AR-15 reloading question for 16" barrel

S

skeetlee

New member
Would it make more since to find the fastest burning powder that is still safe for reloading 223, for an ar with a 16" barrel, providing that you get good resaults? The reason i ask this is I know that you loose velocity with shorter barrels. so i was thinking a little faster burning powder may help the loss. Or would the gain or loss be insignifigant. (sp) Thanks lee
 
I agree with Hidago but I would tend to look at the faster powders first. What bullet weight are you going to use? If its 55gr or lighter I would not start say with Varget as its better with heavier bullets and longer barrels but is very accurate but in my experience has never given close to advertised velocities in .223. Gosh there are so many good powders out there its hard to go wrong but i would look at something like AA2015 or XTerminator or my current favorite VV133.
 
When choosing powders I look for the most effeicent first The one that gets me what I want with the least amount of waste, these will most likely be the faster powders as well. I agree that velocity loss between the 24 or 20 or 18 or 16 is really insignificant. Unless you are one of these folks who think velocity is every thing and accuracy is second to that. In that case I cannot help you.
 
i am thinking about a olympic k16 dtech rifle with a 1/9 twist. I have a few hundred 55 grain hornady soft point bullets. I was wanting to load these up while i am waiting for my rifle. these are old bullets that have been around a while and i thought they would be good for plinking. Just looking for some in put on what powder to use. I know its all about accuracy but this rifle will not be my target ar, I already have one for that. this k16 will be my run and gun type rifle. Tacticool if you will! It will have the quad rail hand guard and adj stock. Just something fun for me to play with. Thanks lee
 
I have been loading the Hornady 55gr SP and do not discount them in the accuracy dept. I was surprised and delighted when i loaded some for a good friend and they shot fantastic from my two .223's and since then i shot them in 3 more different .223's with great results.i have loaded those bullets with 3 different powders and all have been very accurate. AA2015,Xterminator,and H335 all gave good speed and less than MOA accuracy. My buddy has killed numerous cull deer and hogs with that bullet.
 
Ya I was pretty sure they were a good bullet. These have been around a while and the lead tip has turned white, and has migrated down the bullet. I got them for nothing and figured they would be good play around bullets with good accuracy! Is there a chart or a web site that will tell me the relative burn rate of powder? I also thought that H335 would be a good choice for my loads. Thanks fellas, Lee
 
FWIW, let me give you some data that QuickLoad claculated.

Using your bullet and a 16" barrel.

27.5 gr of W748 will burn about 93%
25 gr of Benchmark will burn about 94%
27 gr of H335 will burn about 94%
27 gr of Varget will only burn about 91%
28.5 gr of BLC2 will only burn about 93%
25.5 gr of Xterminator will burn about 97%
25 gr of H322 will burn about 97%
24 gr of VV N133 will burn about 97%
If the Accurate 2015 is the same as XMR2015, then it burns about 99% with a 25 gr load.

I'm not saying these powder levels are safe in your gun. These are just the loads that were calculated to be below 'hot'.

I have been using H33 5 and W748 in mine. The H335 has quite a muzzle flash. The W748 shoots very well.

I wish that I hadn't ran this... now I'm thinking about trying some new powders /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif. QL is a good tool for this kind of analysis. I just wish that I had it available before I spent a ton of money on powders that just didn't work the way that I thought they would.
 
Don't rule out Blue Dot powder, it works good for short barrels. You load up reduced loads to full loads with a lot less noise in the 16" barrel. Search for reduced load articles.
 


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