As always, it is Steve Riccardelli, that has the words of wisdom to add. Steve, thanks for all your work on your site.

Most 223's are the one in 12 twist and anything up to the 63 grain Sierra, the 64 grain Winchester and the 70 grain Speer work well in all my bolt 223s ( i am not an auto fan).

In my 1 in 8 PacNor barreled 223, if I use a bullet smaller than 55 grains, ( well, the 52/53 grain match stuff works fine), it does not shoot well. However, if I back off the velocity a tad, then they shoot just fine.

A lot of the lighter bullets are fragile and designed to be that way, so they explode on varmints. Any sort of velocity and a fast twist, you can watch them vaporize out of the barrel. I have seen this happen when the day was bright sunny, no clouds, no humidity and 100 plus degrees. A 45 grain Sierra loaded to 3600 fps, with 28 grains of Benchmark powder, came out of the barrel, just like watching your breathe on a cold winter day. It never even made it to a target set up at 15 yrds!

Throttled back down to 2600 fps, the fragile bullets have no problem out of the 1 in 8 twist rifle. At 2600 fps, I use it for 200 yds, and closer. Beyond that, I have a 22/250 set up right next to it.

I have seen 55gr bullets work well in both.

Ray

It isn't the weight, it's the length...

http://stevespages.com/page8e.htm

For a 223 Rem, what bullet weights work best with:

1-9 twist

1-12 twist

Also, are there any bullet weights that work very well in both? Thanks.

If the bullet is off center, it takes a sideways jump when it exits the barrel in proportion to how fast it is spinning.

The faster the twist rate the more error.
Sure sometimes a fast twist rate will shoot a short bullet as accurately as a slow twist rate, but those must be very good bullets loaded very well.

For me, the strategery is to buy the slowest twist rate that will work with the longest bullet I want to use. I like 55 gr. Vmax, so 1 in 12" or 1 in 14" is fine with me. My 1 in 9" barrel is more difficult to get accurate with that bullet.

69gr match king dont shoot in a 1-12. 40grs shot really well in my buddy's 1-9 savage. when i had my savage the only thing that it shot well was the 75gr A-max. im shooting 40gr in my 1-12 right now and they are doing well.