22-250 accuracy

B

Brian

Guest
I am trying to obtain the most accurate load for my Savage 1-14 twist 22-250 rifle. I will be shooting 50-52 gr bullets and trying different powders. I have a chronograph and was wondering what velocity you guys are finding gets the tightest groups?

Thanks........Brian
 
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Brian said:
I am trying to obtain the most accurate load for my Savage 1-14 twist 22-250 rifle. I will be shooting 50-52 gr bullets and trying different powders. I have a chronograph and was wondering what velocity you guys are shooting to get the best groups with a setup like mine?

Thanks........Brian
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Well Brian,

Each and every firearm is a different critter but generally speaking, the .22-250s I have experienced seemed to like 'em @ 3750-3850. Your mileage may vary...


Hank
 
22-250

I've gotten best results with Sierra 52 gr matchking hpbt using 36 or 36.5 gr Varget touching lands. Thats with WLR or CCI BR2 primers. Also got good results with IMR 4064 mid load, using same bullet & primers. Get pretty much .25 to .6 at 100 yds. That a Mauser 98, 26" tube, non trued action.
happy shooting, greg
 
Gambleone said:
I've gotten best results with Sierra 52 gr matchking hpbt using 36 or 36.5 gr Varget touching lands. Thats with WLR or CCI BR2 primers. Also got good results with IMR 4064 mid load, using same bullet & primers. Get pretty much .25 to .6 at 100 yds. That a Mauser 98, 26" tube, non trued action.
happy shooting, greg
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Yes, as well as Either H380 or AA2700.... 37.0gr then work up... Kinda the standby for the 22-250. Excellent velocity and accuracy "potential". Also, I'd bet if your barrel is factory, it's a 1-12"... Look to the 60gr offerings for coyotes. Punch and "a bit better" in the wind.

cale
 
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H380 was best for accuracy in my 22-250. Start with 38 gr and work up til groups open or pressure signs or max in load manual whichever occurs first.
 
Kevin Cram just finished a 22-250 for me, and (so far) I have expended well over 300 rounds in my testing. The gun has a nice 26” Krieger 1-12” twist heavy varmint barrel on it. This is my second 22-250, and it doesn’t seem to like anything that worked well in my previous 22-250. At this point I have found a solid load for the 40gr. Sierra HP (bullet No. 1385). The best group was 5-shots in .41” (at 100 yards) with IMR-4895, at 4120fps (with an SD of 17.5). 200-yard groups are running around 1.1”. I hope these 200-yard groups will improve when I replace the fixed 12-power scope with a 6.5-20x variable. Yeh, I know… not one of those powders you normally think of for the 22-250, but I have the target to prove it works. I got to this load after trying Varget (terrible), H-414 (great with loads around 3700 fps), H-380, IMR-3031, IMR-4064, and the IMR-4895. I also tried WLR, Rem. 9-1/2, and Fed-210M primers. This gun, with its Anschutz trigger and Tubb’s titanium firing pin, gives me much lower SD’s when I use 210M primers.

I could not find any 50gr bullets that could do as well as the 40 and 45gr bullets until I tried (since it is listed in the Hodgdon data and I had some) IMR-4320. The first group I tried gave me a 5-shot 100-yard group of .64” with the Sierra 50gr Blitz bullet, at 3850fps. That was promising. Prior to this, the best I could do was about .8” using the 53gr MatchKing with IMR-3031. So far this barrel shows a definite preference for short flat-base bullets, although the 50gr Hornady V-Max came close to the 53gr MatchKing. All of the longer boat tail bullets have shown me groups around 1” at 100-yards.

My next batch of 50gr test rounds will have 50gr Sierra Blitz and Hornady V-Max bullets over IMR-4320 (37gr, 37.5gr and 38gr charges, 5 of each). I’ll be trying these at 200-yards on the first nice day.
 
Im_leary said:
Kevin Cram just finished a 22-250 for me, and (so far) I have expended well over 300 rounds in my testing. The gun has a nice 26” Krieger 1-12” twist heavy varmint barrel on it. This is my second 22-250, and it doesn’t seem to like anything that worked well in my previous 22-250. At this point I have found a solid load for the 40gr. Sierra HP (bullet No. 1385). The best group was 5-shots in .41” (at 100 yards) with IMR-4895, at 4120fps (with an SD of 17.5). 200-yard groups are running around 1.1”. I hope these 200-yard groups will improve when I replace the fixed 12-power scope with a 6.5-20x variable. Yeh, I know… not one of those powders you normally think of for the 22-250, but I have the target to prove it works. I got to this load after trying Varget (terrible), H-414 (great with loads around 3700 fps), H-380, IMR-3031, IMR-4064, and the IMR-4895. I also tried WLR, Rem. 9-1/2, and Fed-210M primers. This gun, with its Anschutz trigger and Tubb’s titanium firing pin, gives me much lower SD’s when I use 210M primers.

I could not find any 50gr bullets that could do as well as the 40 and 45gr bullets until I tried (since it is listed in the Hodgdon data and I had some) IMR-4320. The first group I tried gave me a 5-shot 100-yard group of .64” with the Sierra 50gr Blitz bullet, at 3850fps. That was promising. Prior to this, the best I could do was about .8” using the 53gr MatchKing with IMR-3031. So far this barrel shows a definite preference for short flat-base bullets, although the 50gr Hornady V-Max came close to the 53gr MatchKing. All of the longer boat tail bullets have shown me groups around 1” at 100-yards.

My next batch of 50gr test rounds will have 50gr Sierra Blitz and Hornady V-Max bullets over IMR-4320 (37gr, 37.5gr and 38gr charges, 5 of each). I’ll be trying these at 200-yards on the first nice day.
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It sounds like you are serious about finding that perfect load. Thats great! One thing you didn't mention.....wind flags. Are you using them? I shoot benchrest and one thing I have learned is YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY WASTING YOUR TIME SHOOTING FOR ACCURACY WITHOUT WIND FLAGS! You can pick up a set of 3 at Midway for about $50.00 and I think they even include stands.
 
