First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Bolt action rifles, lever action, pump action, self loading rifles and other miscellaneous longarms.

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by Tripod » 25 Dec 2017, 6:02 pm

bladeracer wrote:I didn't make these bullets, although I have considered making dies for doing so. These were made by a forum member but I haven't asked whether he wants to be flooded with orders. I bought 1000 off him as I want to do extensive testing, particularly at very low velocities. The very thin jacket should allow it to open up at low speeds.

I am said member and I am now doing these projectile in tins of 500 for $100 posted. They are shooting very well on paper but their intended purpose is small furry pest animals and at this they excel at doing spectacular damage.
Tripod
Corporal
Corporal
 
Posts: 269
Tasmania

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by Gamerancher » 26 Dec 2017, 7:02 am

What weight are they?
User avatar
Gamerancher
Sergeant Major
Sergeant Major
 
Posts: 1596
New South Wales

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by Tripod » 26 Dec 2017, 7:58 am

Gamerancher wrote:What weight are they?

At the moment I am just doing a big run of 52gr, Later I may do a run of 45gr with a large flat point to suit rifles with tube magazines and a run of 40gr to suit Hornets.
Tripod
Corporal
Corporal
 
Posts: 269
Tasmania

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by bladeracer » 26 Dec 2017, 2:35 pm

Tripod wrote:
Gamerancher wrote:What weight are they?

At the moment I am just doing a big run of 52gr, Later I may do a run of 45gr with a large flat point to suit rifles with tube magazines and a run of 40gr to suit Hornets.


Is the 40gr for the Hornet .223"?
Practice Strict Gun Control - Precision Counts!
User avatar
bladeracer
Field Marshal
Field Marshal
 
Posts: 12655
Victoria

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by Tripod » 26 Dec 2017, 3:22 pm

bladeracer wrote:
Tripod wrote:
Gamerancher wrote:What weight are they?

At the moment I am just doing a big run of 52gr, Later I may do a run of 45gr with a large flat point to suit rifles with tube magazines and a run of 40gr to suit Hornets.


Is the 40gr for the Hornet .223"?

What size do you want it to be?
Tripod
Corporal
Corporal
 
Posts: 269
Tasmania

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by bladeracer » 26 Dec 2017, 3:35 pm

Tripod wrote:Is the 40gr for the Hornet .223"?


What size do you want it to be?[/quote]

I would prefer .224" even in a .223" bore.
Practice Strict Gun Control - Precision Counts!
User avatar
bladeracer
Field Marshal
Field Marshal
 
Posts: 12655
Victoria

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by Tripod » 26 Dec 2017, 7:21 pm

bladeracer wrote:
Tripod wrote:Is the 40gr for the Hornet .223"?


What size do you want it to be?


I would prefer .224" even in a .223" bore.[/quote]
Easy, I will let you know when I am doing them. :thumbsup:
Tripod
Corporal
Corporal
 
Posts: 269
Tasmania

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by bladeracer » 29 Dec 2017, 11:11 pm

Tripod wrote:I am said member and I am now doing these projectile in tins of 500 for $100 posted. They are shooting very well on paper but their intended purpose is small furry pest animals and at this they excel at doing spectacular damage.


Have you tried these 52gn bullets in different twist rates and cartridges?
Do they have an accuracy "sweet spot" of velocity or twist rate?
The rain made me put off a test shoot today, tomorrow it'll probably be windy instead :-)
Since I'm working up loads for several bullets all together it should let me compare these with others, particularly the twelve-cent 55gn RooMax.

The five I fired the other day certainly exploded hitting my rubber stop. I recovered everything right down to the powdered lead particles. Two were mulched up in a mess of lead and pieces of brass unlike any bullet I've seen before. Otherwise all I found were a few small brass fragments and powdered lead. Terminal velocity would've been around 2750fps. The photo was just after I spilled Trailboss across my bench :-)
Attachments
251220172971.jpg
251220172971.jpg (863.83 KiB) Viewed 7485 times
Practice Strict Gun Control - Precision Counts!
User avatar
bladeracer
Field Marshal
Field Marshal
 
Posts: 12655
Victoria

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by Tripod » 30 Dec 2017, 9:56 am

bladeracer wrote:
Tripod wrote:I am said member and I am now doing these projectile in tins of 500 for $100 posted. They are shooting very well on paper but their intended purpose is small furry pest animals and at this they excel at doing spectacular damage.


