Reloading questions/help

[xj-jake]

Finally got to the range to try out my new to me 222. I bought brass and reloaded some 40grn v-max bullets in Remington brass and Benchmark powder. The gun shot beautifully and I was fairly impressed with the group at 100 considering the shitty Bushnell glass I put on it for the time being.

I did bring it out to 200 but the crosshairs made it difficult to be accurate. But I digress.

An MOA group at 100 was great considering everything, first time behind the gun, and my first hand loads. I looked at data from my Garmin afterwards and was disappointed in the es and sd.

To be fair, this will really only be a target or varmint gun I may shoot some local competitions at the gun clubs, but it won’t be anything that I will necessarily be competing with.

I have an idea or thought that it could be the brass itself or potentially a powder charge that caused the vast variation in data points. Either way it look great on paper and just wanted to get some opinions.

 

[Sgt_Mike]

Nice rifle, .222 is a good caliber for your posted needs.
thoughts are :
Did you "throw" the powder charge or weigh /trickle each charge? (either is fine as long as the method is consistent, personally I throw my charges)
try some differing bullets Manufacturer such as speer TnT, Noslers, even Sierria's in the 40gr that are flat based, and shorter in length than the V-max's are. They usually shoot tighter than a BT inside the 500ish yard line.
Better optic probably would tighten the existing load up. maybe.

But I wouldn't throw out that load looks to be a winner, varmint nor paper cares about a es or sd variation only gun writers do.