Wild velocity swings in 22-250 handloads, Help Please

S

SupaC

New member
Hello gentlemen. I've been handloading for several years now. I have developed a great quality target load and hunting load for each of my fathers rifles I inherited, plus the my own rifles.
I have a 22-250 remington 700 varmint rifle. It shoots everything accurately at 100 yards. I started with the powder and components that I inherited from my father. Winchester brass, IMR 4064, cci br2 primers, and sierra 55 gr SBT, and nosler 40g BT. they shoot small groups, but I have velocity swings of more than 100 FPS! I had an ES of 105 FPS last time I chronographed the 40gr load,
I have the least amount of experience loading this cartridge. I'm not sure what powders are good to try next, what are some loads that get more consistent velocities?

Thanks
 
If my loads are still quite accurate at 200 and 300 yards I would not worry what the velocity variation might be. If accuracy is not acceptable then have at it. IMHO accuracy is king. I also try different cartridge overall lengths to further dial in a load once I get decent groups.
 
Could be old primers, powder causing swings. If you are happy with the accuracy then I personally wouldn't worry about it. Have fun shooting the 22-250. Rudy
 
Not unusual for 22 caliber. Use up what you got, start over with Varget for the 55's.

When you are jumping the bullet a long ways from the lands, this could make things worse for accuracy.

In the last days of barrel life, revive the accuracy by going to a Sierra 55g Semi point or a 63g Semi point which are both very accurate and kill very well!

Good luck!
 
chrono not reading right?
What kind of powder scale do you use if its the old balance beam they can read all over the place when they get worn.
 
If your 22-250 40 gr bullet load is close to 4,000 fps a 100 fps swing would only be about a 3% swing in speed.

If the load is accurate I don't think the animals will know if the bullet left your barrel at 4,000 fps or 3,880 fps.
 
I wouldn’t worry to much. There was an article in Handloader that mentioned powder position in the case & how it effects velocity. This was pertaining to a larger case relative to powder amount, enough room to move.

In his experiment he got a good amount more FPS with powder against the primer, less with powder towards the bullet. So much so, his assistant thought they were different loads.

In a rifle, a powder loading that leaves no or little space should eliminate any chance of that. In the above experiment he had a 38 spcl with a smallish amount of a medium/fast powder.
 
If your loads hold their grouping to 400 I wouldn't worry about it. If you start to see a lot of vertical stringing out at greater distance, then it becomes a problem. I actually see the same ES out of my 22-250 handloads using Winchester brass, but for now I'm ok with it because I don't generally shoot at yotes with it past 200 here just because of the constant wind we have. My thoughts on the culprit of the extremely high ES is the brass. I haven't turned the necks on my winchester brass, and I think it is causing a variance in neck tension on the bullets which would lead to an abnormally high ES.

Once I have shot up all thet loads I have now I plan to work up another load, but this time with some better brass like lapua. I have no doubt that my ES will drop significantly with the higher quality brass.

Just for reference, I load all my 22-250 on a single stage press and trickle each powder charge to where I want it.

I currently load my 6.5cm into Peterson brass, and have my ES down to 9FPS. That is with just standard basic brass prep on once fired brass. No turning or anything like that.
 
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