.224 Texas Trophy Hunter

Hey Wallen-- how would u compare the terminal ballistics @ long-range between the 75 A-Max, and the Sierra 80. I know the BC of the 75 is a little higher than the 80 Sierra, and is also marketed as a target/"varmint" bullet. Seems to me that if a guy could get similar accuracy between the 2 the 75 would outperform the 80 by a little downrange.

I remember Steve Timm wrote about his "hard powder" fouling problem he was getting in the throat of his Swift Imp. a # years ago, and was assumed to occasionally be the culprit behind some barrels that were thought to prematurely "shot out". Even Norman Johhnson did some work with this years ago. He took a couple "shot out" barrels and ran some form of progressively coarse to finer grit sandpaper thru the barrels, and restored their accuracy with his treatment. I've talked to him some about this system, and he's definitely a believer in it.

I know a guy, Blaine Eddy out of Utah who kills a bunch of coyotes each year, and is INTO the accuracy/wildcatting aspects of coyote shooting. His 30" 22-284 is still going strong after a lot of rounds now (don't know the exact #-- but well over 1000 for sure)...?
 
SSCOYOTE.
i dont have any exsperience w/ the 75 gr. amax. as a hunting bullet or target bullet i stick w/ the 80 or 69 grain sierra's just for the fact that i dont have to change loads or seating depths for different situations. im a bit financially strapped and [married] so most of my guns have to be dule purpose such as the 22-6mm i spoke of earlier. the sierras as hunting bullets have proven very efficent to date but i know their are others out there. the thing i like most about this bullet cartridge combo [22-243] is low recoil, high bc bullets, acceptable barrel life, high velocity, excellent trajectory, great performance to date in both target and hunting, and most of all i have confidence in them...
 
SS, Blaine's .22-284 is a completely different beast than what is being discussed in this thread. It's a slow twist. Can't remember for sure, but it might even be a 15 twist, I know it's not faster than a 14. He shoots the Berger 64's out of it, at over 4,000 fps. I can't remember exactly how many rounds he has on it, but it's less than the 700 I got out of my 8 twist .22-250AI. Being a slow twist though, and considering how he uses it, I expect him to get probably at least a thousand rounds out of it. Maybe more.

The problem with that barrel of mine, is just a rough throat. It's clean as a hounds tooth. The throat is only a little bit rough, but at the 700 round mark it will scatter a 75 Amax with a full velocity load every time out of a cold clean barrel. Berger 80's hold together better, but still start to let go after 10 - 15 shots at 3350 fps. Could still get some more life out of it using the Sierra 80's, they still hold together fine at moderate velocity (3150 fps). But I really don't like the terminal performance I get with them (pencil throughs on p-dogs), so I just retired the barrel. I used mine for colony varmints, not coyotes. So having to clean every 15 shots or so just got to be more hassle than it was worth to me.

Looking at the throat with a borescope, it doesn't look bad at all. Looks pretty good in fact. But at those RPM's, the Amax jackets or the J4's on the Berger's just won't hold the lead in with even a little jacket damage from a just slightly roughened throat.

I know guys using their fast twists differently than I used mine, who are getting much longer life out of them. The 9 twists, especially are lasting much longer than the 8's. If I had it to do over again, I'd do a 9 rather than an 8. With these large capacity cases, and especially at the elevations I shoot, a 9 twist stabilizes the 80's just fine (didn't know that when I did mine). But, for how I used mine, 700 rounds was all I got before the blowups and need for seemingly constant cleaning just got to be more than I could stand, so I retired it.

I'm having it cut off at the chamber end and having it rechambered as a .22BR. Ought to get about 3100 fps with the 75 Amax out of the BR case. Which will hopefully allow a bit more life out of it yet.

Meaning no offense to the large capacity, fast twist .224 afficianado's, but for me, they are just too much of a pain in the rear to mess with anymore. Awesome performance can be had. And, for a lot of guys the drawbacks are well worth it. I don't even mind the short barrel life. Barrels are made to be used up and replaced, no big whup. But those long bullets are just too finicky and the fast twist barrel requires too much cleaning and coddling to suit me.

- DAA
 
I've often wondered what the barrel life difference would be between the fast twists/slow twists/barrel makers/conditioning treatments, etc.-- i know that Steve Timm's workup on his 220 Swift AI was a 12 or 14, and having the hard-powder fouling, running the 40 grainers at around 4400 or so.

DAA-- Blaine's is a 14 as i tried to convince him to try the 52 JLK LD's out of it. I've thought the 65 JLK LD may be a good combination at high velocity with a relatively slower 10 twist requirement. Finicky is a good word to describe the VLD/ big case combination i guess with so many differing results.
 
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