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*11 Feb Update* Best places for .223 bulk bullets

B

Broken_Reticle

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
Jan 25, 2011
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Philadelphia Tn
<span style="color: #FF0000"> *Update 11 Feb 2013* Most Places sold out again....</span>
I will check my links daily and Update as soon as stock comes in on the sites.. Look for the <span style="color: #FF0000">Red Text</span> beside the company names for the details...

*Update*
As people suggest companies I will list them at the bottom of my original post with links so that you can check them out. I will try to check the links once a month to make sure they are still good.
Happy Hunting
B_R

My barrel is a 5.56 1:9 DMPS Chrome lined so I can in theory shoot up to 75gr in it right?

For plinking around I was poking around on powder valley and saw some 50gr zombie max for like $59 per 500.

I am thinking for just running drills and plinking no reason to spend more money on powder per round just to send lead down range if I can send less lead with less powder.

Is there any other places to look or type of bullet to look for if I am just running drills and plinking at >100m it won't really mess with zero to shoot a lighter bullet? I am shooting a 62gr fmj right now..

Powder Valley, Inc.<span style="color: #FF0000">Win 46gr hp 2000ct 328.00, 1000ct 167.00, 500ct 85.00, Not taking back orders.</span>
Barnes,Berger,Berry's,Hornady,Lapua,Nosler,Remington,Sierra,Speer,Winchester

Midway 22cal listing <span style="color: #FF0000">MatchKing 90gr HPBT 500ct 137.69 </span>
Armscor,Barnes,Berger,Hornady,Lapua,Midway,Nosler,Reminton,Sierra,Speer

Gibrass/Bartlett Reloaders<span style="color: #FF0000">Temp Sold Out</span>
55 and 62gr Milsurp

Midsouth 22cal. listing<span style="color: #FF0000">MatchKing 64 gr 100 ct 29.79</span>
A good mix of stuff.

Montana Gold<span style="color: #FF0000">Order Page down not sure what they have...Should have stock in Feb 1 case limit</span>
50gr jhp and 55gr fmj

Widener's Reloading <span style="color: #FF0000">Nosler Blastic Tip Varmit 165.00 per 1000</span>
Bulk .22 cal listing 40-74gr
Widener's Reloading <span style="color: #FF0000">Nosler Custom Comp 80gr 1000 box 172.99, Only thing in stock.</span>
Bulk .22 cal listing 75gr +

Up Ammo Supply <span style="color: #FF0000">Sold Out</span>
Mixed 55gr bullets

Poly Gun Bags <span style="color: #FF0000">Sold Out</span>
New and Pulled Mil Bullets, scroll down the page to see the .223

Natchez Shooting<span style="color: #FF0000">Nosler 40-50gr Ballistic TIp 250 ct 44.99, 60gr Balistic Tip 250ct 46.99 </span>

Dillion's Website<span style="color: #FF0000">52-69gr HPBT Matchking 100/box 24.95, 77gr HPBT Matchking 500/box 139.95</span>

Everglades-Montana Gold Distributor<span style="color: #FF0000"> 55gr JHP 500ct 139.00, 1000ct 259.00</span>
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

75/77gr in theory yes, I'd buy a 50/100cnt box before I bought in bulk.

$59 per 500 is not bad, that z-max can probably give very good accuracy if you develop a load with it, the v-maxs have been extremely accurate for me. Hornady 55gr FMJs are probably about the most accurate 55gr fmj and run around 11 per 100 should be less in bulk. Rem and Win also market 55gr fmjs which generally run less but don't deliver the same accuracy in my experience. Another option for plinking is 55gr or 62gr pulls $80-90 per thousand, but not all will be usable, and they typically lack the accuracy of commercial bullets. Further the SS109/M855 62gr may not be allowed on some ranges.

Inside of 100 you may hit a bit high with lighter bullets though downloading may offset that, depending on your accuracy requirement you may not need to adjust zero. There could of course be more of a zero shift than just elevation. I don't normally adjust my zero when shooting 2-3MOA plinking rounds, as they usually hit around where my more precision oriented ammo does.

