Disappointment with TAC and Hornady 75's

[Powerlock25]

I made up some loads with varying charge weights and also comparing CCI 400's and Wolf223 primers

All tested at 100yds, with 4x ACOG, 5 shots per each group, shooting prone on sandbags

all loads charged with TAC were in the 3-4" range
loads charged with Varget yielded groups of 1.5-1.75"

For Control - Blackhills 68 and 75 1-1.25"

i feel that I could get a little better idea of the real potential of these loads had I used a high power scope and shot from a bench

all this to say, TAC sucks (at least for me )

 

[ChadTRG42]

Re: Disappointment with TAC and Hornady 75's

The 223 can be a very finiky beast on what powder it likes. My 223's love TAC. They also hated BLC-2 (so try BLC-2 in yours!!). I think it varies from rifle to rifle on what each one will like. TAC is a great powder. It also likes to be pushed at max charges. If you are loading it in a 5.56 chamber (62K psi) at 223 Rem (52K psi) max charges, try going up in charge a little more. This might help.

 

[Powerlock25]

Re: Disappointment with TAC and Hornady 75's

well I loaded the 75's all the way up to 25 grains TAC and I feel like I should go no further - I think that is in 5.56 pressure territory

 

[9H_Cracka]

Re: Disappointment with TAC and Hornady 75's

Good info here - ignore the chambering difference and read the thread for content.

http://www.snipershide.com/forum/ubbthre...481#Post2123481

 

[memilanuk]

Re: Disappointment with TAC and Hornady 75's

I had a very similar experience with TAC when trying to duplicate some Black Hills blue-box 75gn BTHP loads... ran up to 25.n gn of the stuff, dang near ripping the rim off with lousy accuracy.

Went back and pulled some bullets of the factory stuff (which obviously shot great, thats why I was trying to duplicate it) and found that those bullets were in there pretty solid. If they weren't crimped (no cannelure), they were the next best thing to it - I couldn't pull them at all with a kinetic hammer puller, and in a press-mounted collet puller (RCBS) I had to crank down so hard I was crushing the bullet before I could get enough of a grip to pull them out. I found only 23.4-23.5gn of what looked like TAC.

So... I got a Lee taper crimp die (instead of 'rolling' the case mouth into a cannelure groove it just squeezes against the bullet body) and started applying a very light crimp - just kissing it, to begin with. Then I started dialing down the crimp die in small increments, and tested successive batches. You could literally watch the group size shrink with each batch. One I got the groups down under 1/2 moa, I stopped and called it good - and the crimp was still fairly 'light', not enough to deform the bullet at all.

I know of several other people who have tried this same process with similar results. A 75/77gn mag-length bullet over ~23.5gn of TAC *can* shoot extremely well.

HTH,

Monte