COAL

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Txhunter76

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Hey everyone just wanted to get some input here. I know that the coal for a .223 magazine feed for a ar15 is 2.260 has anyone loaded any a bit longer maybe around 2.270 or even 2.280.
The load data I have is as follows
60gr hornady vmax
27gr hodgon cfe223
Trimmed to length
 
No AR's in my house but I do load for two bolt rifles and can play with seating heavier bullet out to the lands. Trouble is my Rem788 slower twist has a deep throat and my Howa 1500 1in9 has a short throat.
 
If you're using Magpuls you need to stick to the 2.260 as a max...I can get away with 2.265-2.270 for metal mags though. Although with most bullets 77gr or below the slightly longer seating really doesn't tend to make much difference honestly
 
There are bullets that were made to be loaded long and single fed. In highpower service rifle shooting, most people load long bullets for the 600 yard line.

I've experimented a little bit, but never saw any benefit on the score sheet compared to shooting 77s at mag length.

For me, its just not worth the effort of chasing the lands, closely watching the COAL, experimenting with seating depths, etc.

I can shoot clean scores at any yard line with at 2.250 and Sierra 77s.
 
I load for a bolt action Howa 1500 in .223 and I have an AR-15. I never load longer than 2.260" because the surplus military magazines I use won't fit anything loaded longer. I sometimes play with the OAL when using the Howa 1500 but not too much because I converted it to a removable box magazine.
 
Hey everyone just wanted to get some input here. I know that the coal for a .223 magazine feed for a ar15 is 2.260 has anyone loaded any a bit longer maybe around 2.270 or even 2.280.
The load data I have is as follows
60gr hornady vmax
27gr hodgon cfe223
Trimmed to length

You can sometimes get a tiny bit longer with old school GI mags. Magpul, it's pretty much 2.26. Even at 2.26, you may have some binding if you fully load a 30 round mag, and if you are using HPBTs, the meplat will get a bit banged up on the bottom rounds. Some 5 rnd steel mags will handle 2.26 to 2.27 without issue, but that is totally a case by case issue.
 
It’s been a while since I’ve loaded bottle neck rimless cartridges but when I did the base line for OAL seemed to be A; Determined by the magazine or B; will the bullet engage the rifling when chambered.
The amount of free bore in the rifles chamber would determine if the bullet was being forced into the rifling when the bolt closes. That could possibly lead to set back on the bullet into the case raising pressures.
 
This really depend on if you are feeding from a magazine or not. As mentioned above magpul mags will not feed over 2.260 and my experience is that even at that you can get feeding issues. I try to stick to 2.250 for feeding from magazine. If you are not shooting AR or magazine fed firearms then it really depends on the gun. As long as you aren't jammed into the lands and the cartridge feeds properly you should be good to go.
 
Keeping in mind that the incremental difference anticipated as an improvement in accuracy could be achieved by a lot of other finesse, too. And also considering that the AR15 is a self loading action, which pushes the cartridge off the magazine into the feed ramp up into the chamber. A loose neck or loading them without checking for coaxial runout could make it moot. OAL is an easy thing to exploit reloading, spinning each round to see how much wobble the bullet tip has is much less fun - but considered by some to be much more important. They spin and true the bullet nose to .001" runout.

OAL is just one of a dozen details in a reload which could affect accuracy, and if we are limited to just 12, calculating the total number of possible combinations is 12 factorial, 12x11x10 etc etc down to x1, which is 479,001,600 different loads to experiment which is the most accurate. And you shoot 10 rounds each to get an accurate idea of what it's grouping.

No wonder I can't find primers in stock.
 
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