Have you tried these 52gn bullets in different twist rates and cartridges?
Do they have an accuracy "sweet spot" of velocity or twist rate?
The rain made me put off a test shoot today, tomorrow it'll probably be windy instead :-)
Since I'm working up loads for several bullets all together it should let me compare these with others, particularly the twelve-cent 55gn RooMax.

The five I fired the other day certainly exploded hitting my rubber stop. I recovered everything right down to the powdered lead particles. Two were mulched up in a mess of lead and pieces of brass unlike any bullet I've seen before. Otherwise all I found were a few small brass fragments and powdered lead. Terminal velocity would've been around 2750fps. The photo was just after I spilled Trailboss across my bench :-)


I have tried them in all the rifles I have and I will be trying them in my new 221 Fireball that I picked up yesterday :clap: None of the different twist rates seem to make a difference but I don't have any really fast twist rates like 1 in 8. I have used them in 22-250 with a 1 in 12 twist and loaded to max and they explode Kookaburra's quite nicely. (We are allowed to shoot Kookaburra's in Tassie as they are an introduced pest down here)
I don't get to do much target shooting as where we are is very prone to wind but what groups I have shot with very limited development have equaled all of the commercial projectiles I have ever tried.
Where these projectiles excel is as you have discovered they fragment and do maximum damage on small game resulting in less crawl offs or finishing shots.
Tripod
Corporal
Corporal
 
Posts: 269
Tasmania

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by bladeracer » 30 Dec 2017, 2:18 pm

Tripod wrote:I have tried them in all the rifles I have and I will be trying them in my new 221 Fireball that I picked up yesterday :clap: None of the different twist rates seem to make a difference but I don't have any really fast twist rates like 1 in 8. I have used them in 22-250 with a 1 in 12 twist and loaded to max and they explode Kookaburra's quite nicely. (We are allowed to shoot Kookaburra's in Tassie as they are an introduced pest down here)
I don't get to do much target shooting as where we are is very prone to wind but what groups I have shot with very limited development have equaled all of the commercial projectiles I have ever tried.
Where these projectiles excel is as you have discovered they fragment and do maximum damage on small game resulting in less crawl offs or finishing shots.


Thanks Tripod :-)
I was right about the wind, it's blowing a gale today.
My Ruger is 8-inch twist so I'll let you know what I find.
I've loaded up 200rds of your 52gn, 55gn RooMax, 35gn NTX and the 80gn ELD-M, but I want to wait for perfect wind to test them properly. I'm looking for optimum accuracy to begin with.
Practice Strict Gun Control - Precision Counts!
User avatar
bladeracer
Field Marshal
Field Marshal
 
Posts: 12655
Victoria

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by Gamerancher » 31 Dec 2017, 7:56 am

Let us know how they go in the Fireball Tripod. That's what I was looking at, running them through mine.
User avatar
Gamerancher
Sergeant Major
Sergeant Major
 
Posts: 1596
New South Wales

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by bladeracer » 02 Jan 2018, 8:51 pm

bladeracer wrote:I was right about the wind, it's blowing a gale today.
My Ruger is 8-inch twist so I'll let you know what I find.
I've loaded up 200rds of your 52gn, 55gn RooMax, 35gn NTX and the 80gn ELD-M, but I want to wait for perfect wind to test them properly. I'm looking for optimum accuracy to begin with.


Although it wasn't as still as I'd like I was too sore to do much else so I did some shooting with a wind from about two-o'clock but gusty. My chronograph seems to be stuffed so I don't have any velocities. My loads generally run fairly in line with ADI figures though so I can estimate them.

Unfortunately, I think my 8"-twist is too much for the thin jackets. I fired fifty full-power loads and twelve of them disappeared between the muzzle and the target. Those that reached the target showed reasonable accuracy.
I shot two five-round groups at 100m of 25.5gn, 26.0gn, 26.5gn and 27.0gn of AR2206H.
25.5gn (~3220fps) I lost one bullet but managed a 38mm group of five.
26.0gn (~3270fps) I lost two bullets and got a five-shot group of 46.5mm and a three-shot group of 45mm.
26.5gn (~3325fps) I lost three bullets and got a five-shot group of 40.5mm - the other group of two shots were almost touching each other.
27.0gn (~3380fps) I lost five bullets and got a three-shot group of 36mm.

