New rifle!

[waco]

I could not help myself. The only .556/.223 rifles I own are a Savage 12FV heavy barrel and a S&W M&P 15 Sport AR. Today I grabbed a little Ruger American Ranch rifle in .556/.223
Nice little compact rifle that uses AR mags. A buddy just let me barrow an Arsenal 5 cavity mold. It’s a PC only 60gr. bullet. This little thing looks to be too much fun for short range plinking. I have 7-8K small rifle primers, 2K+ jacketed bullets, and 20+ pounds of appropriate powder on hand. Not looking to make this guy a tack driver. That’s what my Savage is for. This will be just a fun off hand short range gun to roll pop cans and bust clays with. If I can get the cast bullets to fit the bill I’ll go ahead and get a mold of my own.

 

[fiver]

keep an eye out for the rcbs 0-55s or the lee knock off [bator? airc]
you can go from 11-12grs. of 2400 for plip plopping stuff up through 22-23grs. of 4895 for the same,, only more faster.

 

[waco]

225-61Grain

arsenalmolds.com

This is the mold on loan.

 

[waco]

I still have a good amount of the 6/4 alloy on hand.

 

[fiver]

i think that's the same mold Emmett is using.
he sent me a small sample of them but i ain't got even close to giving them a go yet.

i wouldn't burn up the 4/6 on a powder coated mid speed load.
regular o'l WW's should do fine to 2-K or so. [4-5grs. of red-dot]

 

[Spindrift]

Nice rifle, congrats!
That mould is interesting, as well. With a 5- cav, you should be able to make a lot of bullets in short order.
Enjoy!

 

[richhodg66]

I haven't tried cast in .223 yet, only in the Hornet and then, only with very specific parameters. It worked well, however.

I like the Ruger American Predator I have, didn't really think I would, but it's a good shooter. A bolt action .223 is one of those things everybody should have. Too darn practical not to.

 

[300BLK]

I will be curious to see how that 8" twist reacts with a plainbase, powder coated bullet.

 

[Glaciers]

I will be curious to see how that 8" twist reacts with a plainbase, powder coated bullet.

That’s a question I’m interested in as well. My 1980’s Winchester Featherweight with a 12” twist and it’s not going anywhere. I think my AR is a 9”, can’t remember. That’s plenty fast as mid 60 grains is about as heavy as I’m likely to go.

 

[Dusty Bannister]

The RCBS and the current Lee 55 grain are most like the Lyman 225415. The Lee 22 Bator is a round flat nose.

 

[Jeff H]

This will be interesting.

Twist rate? Probably faster than the old standard.

I only ever tried cast in the 223 in a CZ 527 Walnut Varmint, which shot amazingly with jacketed. Twist in that one was 1:9 and I shot 60 and 62 grain HPs about as fast as a fast 222.

I tried cast in it, RDO 50 grain RF and Lyman's 225415, sized to .225", 6 grains of Unique or 5.5 grains of W231, with Hornady gas checks and 45/45/10 and got lackluster accuracy at 50 yards - well over an inch for five shots, consistently.

I used the old wives' tale that the 223 wasn't great with cast as an excuse to look for a 222 and found one in a 722 with 1:14 twist, which I rationalized was going to shoot better and boy, DID it! Sub-half-inch groups at 50 yards. OK, maybe it wasn't just the twist, but it was a good enough excuse to buy a new rifle. I ended up exchanging that one for another CZ with a 1:14 twist, which I still haven't had time to fully exploit, but that same load, using the RDO bullet, and the "new" LEE RCBS 55-grain copy both shoot well under an inch at fifty yards - and I'm sure it will do better when I get time to mess with it more.

I have some 55 grain LEEs and some 50 grain RDOs PC'd to try some day. I mostly PC'd them because I was on a roll, navigating the PC learning curve.

I only own a 223 because I think everyone should own a 223. Maybe I should rethink that, but I'll watch how this plastic Ruger does and go from there. I'm expecting it to do very well, given the experience of the man behind the trigger.

 

[Ian]

Everybody should own a .223 and a few thousand rounds of ammunition. We should never make Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's words an exaggeration.

 

[waco]

Small batch ready for the oven.

 

[Glaciers]

This will be interesting.

Twist rate? Probably faster than the old standard.

I only ever tried cast in the 223 in a CZ 527 Walnut Varmint, which shot amazingly with jacketed. Twist in that one was 1:9 and I shot 60 and 62 grain HPs about as fast as a fast 222.

I tried cast in it, RDO 50 grain RF and Lyman's 225415, sized to .225", 6 grains of Unique or 5.5 grains of W231, with Hornady gas checks and 45/45/10 and got lackluster accuracy at 50 yards - well over an inch for five shots, consistently.

