.  Reloading data for this bullet is nonexistent.  Anybody load these before? Got any load data you would like to share? Any strange quirks with this bullet that I should know about?


Update :

H335 @ 24.6 appears to be the most accurate through my rifle with a velocity of 2720 fps out of a 16" barrel.

Use 63 gr Sierra SMP or 65 gameking data as a guide and work up

What powder?

Yep. That was what I used when developing loads for my Nosler 64 grain BSB's.  I was just looking for some ideas from others whom may have loaded these as to what sort of powders work the best and what sort of velocities they were getting. I'm thinking about trying Varget or maybe 8208XBR with these pills.

One of my concerns about this bullet is the way it's manufactured.  Being a plated bullet, I suspect it might obtrude easier than more traditional jacketed bullets that I am familiar with and because of this may have some pressure issues associated with its construction style. I would love to hear from anyone that has worked up loads for these Gold Dots or their sister the Fusion bullets.

There are some guys that have pushed up to 25.5 gr of TAC (work up, I settled on 25) and 25 gr Varget with that bullet.IIRC. Rem 1X cases, Rem 71/2 primers

25.5 Tac is what I worked up to.

Technically yes they are plated but It's more like a bonded jacket. The original loads that they were loaded with are full power hunting loads.

Motor

I am curious to see what sort of velocities people are getting with these.  It looks like the factory loaded version of this is running around 2680fps-2700fps from a 16" carbine at .223 pressures.  I am assuming that hand loaders are seeing similar results?  

I notice some of the folks here have mentioned TAC for powder.  I have never worked with TAC before and do not have any to try.  I actually don't have any ball powder at the moment.  The only powders I have on hand at the moment are Varget, 8208XBR, IMR4320 and IMR 4064.  I have been looking for a local source of suitable ball powder for my 55gr FMJ's but haven't been able to find any as of yet.

At this point I am leaning toward working up a load with Varget, CCI 450's and once fired LC brass.  Using data for 65 grain game king as a starting point.  I worked up a great load with Varget a year or two ago for my Nosler Bonded Solid Base bullets and was pleased with the powder in that application.  That load had a good accuracy node in my rifle within the 2740 fps velocity window in my 16" mid length .  My guess is that this bullet isn't going to fly as fast. But maybe I am wrong.  I haven't found a b.c. for this bullet yet, but I am betting that it will be a bit higher than the Nosler BSB's low .231 b.c.

That sounds like a good plan. I use the Sierra 65gr Game Kings for deer. I use Reloder-15.

Motor

I'm surprised this subject hasn't been more active.  Guess maybe not as many people here as I thought have worked with these 64 gr Gold Dots before.  I loaded up a bunch of different charge weights with H335 and was going to chronograph these while testing for accuracy.  I didn't have much time this weekend to shoot, but was able to squeeze in an hour or so this afternoon.  A buddy of mine has a chronograph that I borrow. So I went over to his place and got the chrony.  I get to the range where I was going to shoot on some private land and realized I forgot all my targets and target stands at home. As a result, all I was able to do was shoot my loads across the chronograph and just let them go into the berm with no targets.  I will have to load a few more test rounds and go back and try again to see how they group.   But for now,  I can at least share my velocity numbers.

All loads were exactly the same except for powder charge. Chronograph Chrony F1.  65 degrees farenheit. 1000 foot elevation

RMR contract over run Speer 64 grain Gold Dots
H335 powder from 23.5 - 25.2 grains
CCI #450 Magnum Small Rifle Primer
Lake City once fired Brass
C.O.L.  2.240"
Test Gun - 16" mid-length PSA AR15


H335 @ 23.5 grains:

Shot 1 - 2610fps
Shot 2 - 2612fps
Shot 3 - 2666fps
Shot 4 - 2612fps
Shot 5 - 2590fps


H335 @ 23.8 grains

Shot 1 - 2689fps
Shot 2 - 2650fps
Shot 3 - 2654fps
Shot 4 - 2620fps
Shot 5 - 2646fps


H335 @ 24.2 grains

Shot 1 - 2699fps
Shot 2 - 2669fps
Shot 3 - 2697fps
Shot 4 - 2664fps
Shot 5 - 2681fps