Light bullets and a light powder charges sound economical, but before you crank out a few thousand run a few dozen and make sure they reliably function the rifle, particuarly as it fouls up, unless you really want to practice failure drills.
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

Maybe see if you can find some varmaggeddon bullets in bulk as well, otherwise wideners should have bulk 55gr fmjs. The Vmax and Varma bullets will be much more accurate than the bulk fmj options out there.

24.5 TAC and seat to 2.2" is how I shoot 50-55 grain bullets in my ARs.
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

@Beef where do you get your bullets?
So far powder valley is the only one that had stuff @ a decent price...

@BCP is TAC a ball or extruded powder.

I am wanting to run fire from cover, mag dumps, mag dumps with mag changes and a couple other drills with my family. During the mag dumps we are talking hitting a 8x11 sheet of paper at 50m with IS at the moment.. So we are talking if everyone got 1000 rounds a month, upwards of 5 to 6k rounds.
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

Also a review on Midsouth:

Half Price Varmint Nightmare AR-15 Bullets from Midsouth
by ADMINISTRATOR on APRIL 29, 2012

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90 people like this. Be the first of your friends.

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Bullets, bullets bullets and more bullets! The Varmint Nightmare 55 grain hollowpoint from Midsouth Shooter Supply is sold in a minumum 500 bullet bulk pack. If you shoot a lot and want to save some money, they are an extremely good quality and consistent bullet for about half price.

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Midsouth send us a box of these bullets, and as you can see, they are no frills from a packaging perspective, but they performed like a name brand bullet. This Hornady virgin brass and Hodgdon CFE 223, for “Copper Fouling Eraser,” proved to be a great combination.

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You have to respect a bullet that consistently shoots into an inch through an off the shelf Rock River AR with no special bells and whistles.

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Each charge was individually weighed at 27.5 grains by the Hornady Auto Charge. If you click to make this photo bigger, you will see that it uses an electric powder trickler to reach the target charge. First it goes fast, then it slows down.

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It took about 30 seconds per charge for the measure to nail 27.5 exactly.

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CFE 223 is specifically made for drop powder measures, but we used the Auto Charge for the article to make sure. Most drops from this Hornady measure of CFE 223 were exact, and never more than 2/10ths off.

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These CCI NATO primers are inexpensive through Midsouth, and because they are to military specs, probably as consistent as any match primer.

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We came up with this measurement for this bullet using the Hodgdon website data for 53 and 55 grain bullets. Remember, RELOAD AT YOUR OWN RISK WE DO NOT GIVE RELOADING ADVICE.

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This bullet does not have a crimping groove in it, and we reloaded them in this single stage Hornady Lock N’ Load with New Dimension .223 dies.

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It is tough to measure things like jacket thickness and density from one bullet to the next, but the weights were nearly all perfect at exactly 55 grains.

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The performance of these Varmint Nightmare bullets was second to none in these tests, and they should be equally impressive on game.

&#8232;Midsouth Varmint Nightmare Bullets
http://www.midsouthshooterssupply.com/VarmintNightmare

