New To Me 223

[wbm]

Got a "new to me" barrel from a member yesterday and set it up. 24" Fluted 223 Savage barrel. Started out with two kinds of factory ammunition. American Eagle 50gr Tipped and Australian Outback 69gr Sierra. Ended up with a pretty good group. Three shots of Eagle and four shots of Outback. Also shot a 3 round bughole with 68gr Hornady and 8208 XBR. Nice when it all works out huh?

[jim_k]

It has become an expectation with Savages, and it sure is nice to shoot like that.

[Texas10]

Thats looking pretty good, WBM. Both those off the shelf loads shoot tiny groups out of my 12FV in 223. Frustrating as all hell to find my carefully worked up hand loads many times will not measure up to those two off the shelf brands. I am not kidding, and have targets to prove it that AE tipped 50g can, and has put three in a hole measuring as small as .020 CTC at 100 yds. Not just once either. Multiple times

A real good shooting hand load for me is 53 g V-Max over 3031 doing about 3250 fps. 4 inch clays at 500 yds are no challenge with that load in my sons 12FV in a EABrown thumbhole with bipod and Vortex Crossfire II 6-18X44 AO. I'm sure it helps that his eyes are much younger too.

[wbm]

I'm sure it helps that his eyes are much younger too.

Sure does. Last time out with the family M96 Swede my son did a 3 shot 1" group twice on a black round ball target with iron sights. I could see the front sight the other was a dark blur. So I just held the tip of the front sight blade at six-o'clock and hoped for the best...did not work out that good.

Will give the 3031 load a go for sure.