I fired another two five-shot groups at 27.0gn and lost one bullet, getting a five-shot group of 47mm with neck-sized brass and a 33mm four-shot group with FLS brass. I''m going to shoot these cases over and over to see if there's a difference in case life between FLS and neck-sizing.

So a fairly consistent 1.25MoA to 1.5MoA (for those that don't come apart at the muzzle) runs about the same as the 55gn RooMax and 35gn NTX (under today's conditions). I'll make up more loads working down from 25.5gn until all bullets start arriving intact, and then look for accuracy tuning.
The bullet has a pretty sharp bottom edge as I had three that folded one side of the neck during seating. A heavy chamfer can probably sort that though.

I shot the same loads with the 55gn RooMax, except I forgot to shoot the 27.0gn load.
25.5gn (~3220fps) first group of 58.5mm but possibly affected by the brass in the bore from the 52gn bullets. Then I managed a 38mm group.
26.0gn (~3270fps) gave groups of 40.5mm and 17mm.
26.5gn (~3325fps) gave me a group of 44.5mm - the second group I pulled one very badly but dropped four into 17.5mm.

I also shot the same loads with the 35gn NTX.
25.5gn (~3680fps) managed 36mm and 38mm groups.
26.0gn (~3750fps) two groups of 45mm.
26.5gn (~3820fps) groups of 29mm and 36mm.
27.0gn (~3890fps) groups of 37.5mm and 44mm.

And I shot ten loads of the 52gn bullet on 3.6gn of Trailboss. Definitely subsonic, about 480mm low, and roughly a 120mm group for five rounds at best. It was very windy at the time though which may have bothered such slow heavy bullets, but the holes were perfectly round. Bullets showed minor deformation of the points only.

Lastly I shot a three-shot group with the 80gn ELD-M on 23.5gn of AR2206H for a group of 30.5mm at 100m (15mm high), and then a 72mm group at 180m (standing against a tree) (55mm low). The long shot was a very windy shooting position with 60mm of drift. I was extremely impressed to put three rounds into 1.5MoA under those conditions.

Far from perfect conditions but a nice relaxing afternoon putting 136rds down range :-)
Practice Strict Gun Control - Precision Counts!
User avatar
bladeracer
Field Marshal
Field Marshal
 
Posts: 12655
Victoria

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by Tripod » 02 Jan 2018, 9:09 pm

So accuracy wise my projectiles are performing as well as anything else but the fast twist is killing them. It will be interesting to see how they perform without the wind and with a grain or two less powder. In my Ruger 223 is 1in12 and it will blow the primers and the projectiles will still be fine so it is definitely the fast twist in your rifle that is doing it. Why did you opt for a rifle with a 1in8 twist?
Tripod
Corporal
Corporal
 
Posts: 269
Tasmania

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by bladeracer » 02 Jan 2018, 9:18 pm

I spent several hours weighing the remaining 945 52gn bullets, as well as 100 RooMax's and my 32 remaining 80gn ELD-M's for comparison. I was going to weigh 600 RooMax's but after the first 100 the consistency was so good I didn't go any further.
75% of the swaged bullets were within 0.1gn high or low, and 90% were within 0.2gn high or low. 6% of them being 0.3gn high or low though is a problem which may offer better accuracy after weight batching. All of the 55gn RooMax's were within 0.1gn of 55gn.

Now that I've batched them all, loads from now will be using bullets with less than one-tenth of a grain variance.
Attachments
Bullet weight consistency.JPG
Bullet weight consistency.JPG (39.02 KiB) Viewed 3790 times
Practice Strict Gun Control - Precision Counts!
User avatar
bladeracer
Field Marshal
Field Marshal
 
Posts: 12655
Victoria

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by sungazer » 02 Jan 2018, 10:10 pm

The 1.8 twist is a good twist it allows you to shoot the 80grn projectile which is the only projectile weight allowed for F class. The 80grn are thr true long range bullets for 223.
sungazer
Sergeant Major
Sergeant Major
 
Posts: 1525
Other

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by bladeracer » 03 Jan 2018, 8:26 am

sungazer wrote:The 1.8 twist is a good twist it allows you to shoot the 80grn projectile which is the only projectile weight allowed for F class. The 80grn are thr true long range bullets for 223.


