I've read the Calhoun articles, and searched the archives here. What I haven't found is max charges for 50 gr bullets. I'll get some 40's in the future, but all I have on hand is 50's, and I'd like to work up some hornet aquivalents for the kids.

For the .222 Remington I use 11 grain BD which is safe and precise from my Anschütz rifle. 13 grain N110 or H110 also give similar results in the Hornet velocity range.

check out www.varminthunters.com , the "go go varmint go" message board. Do a search there.

They have posts on blue dot and the 223 occasionally. Very informative board, and nice people too.

You may want to send a PM to Seafire; he's done a lot with Blue Dot in various bullet wts. For me, 9gr with a 35gr V-Max gets me around Hornet velocities.

I have Seafires load data for the 223, 50gr SMP and Blue Dot.

He starts at 4gr and max is at 14gr of Blue Dot.

Thanks!

I was looking for the max load, and had 13 grs was safe, but wanted to confirm. I've used blue dot in the .308 and it works great. I loaded up 12, 12.5 and 13 gr over 50 gr hornady sp and v-max, will hopefully get to the range tomorrow.

Used 13 gr. up to 62gr. bullets and it was accurate and mild. 13.8gr of Blue Dot did the same with 46gr. bullets. I thiink the max. would really be individual rifle dependant in this case with OAL playing a major role. roger

quote:

Originally posted by Paul H:
Thanks!

I was looking for the max load, and had 13 grs was safe, but wanted to confirm. I've used blue dot in the .308 and it works great. I loaded up 12, 12.5 and 13 gr over 50 gr hornady sp and v-max, will hopefully get to the range tomorrow.

I tried 12.5 gr. with 55 gr. Winchester bulk s.p. bullets, and found them remarkably accurate - not 'maximum', but to me accuracy is the most important element.

For .223 15 gr Blue Dot is not high pressure with 62 gr, but 18 gr can be high pressure with 33 gr.

What does it all mean?
All bullets in .223 will want between 15 and 18 gr of Blue Dot fot the top end.

But I would not use the top end.
I would back off with 50 gr Bullets to a wimpy load:
33 gr 15 gr Blue Dot 3,500 fps 35kpsi
50 gr 14 gr Blue Dot 2,900 fps 35kpsi
62 gr 13 gr Blue Dot 2,500 fps 35kpsi

Why wimpy?
Becuase the reason for Blue Dot loads is to get down the noise, barrel heat, barrel fouling, cost, and pressure and get up the reliability for hundreds of shots in a day.

Thanks for the feedback. Of the loads tried, the 13 gr blue dot 50 gr v-max was the best. I also think I need to clean some fouling out of the barrel as overall accuracy was mediocre.

The kids will have fun once I load up a box for em

Since we're posting experiences, I've tried it in 2 different 223's. Both of mine like 10 grains, but like 12 even better. This is with both 50 and 55 grain bullets. Never found a need to go any higher, as even out at 200 yards, the 12 grain load will hold right around 2". Great for plinking and practicing.

For what it is worth....

Seafire loads a lot of 50 grain Speer TNTs over 14 grains of Blue Dot... with a Remington 7 1/2 primer or a Winchester Small rifle primer...

Will have to try that one as well

Looks like I need to get a good 22 jag and run some jb compound through the bore, as I've tried quite a few patches of Barnes cr-10 and ed's red, and the patchs aren't coming out quite clean. There also looks to be some possible pitting or rust in the bore. Also the crown had some minor burrs, but I re-cut that with a brownells 11 deg target crown cutter. We'll see how it fairs today, temps have dropped a bit so that may ahve an effect on the loads.