Please take what I say with a GRAIN OF SALT. There are others on here that know more that I do.
I weigh and trickle each individual load to have the same powder charge but was still not happy with my ES and SD on my hand loads. I removed the expander ball on all my sizing dies and started using a mandrel. The result was pretty dramatic. My ES and SD went way down across the board on all the cartridges I reload for. My group sizes also decreased.
With regard to the 222 Rem. I own one with the Howa mini action and a factory barrel. It seems to prefer the 50g projectiles to the 40g and 45g. I am thinking that maybe the heavier projectile has a slightly longer bearing surface which could help stabilize it better. The 50g Vmax runs really good for me. My 222 is strictly a hunting tool. It has a 20" bbl and only weighs 5.4 lbs which makes it very comfortable to carry in the field. While it is not a long range coyote killer it gets the job done out to 200 yards which is good enough for most all of my predator calling scenarios.