Yes, I like the 80gn ELDM and I want to try some of the others in that range.
Practice Strict Gun Control - Precision Counts!
User avatar
bladeracer
Field Marshal
Field Marshal
 
Posts: 12655
Victoria

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by Gwion » 03 Jan 2018, 9:02 am

sungazer wrote:The 1.8 twist is a good twist it allows you to shoot the 80grn projectile which is the only projectile weight allowed for F class. The 80grn are thr true long range bullets for 223.


Only bullet weight allowed for F-standard, that is...
:friends: :drinks: :thumbsup:
User avatar
Gwion
Colonel
Colonel
 
Posts: 3978
-

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by bladeracer » 03 Jan 2018, 7:33 pm

Tripod wrote:So accuracy wise my projectiles are performing as well as anything else but the fast twist is killing them. It will be interesting to see how they perform without the wind and with a grain or two less powder. In my Ruger 223 is 1in12 and it will blow the primers and the projectiles will still be fine so it is definitely the fast twist in your rifle that is doing it. Why did you opt for a rifle with a 1in8 twist?


That's my guess as well, further testing should find a velocity boundary for 8"-twist barrels.
The Ruger American only comes in 8" and I want to be able to use the widest range of bullets. It shoots the 35gn almost as well as it shoots the 80gn - I couldn't do that with a 9"-twist.

I hope somebody else is testing these in 8"-twist barrels for comparison.
Practice Strict Gun Control - Precision Counts!
User avatar
bladeracer
Field Marshal
Field Marshal
 
Posts: 12655
Victoria

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by bladeracer » 04 Jan 2018, 5:46 pm

I've been chatting to Brian of BT Sniper swaging dies.
He's passed my details along to some Aussies using his dies so hopefully I can get some more swaged bullets to try in my rifle.
He's sure he has customers using his bullets in 7"-twist barrels though.
Practice Strict Gun Control - Precision Counts!
User avatar
bladeracer
Field Marshal
Field Marshal
 
Posts: 12655
Victoria

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by Tripod » 07 Jan 2018, 8:22 pm

bladeracer wrote:I've been chatting to Brian of BT Sniper swaging dies.
He's passed my details along to some Aussies using his dies so hopefully I can get some more swaged bullets to try in my rifle.
He's sure he has customers using his bullets in 7"-twist barrels though.


It's not the velocity that's making them come apart it's the RPM. I am having no problems with them in my 22-250 at close to 4000fps but it is only a 1 in 12. so it is doing about 240,000 rpm. Rough calculation has you pushing them at 290,000 RPM. These projectiles are made to be as soft as possible to maximise killing power on small game, To make them hold together at that sort of rpm I would have to make them harder and then they would be no better than the commercial offerings. Go and shoot a fox or cat with them and you will see what I mean. :lol: :lol:
Tripod
Corporal
Corporal
 
Posts: 269
Tasmania

Re: First rounds in the .223 Ruger American Predator.

Post by bladeracer » 07 Jan 2018, 9:42 pm

Tripod wrote:It's not the velocity that's making them come apart it's the RPM. I am having no problems with them in my 22-250 at close to 4000fps but it is only a 1 in 12. so it is doing about 240,000 rpm. Rough calculation has you pushing them at 290,000 RPM. These projectiles are made to be as soft as possible to maximise killing power on small game, To make them hold together at that sort of rpm I would have to make them harder and then they would be no better than the commercial offerings. Go and shoot a fox or cat with them and you will see what I mean. :lol: :lol:




Yes, I know, although I calculated 304,000RPM.
If they come apart before they hit the fox they aren't going to do anything :-)
I'll work loads downwards until they stay together and then tune for accuracy - hopefully they won't have to go so slow that they don't expand on the target.
I would still like to see them tested in other 8"-twist barrels though. It could just be mine.
Practice Strict Gun Control - Precision Counts!
User avatar
bladeracer
Field Marshal
Field Marshal
 
Posts: 12655
Victoria

Next

Back to top
 
Return to Centerfire rifles