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223 powder recommendation please

russkim04

Sergeant of the Hide
Full Member
Minuteman
Jan 22, 2019
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I have a 16" barrel upper on barrel it says 5.56..... so what powder would you use for best accuracy with 62 grain fmj and cci41 primers. I have 3031,h335,cfe223 and blc2. Open to all thoughts. Thank you!
 
CFE 223 works well for me with 55 and 77 gr. bullets . Warning : If one is loading at or close to max loads in cool weather safely ,back her down a tad in the summer .
 
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tac , and 223 cfe
Nice Cuda in your profile. Here's my black turd. Been 8.27@162..... get n after it this year. 7's are in my sights
 

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I have a 16" barrel upper on barrel it says 5.56..... so what powder would you use for best accuracy with 62 grain fmj and cci41 primers. I have 3031,h335,cfe223 and blc2. Open to all thoughts. Thank you!
With what you have, I would have to say H335 is my choice. And for 62 grain bullets, its going to like between 24.0 and 24.5 probably.
 
Barrels are individuals, so what works best for me may not for you and vice versa.

I don't have a 62gr "accuracy" load for FMJ, but I get pretty good accuracy out of 25.5gr CFE-223 with the 62gr MK 318 Mod 0 bullet out of my 20" bolt gun even though the barrel is pitted to beat hell. However, that same load is only good for ~ 2 MOA out of my two 18" ARs.

Of my years running 60 - 69gr bullets, I've had my best accuracy (not velocity) with Re-15, Varget, and N135.
 
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I’m not a fan of CFE223, personally. I think it’s too heat sensitive. I was working up loads with it in 6.5 Grendel once and had a load that was still quite a bit below published max give some pretty strong overpressure signs. It was 100 degrees that day, so that’s why I think it might’ve been heat related, but it was the suddenness of it that turned me off of it. I think I was working up in 0.2 gr increments, and all the brass before it was perfectly fine. Then all of a sudden, really bad pressure signs. Of course this is why we start low and work up, but I’ve been kind of leery of it ever since. If you don’t have big temperature swings where you live it’s probably fine. Just be aware of it when you’re working up.
I’ve not used the other powders you have in 5.56/.223.
 
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Hey bro..I just uploaded a bunch of testing on 62 grain bullets with a bunch of powders. Here is the link:
62 grain Trophy Bonded Bear Claw testing

Ran it all through 2 guns to see disparity. 62 grain FMJ, Soft Points, Bear Claws, and many more, are not match accurate bullets and not super accurate in general. The exception to this is probably 62 grain Speer Gold Dot's which can be pretty decently accurate.
 
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best accuracy with 62 grain fmj

First off, if you want to see what the best accuracy is with your rifle, try a match bullet, not a fmj as they are typically not made to the same tight tolerances. I’ve found that fmj’s shoot as good as they can with a variety of powders as the limiting factor accuracy wise is the fmj bullet, not the powder. That being said, I’ve found good results with H4895, TAC, AA2230, AA2520, and BLC-2. With that bullet, I would pick whatever powder I can actually find that works with the 223 and go for it.
 
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Accurate 2015 has slung 50-55 grain bullets like laser pulses (and fast too) for over 30 years and it's widely available.
RL15 (unbeatable velocity) or 15.5 or VARGET for the heavies.

Win 748, Staball Match, CFE223, H335, AR-Comp will all work great too. Even BLC-2
 
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I've used a lot of H335 in the .223, I like the ball powders for the way they flow through a measurer.

Mike