I don't shoot bench rest, but I did shoot High-Power for 31 years... until my eye sight got to the point where I had to make a choice between seeing the front sight or the target, never both. I figured I should retire gracefully (before I lost my High-Master).

Where I shoot, the wind isn't much of a concern. Our club is situated in a valley with the range oriented East to West. Lighting is a problem in the late afternoon, but generally the wind is a "no-value" from 12 o'clock.
 
Ok :rolleyes: But I know from experience (3000+ rounds per year) that it takes very little wind to turn a 1\4 inch group into a 1\2 inch group. A little gust here, a little gust there is all it takes. Shooting over flags is fun too. You have invested so much into this hobby allready. Of course this is just my humble opinion but I think it would help so much.

God Bless....Brian
 
Since you said most accurate load and not fastest accurate load, my bone stock M77 that I bedded and worked the trigger on, purely loves Berger bullets(52gr. FB) and N135. The velocity is down a little but it is a solid .4 gun with this load with an occasional .250" from it. Even if you want the speed, try the Berger's, I don't think you will be disappointed.
 
22-250

35.5 of benchmark 50 grain baltip is always less than .5" out of my vssf. for heavier bullets (55 and 60) h-380. roninflag
 
I was lucky enough to find some sunshine this morning, so I was able to finish my 50gr load testing. I also considered your suggestion of using flags, so I dug my old Windmill (a combination anemometer/wind direction indicator I used for the High-Power 600-yard prone stage) and Freeland scope stand (with wind flag) out of the closet and took them with me.

The results are definitive and quite interesting: The best group (by far) was with the Sierra 50gr Blitz (bullet No. 1340), using IMR-4320 and Fed-210M. All cases were neck-turned (just skinned) and neck-sized only (to .252”) about half way down the neck. The five shot group results were, at 100-yards, one hole measuring .410” (extreme edge-to-edge). At 200-yards I got, .770 (extreme edge-to-edge). The average velocity was 3775 fps, with an SD of 9.3. I’m happy… accurate, fast, and flat enough for shooting point-blank-aim to 328-yards (according to the JBM ballistics tables).

Some of the interesting points include the results I got with the V-Max bullets… at velocities above 3800fps they key-holed. Plain and simple… they are just too long for a 1-12” twist gun. On seeing this I remember reading Don Miller’s article, THE NEW TWIST RULES, in this month’s issue of Precision Shooting. So, as soon as I got home I re-read the article and plugged his equation for calculating the “stability factor” into Excel. The resulting numbers were completely consistent with what I found at the range: The Sierra 50gr Blitz, at 3775, had a stability factor (s) of 1.71... almost perfectly in the center of the desired range of 1.5 to 2.0. The V-max (because at .770”, it is a full 0.1” longer than the Blitz) has an s of 1.17. This is far to low, and hence, the key-holing. I love it when science gets it right. At any rate, the Sierra 40gr HP also scores well (albeit, a bit high) at an s=2.27. And don’t play that old saw, “…it should be over-stabilized”. Read the article… the findings are perfectly consistent with the need for long-range dynamic stability for this lighter (and shorter) bullet.

As it turns out, all of the bullet characteristics, that I was able to determine qualitatively, were predicted analytically in Mr. Miller’s article. If I had read it two weeks sooner, I could have saved myself $200 in bullets that didn’t work.

BTW: If anyone would like a copy of the Excel spreadsheet (it uses the equation from example #1 in Mr. Miller’s article), just shoot me an email off-line. I’ll attach it to a reply.
 
Yote said:
Since you said most accurate load and not fastest accurate load, my bone stock M77 that I bedded and worked the trigger on, purely loves Berger bullets(52gr. FB) and N135. The velocity is down a little but it is a solid .4 gun with this load with an occasional .250" from it. Even if you want the speed, try the Berger's, I don't think you will be disappointed.
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Exactly! I am not interested in how fast I can get it to go. I want to shoot small groups.
 
I am shooting 38.0gr of H380 and Hornadys 55gr. VMax and have actually got in the mid 2's and consistantly shoot in the low 3's. I shoot a 700 Varmint with a 12X Leupold Target scope. It has been bedded and trigger tuned to about 2 1/4 lbs. I really enjoy this gun and have had it since new in 1990.
I probably have shot a thousand rounds from it and hunted both crow and groundhog. I see no signs of barrel wear and every pound of H380 I buy I back off a bit from the start then load up to 38.0 or till accuracy drops off.
Remfarmer
 
Hey Remfarmer, 38gr of H380 is minimum safe load for 55gr pill. according to Hodgdon. It is possible to underload and get what is called a secondary explosion. Some say it is more dangerous than overloading!
 
marion packett said:
Hey Remfarmer, 38gr of H380 is minimum safe load for 55gr pill. according to Hodgdon. It is possible to underload and get what is called a secondary explosion. Some say it is more dangerous than overloading!
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Has anyone actually had first hand experience with this? I've heard it years ago, but some consider it a reloaders urban legend.
 
+2 H-380

Add another H380 I'm at 39.2 F 210 match Berger 50 gr match super load( in my rifle)
 
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just my opinion

in my 22-250 H380 was accurate behind a sierra 55gr. blitzking but it was just so dirty to clean. the first 5 patches i run thru the bore came out looking like i drug them thru a coal mine. i used varget behind the same bullet and worked up a load that shot just as accurate (the 22-250 rem really isnt a finicky cartridge) and it cleans up lots faster. just food for thought. Greg Moyer
 
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