.223 35Gr-Max

[Burnt Powder]

Mike aka VS;

I don't shoot the 40 gr bullets in my .223 class rifles. I use them almost exclusivly in my .22-250. I load them upwards of 4200 fps and they are indeed impressive out to arround 400 yd on prairie dogs! My rifle doesn't like the 40 gr V-max but the 40 Ballistic tip is a whole 'nother story! Typicaly MY rifle will shoot a 5 shot group at 100 yd. that you can cover with a dime! You do the math, it isn't too bad!!, for a Ruger!! I have shot some of them at 4365 fps, and at that time we were more interested in what velocity we could drive them at before we encountered either self destruction or pressure as well as comparing results of the 26" stainless barrel vs the 24" old 77 I have with the blue barrel, so we only shot them at 50 yd. We had 4 shots in the same slightly elongated hole at 50 yd with an average speed of 4360 fps and an extreme spread of less than 10 fps. That is when we decided to go ahead and work up a load for the stainless 26" barreled rifle. 4200 fps and something arround 1/4" groups. Good enough for me!
I was indeed surprised with the accuracy results I got after using Rocky's reccomendation of the 13 gr of Blue dot with the 35s too. WAY better than when running them at a much faster speed. 150 yd or so, they shot just about like a Hornet, or Bee!

BP