Half price bullets for an AR-15 is a dream come true for many shooters. But is cheaper inferior? That is exactly our question as we take a look at the half priced bulk purchase .223 “Varmint Nightmare” bullets from Midsouth Shooters Supply. In the interest of full disclosure, Midsouth is an advertiser here on GunsAmerica, but most of the gun industry advertises here over the course of the year, and we try to be objective as possible when it comes to products that our people plan to go out and buy. If these bullets weren’t every bit as good as bullets twice their cost, we simply wouldn’t have written about them.
If you look at the prices of “name brand” bullets for the AR-15, they run about $130-170 per thousand. Varmint Nightmare bullets go for as low as $157 per two thousand, and even in the lowest quantity of 500 bullets, that box costs only $46.59 at Midsouth. And note that Midsouth is a complete shooters supply house, so they sell bullets from Hornady, Barnes, Speer, Sierra and others, and their prices are usually the lowest online. We haven’t been able to test these half price bullets on game, but the accuracy is great and they seem to be extremely consistent. For popping crows or prairie dogs for an afternoon, clanging steel for 3 gun, or just heading out to the range with your handy dandy SlideFire for some blasting, half price is always welcome. These bullets seem to be a great buy.
How is it possible that Midsouth could sell the same .224 diameter 55 grain bullet for half price? One is probably that they don’t spend any real money on advertising them. You also can’t buy small boxes. They come in a bulk plastic sleeve inside a plain cardboard box with a sticker label in a minimum quantity of that 500 box, and there aren’t a lot of options for bullet choices. Few options means you can get the most out of long production runs of one type, and I’m sure they buy these bullets in huge quantities from one of the big bullet makers, then re-package them to save you money .
We tested the 55 grain hollowpoint with no cannelure, the last product listed on the linked page of all the Varmint Nightmare bullets. If you plan to re-load your brass several times you are better off with bullets without the cannalure for a heavy crimp. Heavy crimps are to keep the bullet in one place under heavy recoil, but they chew up your brass quicker. In an AR mag with the light recoil of the .223 cartridge, I have never seen bullets pushing back into the case to be an issue. As with all of the reloading/handloading articles here, we do not give reloading advice, so please follow only what it says in your reloading manual.
As you can see from the pictures, for this article I made careful handloads, not high volume progressive press reloads. There is a difference, but the difference should not be that significant with modern equipment. Nonetheless, this shouldn’t be considered the best these bullets can do, because there is always something you can change to make a load potentially better.
These tests were made with virgin Hornady .223 brass, military CCI 5.56 primers, 27.5 grains of Hodgdon CFE .223 (the new “Copper Fouling Eraser” powder for .223 and .308), and I used the Hornady Lock N’ Load Auto Charge Powder Scale, that has a built in trickler, to make sure that the powder charge was 100% consistent.
It is slow going with the big Hornady Auto Charge machine. But since I loaded with a single stage press, I was able to go back and forth between the 30 seconds or so that the Auto Charge takes to do its thing. The CFE .223 powder is made so that it mostly fills the case, so double charging is impossible, because it over-runs, like a lot. So if you are loading .223 single stage, and you have plenty of loading trays, you could theoretically load up your powder with a funnel while occupied with something else, like watching Idol. Fortunately though, if you are progressive reloading .223, the CFE .223 generally threw within 2/10ths of a grain every time using the Hornady measure. Since this article was about the bullets, and how consistent they shoot, I thought it was worth the time to use the Auto Charge, but in bulk loading myself I would use the measure.
Did it make a difference? I don’t know, but what I can say is that Ben Becker, our resident US Army Sniper, shot the bullets consistently into about an inch at 100 yards. The rifle is a Rock River LAR-15 A4 24&#8243; varmint gun and the scope is the Vortex Viper PST. This rifle is generally about a 1 inch/1 MOA gun, so these bullets shot side by side the same accuracy as any name brand factory ammo we have shot in it. I also weighed dozens of the bullets and they were exactly 55 grains, nearly every one, and there was not one bullet I tried that was more than 1/10th of a grain off. There are other factors to bullet consistency besides overall weight of course, but if the weight is any indication, these bullets are crazy consistent for the cost of them, and I wouldn’t hesitate to use them for any AR-15 application, at, don’t forget, half price.
Now, I have to share with you something that was a huge surprise while testing these bullets. If you look at the reloading data on the Hodgdon website, they of course don’t have Varmint Nightmare bullets in their loads, but if you look at the 53 and 55 grain data for CFE.223, it gives you a range of 26 to at least 27.8, or even 28.5 grains. We used 27.5 grains, checked on the Hornady Auto Charge, which was checked for calibration before testing. We should be well within safety limits for these bullets, and shooting them, they showed no signs of excess pressure, but, hold on to your hats, we clocked these rounds at 3350 feet per second out of the Rock River 24&#8243; rifle.
Just to check, I clocked Hornady Superformance and Superformance Varmint on the same day with the same Chrony chronograph (Ben, in his infinite wisdom that only US Army Snipers must endure, shot up my PACT). The Superformance clocked at 3370, and the Superformance Varmint clocked at 3552. Not all of the Varmint Nightmare bullets have a ballistic coefficient listed, but some say .220, which is fairly efficient for a .223 bullet. . Downrange there is really no comparison to Superformance Varmint, but this an expensive factory load you have buy 20 at a time. For simple no frills handloads, this is great performance out of CFE 223 and Varmint Nightmare. You can’t really do much better. Great velocity, great accuracy, no offense to name brand bullets, but who needs anything else? Bullets are by far the most expensive component in reloads, and I’ll take half price any day.
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