H335 @ 24.5 grains

Shot 1 - 2771fps
Shot 2 - 2717fps
Shot 3 - 2715fps
Shot 4 - 2733fps
Shot 5 - 2729fps


H335 @ 24.8 grains

Shot 1 - 2797fps
Shot 2 - 2730fps
Shot 3 - 2746fps
Shot 4 - 2726fps
Shot 5 - 2765fps


H335 @ 25 grains (primers starting to flatten out a little bit)

Shot 1 - 2860fps
Shot 2 - 2803fps
Shot 3 - 2834fps
Shot 4 - 2843fps
Shot 5 - 2807fps


H335 @ 25.2 grains (primers getting quite flat. Wouldn't want to load any higher than this)

Shot 1 - 2824fps
Shot 2 - 2875fps
Shot 3 - 2836fps
Shot 4 - 2785fps
Shot 5 - 2856fps


XM193 control load fired across chrono:

Shot 1 - 3118fps
Shot 2 - 3123fps
Shot 3 - 3107fps
Shot 4 - 3052fps
Shot 5 - 3115fps

  Of course without actually having any targets to shoot, I didn't really get an ideas as to what charge weight was going to produce the best accuracy. That said, I am leaning toward keeping all future test loads below 24.8 grains.  I don't see a need to push them faster than this. And the 24.8 gr and below loads showed no pressure signs at all.
  I was originally going to load these up with some Varget, but I found a bunch of H335 locally and decided to see if I can work up an accurate load with it instead that has velocity near factory loaded Gold Dots.

Sorry to hear about forgetting the targets and stands, but I am very glad you had the chronograph Be sure to come back after shooting for accuracy.

I'm getting ready to reload some 64gr Gold Dots and it will be interesting to see what I get for velocities out of my PSA middy (yours is a 1:7 I'm guessing).

I don't know what I'm going to see for accuracy being these are pulls, but I bought them with intentions of shorter ranges.

Now the 64gr new, brand shall not be mentioned bullets I recently bought from RMR are hopefully going to be a different story

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the twist. Yes, it is a 1/7 chrome line 5.56 barrel.  I will be sure to report back after I get these on paper.   Look forward to seeing what your velocities are too.

I went back out to my private range yesterday to try and get some of these 64 gr Gold Dots on paper. I remembered my targets this time.  However the weather was far from cooperative.  Upon arrival it began to rain and the wind picked up a bit with a few gusts now and then.  I call it a range, but its actually just an open area with a large hill as a back stop on a friends piece of property. There is no benches or covered area or even gravel.  So I set up to shoot prone out of the back of my pickup and proceeded to get quite wet and muddy.  I shot 10 rounds each of charge weights between 24.4 - 24.9 in tenth of a grain increments.  Test rifle was my 20" Colt 1/7 twist with SWFA scope prone from muddy wet pickup box using a sandbag on the forearm for support.
Best accuracy was achieved at 24.6 grains of H335.  24.7 grains was very similar with only slightly larger spread.  Every other charge weight was quite bad. I included three pictures to show how badly the group opened up outside of the 24.6 accuracy node.   That said, these groups would likely be better given better conditions. I was sort of hurrying this test because I was getting cold and wet.

24.4 grains H335


24.6 grains H335


24.9 grains H335

I went ahead and loaded up a bunch more of these 64 gr Gold Dots to test again with Varget.  Now I am just waiting for some nice weather before I try them.  I will post the results here once I do.

Cool.  I have a bunch of Varget and a bunch of these Gold Dots, but have a lot of brass to prep before I can get started.  I look forward to seeing your results.

What is the range of grains you have loaded for the initial run?

Due to the dearth of 64 grain boat tail load data, I was thinking of using data for 68/69 grain bullets.  The manuals I have looked at have maximum loads of 25 (Nosler, Hornady) or 26 grains (Lee, Hodgdon).

