I've shot prob 400 hundred 85.5s through my 7tw osprey blank, no issues. Ran 75s at 3250 without problem either. Velocity is lower tho as it's an 18" barrel.
- Thread starter Subhunter2
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Never a problem until it is. I shot a match with a guy shooting 95s from a :6.5" 22-250 AI at probably 3100+. He wouldn't say what is velocity was but hinted it was pretty fast. I asked him if he had any issues blowing up bullets. He was super confident, "Nope!, this barrel is lights out at 1900rds!". Literally the next stage he gets down and blows up a bullet on a 300yd target. He was like, "did anyone see where that went?!" I said, ya, you blew a bullet up. He denied it and chambered the next round shot a target and then engaged the third target, but a puff of white blew up 50yds out. I told him he blew up another.
He would've denied it all day long until it happened in front of a whole squad.
He would've denied it all day long until it happened in front of a whole squad.
I have shot about 200 90 grain sierra's at 3100+ fps without issue in a 26" 7 twist Osprey. I will soon start working with 95 grain Sierra's and hope for the same results. The only bullets I have had come apart were 147 ELDM's in my 6.5 PRC.
So far 95’s have worked well at 3080fps in a 7 twist Mullerworks for me.
Sounds good I’m running a 8 twist so I will be running between 75 & 80 grain bullets
The 95smk is fine at 3000 max. I had issues with them randomly in a new 7tw barrel. Thinking since it happened at several different velocities(3020, 3110, and 3180) sporadically, it must be a bullet lot issue. Sierra ballistician I talked with flat out said those were designed for 223 and 224valk, at their speeds. In a bigger 22 case they would desinigrate.. I mention I'd saw several guys post about it working, to this he laughed and said "for now, let them get a little throat wear and see how they like it." If it works fine, but it isn't gonna work long enough to wear out a barrel. I can see it being good for a short barrel that will not be over 3000fps, but handicapping a 26" pipe to 3000fps with a 95smk or rolling a 90gr berger at 3230 is a no brainer for me.
I wish you luck, maybe with fresh barrel and 5r type rifling, they will hang together for a little bit. I found the 90hr berger to be more accurate and easier to load. The bc difference, at same speed, wasn't worth the hassle and blow ups. Factor in throttling back the 95smk and the bc wasn't worth it.
Barrel is now in the corner and replaced with a 6.5x47 barrel. I may dabble with the 22 Creedmoor down the road if I want a bolt action coyote rifle instead of my AR-10 .243.
Have you done the analysis to see where differing twists, RPMs, speed, BC, and stability intersect? Like how much is the BC degraded? And does it make a difference in wind error forgiveness at distance? Or does it matter so much that a person can shoot a lighter/ shorter bullet with a poorer BC faster to make up the difference? Just curious; not a loaded question.
As far as twist rate and rpms go it's completely agnostic of bullet weight or length, barrel length, or altitude. It pretty much establishes a glass ceiling of top speed. But stability can be managed by twist rate, speed, and altitude at the cost of BC. I guess the question is: At each individual persons altitude, what is the BC cost of keeping the 95 SMK below 300K RPMs? Whether by speed or reduced twist? Is that BC cost negligible in wind drift at distance or is it considerable? And then finally, if you self-limit to another sturdier bullet, are you still limited by speed and does that bullet have an optimized BC that is better than the 95's degraded BC?
Thanks for the info. I believe the Sierra representative. I also believe, as stated before on this site that the bore size has a lot to do with it. The osprey is .219 as opposed to say a Kreiger which is .218. I have 15 rounds loaded up to test in my rifle that currently has 462 rounds through it. I'll report back on the results.
All I'm saying is that the 95smk, according to Sierra, was designed around 223 and 224valk speeds. That's 2500-2900(maybe optimistic), you start hammering on them in a creedmoor at 3000+ and it's a crapshoot on whether they stay together. And if they work today, there's no guarantee they'll work in 400+ rds of barrel wear. My point was the 90gr berger hangs together up to 3300 in a 7tw 22 creed, shot better at 3230 so I settled there. In over 100+rds, I've yet to have any weird impacts, just where they expected to go. The 95smk, I had 3 or 4 out of 24 not get to the target or land sideways(jacket presumably starting to fail and causing yawing). That happened at low speeds of 3050 and a higher. No amount of hoping will make that work.
I was asking based specifically off your comment about milking it down to 3,000 and below not being worth it. If you want to argue Bergers are better bullets, Sure. I won't argue that. But with a published BC of the 95 grain smk if you compromise it a little bit, it's still got a better BC than most of the other 90 grain bullets out there. All I'm saying is it's got a little bit of room in that BC to come down a little bit and still be competitive at 2950.
Using just the best bc of Sierra's banded bc range(which I'm not going into that) at 3000fps at 1000 in a 10mph fv wind it's 7mile drop and 1.7mil drift. My load of 90gr vld at 3230(which shot better than 95smk and never lost a bullet) is 6.2mil drop and 1.7mil drift. The 95smk might need to be slowed to 2950 or a bit less to remain intact past 50yds, and also a 6.5tw barrel, now it's 7.3 drop and 1.8 drift. But hey it's probably gonna not fly apart, so there's that.
Wind hold being the same, I guess you could say it's a wash. But if I'm running a creedmoor case, why do I run it at 224 Valk speed? Why not just run a 224 valk?
I am by no means a proponent of the 95 SMK. The point I was really going after is I would rather use a barrel twist that I know will accommodate all bullets even if that means a little less BC. To me that means keeping them under 300,000 RPMs. So if we want to push bullets to 3200 you need a 1: 7.7. we can play the " but this bullet but not that bullet" thing but to go through the time and expense of chambering a barrel and doing load development and all that time and effort I think it's prudent to just stay under 300K as a planning Factor. I live at 6,000 ft and I can stabilize all those bullets with a 1:7.7. Might I lose a little BC? Sure, But I don't think it's that big a factor. And then the point I was making about the 95 is it's got plenty of BC to lose and still be a good performer.
You can stabilize a 95smk in 7.7tw and lower speeds? I'm at a lofty 375' asl, so I'm not well experienced with what higher altitude gains you, other than academics of it.
To be fair I've never shot the 95 SMK but plugging the numbers into Bergers stability calculator the SG does show it to be stable but with a 4% loss of BC at 2950fps. That's what I was getting at by mentioning the intersection of stability, twist rate, BC, and speed. At 300fps their calculator shows marginally stable with a 12% loss of BC.
I guess if nothing else shoots good in the heavy weights except 95smk in a given barrel, it would be viable in sub 2950 range. Do you know what the g7 is of the 95smk? All I'm seeing is the banded bc
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