Montana Gold will sell you a 70lb box of 55gr FMJ .224" bullets (about 5000 of them, I think) for $325 or so.
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

70lb of 55g bullets would be 8909 bullets, that's .0364 cents each. That's a deal!
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

Sadly Montana is out of them... Widener is right in my back yard. I emailed them and I can pick up right from the store and save myself shipping and hazmat... I have a feeling they are part of the company that loads artillery rounds for the military up here in East Tn.
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

There should not be any hazmat on bullets. You will have to pay TN tax at Widners though.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Broken_Reticle</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Sadly Montana is out of them... Widener is right in my back yard. I emailed them and I can pick up right from the store and save myself shipping and hazmat... I have a feeling they are part of the company that loads artillery rounds for the military up here in East Tn. </div></div>
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

Upammo.com was the last place I bought pulls, they're getting slim now mixed 55s only. Rmrbullets.com has some 55s too. Been thinking about trying those varmint nightmares myself though. Usually just search around the net til I find a good price when I'm looking to buy, time consuming as all hell, but so goes life. Pull down powder seems particularly had to come by for a good price right now.
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

I'm liking the Montana Gold, being in Montana helps but those prices are great. I've done the Remington 55 gr soft points whenever I drive by a Cabelas shop to avoid shipping. Still way more than some of these prices. Soft points still allow for good chunder effect on prairie dogs.
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: turbo54</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Montana Gold will sell you a 70lb box of 55gr FMJ .224" bullets (about 5000 of them, I think) for $325 or so. </div></div>

Montana sure upped the fuck out of their .224" bullet price.

Went from 7 cents each to 12 cents... and when they got them back in stock, sold out in 2 hours.
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

Updated 4 Feb 2013
Added Natchez

Keep me updated if there is a new site or a new find and I will add it to the list.
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

5 Feb Update:
Going to update everyday as it seems more product is starting to flow and just like last night Upammo had 2000 round boxes and tonight they are gone. So If you find this useful leave some comments and I will keep it up.

Thanks,
B_R
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

Has anyone checked with Dillon?? They have bulk bullets and brass in The Blue Press.
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

Broken_Reticle, thanks for putting in the time to keep us updated.
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

You are welcome. I am checking for my own use also, so it is a nice labor of love for the site that I have gotten some much info from in the past.

Cheers
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

Updated for Feb 8... Check out Powder Valley for Win 40gr hp 2000ct @ 328.00 for some plinking rounds.

Cheers
B_R
 
Re: Best place for .223 bulk bullets

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Beef</div><div class="ubbcode-body">75/77gr in theory yes, I'd buy a 50/100cnt box before I bought in bulk.

$59 per 500 is not bad, that z-max can probably give very good accuracy if you develop a load with it, the v-maxs have been extremely accurate for me. Hornady 55gr FMJs are probably about the most accurate 55gr fmj and run around 11 per 100 should be less in bulk. Rem and Win also market 55gr fmjs which generally run less but don't deliver the same accuracy in my experience. Another option for plinking is 55gr or 62gr pulls $80-90 per thousand, but not all will be usable, and they typically lack the accuracy of commercial bullets. Further the SS109/M855 62gr may not be allowed on some ranges.

Inside of 100 you may hit a bit high with lighter bullets though downloading may offset that, depending on your accuracy requirement you may not need to adjust zero. There could of course be more of a zero shift than just elevation. I don't normally adjust my zero when shooting 2-3MOA plinking rounds, as they usually hit around where my more precision oriented ammo does.

Light bullets and a light powder charges sound economical, but before you crank out a few thousand run a few dozen and make sure they reliably function the rifle, particuarly as it fouls up, unless you really want to practice failure drills.</div></div>

V-max and Z-max in one size are the same bullets, just a different color tip. This is from Hornady's site.
 
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