I'm not at my bench at the moment, so I am going from memory here.  I think the Varget range I loaded up was from 23.8 grains to 25.6grains in increments of .2 grains. I based my charge weights from previous  extensive work up data with the Nosler 64 gr Bonded Solid Base bullet.  With that Nosler bullet, I found the sweet spot to be 25 grains of Varget.  I expect similar results with the 64 gr Speer.

I have a bag of these from RMR, so I'm following this thread with interest.  

Are you concerned with the sensitivity of your H335 results, if moving just .2 to .3 grains away 24.6 has a dramatic effect on accuracy?

Yes and No.  On one hand the thought has certainly crossed my mind about any fluxuations that might make this load perform outside this node.  I feel pretty confident that I can accurately throw the powder on my progressive well within the charge weight needed to reproduce accuracy. Other factors could have an effect though. Different head stamp brass or large changes in temperature might throw off the load.  I am thinking the mixed brass would not be enough to make much of a difference. But temperature extremes might.  The effect of stacking these variables could possibly result in enough of a difference to cause a problem, maybe.  These thoughts are what is leading me to investigate a load with Varget as well.  Varget should be much more temp stable. However, I will likely have to trickle Varget to achieve consistent charge weights.

 The other side of the coin is that these loads are nothing that I plan to use for long distance shooting. I have better loads for that.  I am loading these with the intention of stock piling for home defense, SHTF type scenarios where shots over 200 yards are not too highly anticipated. I may also use some of these for deer hunting. I envision most engagements to be no more than a 100-150 yards or so.  Probably a lot less. If I had to take a 100 yard shot and somehow enough variables were in place to throw the load far enough out of the node and into a 2-3 MOA pattern, well that's still good enough to get the job done. It's certainly not preferable, but it would work.  That would be worst case scenario.  I really am not expecting enough variances to knock the load to that extreme. The flyer that you see in the 24.6 gr target is my fault. I jerked the trigger. The other 9 shots are easily covered with a quarter. A quarter is smaller diameter than an inch, making that group sub-MOA (barely). I think a more realistic scenario would be for groups to open up to no more than 1.5-2 MOA from differences in temp and brass, if that. Also keep in mind, weather conditions were pretty horrible when I shot these. It was raining hard and a bit windy. I was cold and wet and I wanted to get done and be out of there.  I think if I did I over again from a good bench rest on a calm day, and really took my time,  that all my groups would tighten up a fair amount. Maybe when I test the Varget, I will also retest some of these H335 loads. Making sure to do so on a calm day when I am not feeling rushed and my paper targets aren't turning to mush in the rain. Me and a shooting buddy have been contemplating purchasing a Caldwell Lead sled. Right now we are just using a Caldwell dead shot sandbag rest when testing loads. If we decide to purchase the lead sled, then I might retest with it.


 So on one hand I have a load with H335 that I am satisfied with that would be easy to use for mass production on the progressive. On the other hand, I am expecting the Varget to offer better groups and more consistency, at the expense of using a powder that probably will not feed well from the powder dropper causing me to hand weigh and trickle. Until I try out my Varget loads, I won't know how much of an improvement, if any, that I will see  by switching .  If I don't see a healthy improvement, then I might just crank these out on the progressive with H335 and call it a day.  I do have some IMR8208XBR on hand. It would probably work well with this bullet. But I don't want to use it.  I use all the 8208XBR I can scrounge locally to load my 77 grain Sierra Tipped Match Kings and I don't really want to spare any for these gold dots.

Alright I fired my test rounds of Varget with these 64 gr Gold Dots across the chronograph.  I didn't put much emphasis on accuracy in this test.  I had a 10" steel disk that I was shooting at about 120 yards from the chronograph while testing.  My test gun was a 16" 1/7 twist mid length PSA AR with an Eotech. Its hard for me to really test for accuracy with this rifle because of the limitations of the non magnified sight. That said, I was hitting steel with them while recording velocities.

