Originally Posted By: 6724Originally Posted By: GLShooterOriginally Posted By: CatShooter
Originally Posted By: coyotekillerNE
"Need a quick answer please
Can somebody please tell me the recommended C.O.L. of Hornady 53 grain vmax in .223. Thanks guys!"
A simple question, to which you have not gotten an answer yet... in spite of a lengthy reply suggesting that you buy measuring tools to measure WHAT??
The SAAMI recommended COL is from 2.125" to 2.260"
That is the "recommended" range - but many shooters load to the leade.
If you are loading for AR magazines, loading to 2.240" will make sure that they will feed, but not stick in beat-up magazines.
That's funny. I seem to recall answering with the recomendation from Hornady of 2.240 in less than 10 minutes of the intial posting.
Also the OP thanked me for the response apparently meeting his needs at the time.
I guess you are to wound up to read responses from other experienced shooters and handloaders.
Greg
i think some have missed the point. the length suggested in the first response is fine if the rounds need to fit in an ar15 magazine. but, i did not see magazine constraints listed in the OP. to determine best length without magazine considerations is what some have alluded to in their posts. however, i doubt that you really want to seat the bullets to .05" off the lands, i believe .005" is what would be intended. and for that, no one can tell you without having your gun in hand.
if you are just loading generic ammo to fit in all guns or you are not trying to optimize accuracy, or you are loading for an AR, then stick with the 2.24" length.
Right you are but the question was for recommended COL. That would imnply to me that the OP wanted a verifiable source. Obviously every rilfe we shoot has variations regardless if they are chambered side by side. The books don't differentiate, normaly, between an AR15 magazine and a 700 Remington Varmint set up. Recomendations are just that. One size fits all for starters.
Hornady says 2.240. They probably know their product and give a number thatthey know, historically, is safe to use in modern MASS produced firearms/. A custom reamer can be all over the place but that number wil be GTG in 99.99% of the cases. Safe is, as we know, not always the most accurate. We can have both and still be safe.
I, for one, have NEVER loaded anything in that weight range to 2.240 in my 223's. I have the tools to measure the distance to lands and know that I am limited, in most cases, to 2.260 so I have my AO defined for me. Given a single load scenario I've loaded some cartidges in teh 223 way past 2.320. The bullets performed better with less jump, of no jump, and adn sure wouldn't fit in even the storied DPMS High Power magazines.
We have to start some where and the book is alweays a good place to go. Fine tuning for the task at hand determines where we go from X to get to Z.
Greg