I used the old wives' tale that the 223 wasn't great with cast as an excuse to look for a 222 and found one in a 722 with 1:14 twist, which I rationalized was going to shoot better and boy, DID it! Sub-half-inch groups at 50 yards. OK, maybe it wasn't just the twist, but it was a good enough excuse to buy a new rifle. I ended up exchanging that one for another CZ with a 1:14 twist, which I still haven't had time to fully exploit, but that same load, using the RDO bullet, and the "new" LEE RCBS 55-grain copy both shoot well under an inch at fifty yards - and I'm sure it will do better when I get time to mess with it more.

I have some 55 grain LEEs and some 50 grain RDOs PC'd to try some day. I mostly PC'd them because I was on a roll, navigating the PC learning curve.

I only own a 223 because I think everyone should own a 223. Maybe I should rethink that, but I'll watch how this plastic Ruger does and go from there. I'm expecting it to do very well, given the experience of the man behind the trigger.

Twist rate and cast is exactly why my 1 in 12 Winchester has a permanent home. While I haven’t gotten around to shooting cast yet, but it’s on the list. I have a 47 gr Bowman by Arsenal, the Seaco 221 at 62 gr and Lee’s 6 cavity 55 gr.

 

[fiver]

both of my 1-8 and my 1-9 twist AR's all shoot cast a lot better than my 1-12 varmint rifle.
well,,, i should say they shoot it a lot better at 2800+ fps., the 1-12 does right well for itself at the obligatory 1900 fps. zone.
but it's never liked anything Jacketed over 55grs. either.

 

[richhodg66]

I have two .223 bolt rifles, a plain jane Savage 110 from the '80s, and a Mossberg MVP Pradator I bought about six years ago. I presume the Savage has the slow twist based on age. If/when I try cast, it'll probably be in the Savage. It's generally been the better shooter of the two anyway.

 

[RBHarter]

The Savage 222 with the 1-12 ran the NOE 225-62 2600 fps and with me driving the same groups as Hornady , FC , RP , and WW 50 gr SP factories , about .75 at 100 .
The later Savages and Armalite patterns in 223 with the 1-8" twists won't stay under 2.5" over 2050 fps . Same everything except obviously the cases and twist .

I have a 1-9" for one of the Armalite pattern rifles .

 

[CZ93X62]

My 223s.......3 are 1/9", 1 is a 1/8".

My 22-250s.......1 each in 1/12" and 1/14".

I'm not a powder coater (yet). With greasy kid stuff, the slower twists enable a bit more velocity. The 22-250s shoot a bit better overall than the 223s. I have never had decent luck with Lyman #225415, but the RCBS 22-55-SP shows a lot of promise in both calibers, solid 1.2-1.5 MOA in 22-250, 1.5-1.7 in the 223s (1-9" only).

Mike Venturino wrote some years back about the utility of the little Lyman #225438 in 22-250 loads. He was right, it is best of breed in both calibers. If the wind stops blowing some day in Inyokern, I might get a sub-MOA 5-shotter from the 22-250s. These tiny slugs at 1700-2100 FPS are wind-sensitive as *&%#. Maddening stuff.

 

[Jeff H]

I haven't tried cast in my current 223, which is a factory TC Contender Carbine barrel and 1:12 twist. I doubt I will, because my 222 (1:14) is dedicated to that, and I haven't shot PC in the 222, mostly because it's just too easy to shoot it well with "soft" mongrel alloys, invisible tumble-lube, and pistol powders to achieve the moderate velocities that I prefer anyway. Quite, mild-mannered, fun to shoot and effective at the ranges I tend to have to shoot at.

If I eventually get bored, which is not likely, or have to decide to pare it down to ONE .22 centerfire, I have a bunch of .22s PC'd to try at higher velocities. I didn't try very hard to get my last 223 (1:9) to shoot cast, but it probably would have shoot something well in cast. With the 222, I've failed thus far to find something in cast that did NOT shoot well, so I keep them separate -jacketed for the 223, and cast for the 222.

May not be anything scientific to it, so I won't make any claims about the long neck and slow twist of the 222. I know there are guys (whom I can believe) shooting 223s quite effectively with cast.

@Spindrift did some testing not that long ago, using a smooth-sided, PC'd bullet in the 223, but I lost track of that link and don't know how it all worked out for him. Looked promising and he made some danged pretty bullets for it, I can say that much.

 

[waco]

So I got around 200-250 bullets cast, powder coated, and sized. I had a coffee can of LC .556 brass prepped already. I loaded up 20 rounds with 13gr of SR4759. Maybe next weekend I can get out and shoot.