All test loads consisted of the following. With the only variable being the powder charge. Five rounds of each charge weight:

Speer 64 gr. Gold Dot
Varget powder between 24.6 to 26.2 grains
CCI # 450 small magnum rifle primers
C.O.L. 2.240"
Twice fired LC brass

Varget 24.6 grains:
Average - 2663 fps
E.S. - 32 fps


Varget 24.8 grains:
Average - 2694 fps
E.S. - 58 fps


Varget 25   grains:
Average - 2703 fps
E.S. - 47 fps


Varget 25.3 grains:
Average - 2750 fps
E.S. - 19 fps


Varget 25.5 grains:
Average - 2762 fps
E.S. - 24 fps


Varget 25.7 grains:
Average - 2771 fps
E.S. - 76 fps


Varget 26   grains:
Average - 2790 fps
E.S. - 12 fps


Varget 26.2 grains:
Average - 2830 fps
E.S. - 52 fps

The lower charge weights produced slightly sooty brass.  None of these tests showed any sort of pressure signs. Not even the 26.2 gr load.  As noted before, I was just aiming at a 10" steel plate while shooting across the chrono and don't really have any particular data as to which is the most accurate load.  For accuracy testing, I will have to bring along the scoped AR to really tell what is the best.  I'm guessing based on my E.S. numbers that the magic spot will be around 26 grains.  But that's just a guess.  

Thanks Dieselman, that is very helpful.  When I have some results in a week or two I will post them in this thread.

I was finally able to get out this morning.  It was about 80 degrees.

I loaded 6 sets of 6 cartridges with Varget and 64 grain Gold Dots yesterday, starting at 25.0 grains and increasing the charge in 0.2 grain increments.  This is with LC 03 twice loaded brass and Rem 7.5 primers.

The rifle, which I also put together yesterday, has a brand new 16" LaRue Stealth barrel.  Everything else on the rifle is just spare parts I had on hand.  It has a 2.5-10x50 scope.  I was shooting prone with sandbags at 100 yards.

I shot the six groups of Gold Dots, a 6 shot group of Wolf Gold and a 6 shot group of 55 grain V-Max reloads.  None of the Gold Dots showed any pressure signs.


AV=average velocity
ES=extreme spread
SD=standard deviation
MOA=group maximum size in MOA
ATC=average to center (in MOA)

Best Gold Dot group (26.0 grains Varget):


V-Max group:






My Chronograph has been giving me problems lately so my results may be somewhat suspect, although it seemed to function fine this morning.  Some of the odd results can probably be attributed to the small group sizes.  I was surprised that the Wolf Gold shot so poorly in this rifle, it usually seems to be quite accurate for what it is.

Thank You Brasidas for sharing this!   I am not too surprised with your numbers. They are very similar to mine for velocity and E.S.

So what do you think for accuracy?  I didn't really bother shooting my varget loads for accuracy because I had already made up my mind to use H335.  You think there is more potential with Varget? Or happy with the results you got?

The accuracy is OK, but these bullets should be capable of more than that.  I think Molon found that the Speer factory LE load is more accurate than my loads (with a Krieger barrel), and it looks like some of your H335 loads are also more accurate.

I live in an area where temperatures above 110 degrees are common during the summer, so I'd really like to use and "Extreme" powder like Varget for this load.  High temperatures like that can lead to wacky POI changes and pressure related malfunctions, and the Extreme powder should reduce the likelihood of both.  I'd like better accuracy, but really anything under 2 MOA is probably fine.  With a 0.27 bc, this is not the greatest bullet for very long ranges anyway.

I'd like to increase the load a bit to see if the accuracy keeps improving, but I can't find any published load data that would justify that.

I am not sure what I am going to do at this point, and am going to sit on the problem for a while.  I'll probably end up going with the 26.0 grain Varget load, which I think is satisfactory for my purposes.

You could try working up a load with 8208 XBR. It's not temperature sensitive. And you'll use less powder as well as it throws like ball powder.

This was my thought as well.   My Varget loads were not all that impressive.  I was expecting better performance than my H335 loads with Varget,  but that wasn't really the case.  My results with Varget were a little worse than Barsidas results. I then thought about giving 8208XBR a try because it has worked so well in everything else I have used it in, however I chose to just settle with the H335 loads and save the 8208XBR for my 77gr TMK's.

