Nolser E-Tip 55 grain in 223 REM.

arlaunch

Active member
I got a chance to do a little load development yesterday morning in my back yard 200 yard range.

These things shot amazing out of the gate.

My wife only wants me to shoot copper when shooting on our property.

I was not expecting groups so small. What a pleasant surprise. They are not cheap though...
 
No complaints from me as far as accuracy,reliability or killing power go. I shot them in my .223 last Winter. Very good bullets.
 
Last edited:
Interestingly there has been no change in the incidence of lead poisoning in the California condor since the lead bullet ban for hunting years ago. It seems the condors like to scavenge garbage dumps and they get their lead there. Nice to know the lead ban has been a total failure to help the condor. I wonder how many raptors get slapped out of the air by all the windmills. Sorry to hijack the thread. I just hate to see the pressure to use copper ammo if it is not going to be of any benefit to it's intended use.
 
Many of the lead free bullets available now are capable of fantastic accuracy and performance on game. They're just too [bleep]ing expensive!

Just today I was researching Barnes' 223 55gr MPG (Multi Purpose Green) bullets. I'd be happy to plink with something like that but not for $27 for a box of 100 bullets, 2x the price of commonly available lead bulk 223 bullets.
 
Well.....

I went back out a few times to fine tune the E-Tip load.

Every other target looks like buckshot.

I am scrapping the project with that barrel and going to try them in a different rifle.

I guess that one day, in that small load range that i tried, i got lucky.

I repeated that same "good shooting" load range last night and was very disappointed.
 
Hornady 35gr NTX shoot fantastic, as do Nosler 50gr BT lead free. Nosler really hit it out of the park with their lead free varmint bullets.
 
Just a thought and know nothing of the bullet your working with. When the Barnes mono-metal bullets came out they used pretty soft copper in them and they did fowl a barrel easily. You might want to give your barrel a thorough clean with a good copper cleaner.

both the Barnes VG's and the NBT Lead Frees have shot well for me in the .224 and .243 cartridges.
 
Originally Posted By: arlaunchWell.....

I went back out a few times to fine tune the E-Tip load.

Every other target looks like buckshot.

I am scrapping the project with that barrel and going to try them in a different rifle.

I guess that one day, in that small load range that i tried, i got lucky.

I repeated that same "good shooting" load range last night and was very disappointed.

What is the twist rate of the barrel you shot the 55 gr E-Tips through?
 
I have been thinking on a full copper clean. I track round count and cleaning schedule on an Exel spread sheet.

It had less than 35 rounds since cleaning. I will give it a full copper clean tonight.

1/9 twist.


 
I could not get consistent groupings with NATO chambers.

After a bit of load development i found the bullet to be more difficult to obtain usual velocities due to its length, and how that affects bearing surface/pressure and cartridge case capacity. The bullet also did not like long jumps to the lands in NATO chambers. I could get some good groups from time to time, but was unable to repeat anything.

H4895 shot fairly good, but had to be very, very compressed to get good velocities. Power Pro Varmint shot Ok'ish with velocities a little slower than H4895.

I went through 2 very accurate rifles with NATO chambers and gave up....

The 3rd rifle i tried has a Wylde chamber and a jump around .070 to the lands. I gave up on H4895 due to severely compressing the loads, and tried Power Pro Varmint. I gave up on that pretty quick. I was just about to scrap the whole project.

I was at a cross roads, the long bearing surface made me think i should try a slower burning powder. With the usual suspects, you just can't get enough in there to get any velocity.

Finally a vision came to me to try a faster powder. I landed on Benchmark and that was the ticket.

24.8 grains of Benchmark
CCI #41 primer
Lake City NATO 2005 brass 2X fired

16 inch Mid Length/Suppressed
Wylde Chamber 1/8 twist
.070 of jump loaded right at 2.260, or just a touch over/under due to tip variation

2875 fps. No pressure signs at all.

Many confirmation loads at 24.8, 24.7 and 24.9.

All shoot right around 2 inches at 200 yards with excellent repeatability.

This bullet has great numbers on the app.

At 2875fps, 50 yard zero, 500 foot elevation, and 60 degrees or so: 1.1 inch high at 100 yards, - 0.8 inch low at 200 yards. 200 yard velocity of 2270fps.

That will be just fine for the usual ranges i shoot at out here in the land of Douglas Fir Tree's.

My guess is that this bullet seated even closer to the lands in a bolt rifle would make it much easier to tune.

I will post here my thoughts regarding on game performance this fall when i take my first Coyote with it.

This bullet is just .005 shorter than a 69gr SMK, sleek and shoots more than satisfactory.

Just a bit finicky with seating depths in my case.. It seems impact velocity above 2500fps would be best. Not going to happen in my case.
 
Back
Top