If somebody here decides to try these 64 gr bondeds with 8208XBR be sure and share your results. Would love to see if it works well together.  I have such a hard time finding 8208XBR locally that I am fairly picky with what I load with it.  

The Varget does work fairly well with the 64 gr Nosler BSB bullet.  I load the Nosler 64 gr BSB with a 25 gr charge of Varget and CCI 400 primers and can usually achieve around 1 MOA or maybe a little less with this combination.

Last weekend I shot some of these Nosler 64gr / Varget loads and my Speer 64gr / H335 loads back to back through the same gun on to paper.  I was really hoping for similar point of impact being that the bullet is the same weight. I know, wishful thinking right?  Turns out the point of impact isn't very close.  I sighted my Aimpoint Pro in with the Speer load and then shot the Nosler load. The Nosler were grouping about 2" lower than the Speer's were.  The velocities are not much different for these two loads, so I am assuming the Ballistic Coefficient played a large role here.  I think the Speer's are .270 and the Nosler's are .231

I have a bunch of the 62gr Fusion pulls from RMR that I worked up using H335.  Like you, I found my groups tightened when I reached 24.5-24.7gr and opened up in both directions.  At best I was getting 1.5-2.0 MOA usually closer to 2.0 but that probably has more to do with my ability.  All shooting was at 100 yards using a BA Stainless 1:8 barrel.

Just curious if you happened to chronograph your loads and what velocity you might be running at?  Has your gun shot smaller groups with other loads so that you have something to compare too?  

I have been thinking about maybe picking up some of the 62 gr bullets to try.  I think the 64's are now sold out.  It would be interesting to me to work up a 62 gr and compare accuracy to my 64 gr loads to determine if one was more inherently accurate than the other.

Are the 62gr bonded SP at RMR Fusion bullets?

Yes

Thanks just grabbed 250.

I do not have access to a chrono but I have had better accuracy with 55, 69, and 77 SMK's.  Not by much but very consistent.  I did get to chronograph 62gr FMJ's last year using the same load data and got nearly identical results as above.  ES wasn't great though.

I stopped by the LGS today and they had some of this, so I will give it a try.

I could only find one load in my manuals that used this powder with a somewhat similar weight bullet:



IMR's website has this data:

I would probably start with the 63 gr Sierra data and carefully work up.

Keep us informed on your findings!

Here are my results with the IMR 8208 XBR, with 23.0, 23.5 and 24.0 grains of powder.  I also shot one group with 26.0 grains of Varget (the heaviest load I tried last time).  The conditions were about the same as last time (with same brass and primers), with the same rifle (I did change the scope to a 3-9x40 Nikon Monarch).  I didn't have enough time to let the barrel cool much (10-15 second between shots, 3-5 minutes between groups).

The second Varget group is the group from last time.  My Varget group this time was less accurate.  Probably some human error there.  My bad.

Here are pics of the groups from this time:




Here is the best Varget group from last time (also 26.0 grains):

I think the 8208 XBR does seem to shoot slightly tighter groups than Varget.

26.0 grains of Varget is close to a compressed load, but there is still plenty of room in the case with 24.0 grains of 8208 XBR.  I just can't fine the load data to justifying trying more powder.

There were no pressure signs with either Varget or 8208 XBR.  I don't have much experience with reloading 223 (I usually only load big game cabliers), but the Extreme Spread and Standard Deviation numbers don't seem very good for either powder.

With both Varget and 8208 XBR, increased powder seemed to produce increased accuracy.  I'm too chicken to push things further.

Thank you for sharing!  I wonder if the groups would tighten up a little more above 24 grains of 8208XBR?  If you didn't have those couple of flyers, that 24 gr batch would have been awesome.

I understand the lack of supporting load data to go higher.  My H335 batches that I tested went well above printed data.  I carefully worked up to 25.2 grains with these 64's.  Many people consider 25 grains with a 55 gr bullet to be max.

My manuals show 26-27gr H335 with 55gr as max,  I've gone to 26 but no higher.  No pressure signs.

So I loaded up some 62gr Fusion with CFE223, only got to shoot the 25.8 load on paper and it was all over the place.  I'm going to try some different charges with that then try H335, looks like others had luck with it.