Well we varmint shooters.. the Sportsman's Whorehouse just opened up locally... so I picked up some Barnes Varmint Grenade 36 grain HPs up....

Since many who know me my fondness of Blue Dot for volume varmint shooting, I went out and tested the results for this bullet weight Blue Dot.. here are the results.. I will also post this on the Reloading Forum...

Cheers
seafire


Blue Dot:

223 & 36 grain Barnes Varmint Grenade HP.

Primer: CCI Small Pistol

Brass: Lake City

Rifle : Ruger 77 Mk 2

Barrel: 22inch


1. 7 grs: 1946 fps
2. 8 grs: 2286 fps
3. 9 grs: 2477 fps
4. 10 grs; No Reading
5. 11 grs: 2704 fps
6. 12 grs: 3024 fps
7. 13 grs: 3201 fps
8. 14 grs: 3321 fps

What was the repeatability, John? roger

Well Roge,

what do you mean by repeatability?

quote:

what do you mean by repeatability? bewildered

My guess, is Roger wonders if you shot any measured groups, and at what range. I am curious, too. Almost bought a pound of Blue dot the other day, but thought I should exhaust my supply of Ramshot TAC and Accurate 2200 and 2015 before I started playing around with another powder for my .223.

quote:

Originally posted by seafire2:
Well Roge,

what do you mean by repeatability?

Aw shocks, John. You know; The misnomer" accuracy" roger

Well Roger,

They shot dime sized groups out of the Ruger VT yesterday at 75 yds and nickel sized groups at 100 yds.. one in 12 twist...

The Savage 12 BVSS, one in 9 twist didn't fare as well.. a prairie dog might be in danger at 200 yards with them.. a sage rat would be pretty safe at 200 yds with them...

Seafire, I was revisiting your fine work and results with Blue Dot and noticed no COL.
What was the COL you used?

Thanks,
Mike

Mike, that is actually a long bullet for its size... I always make a dummy round when loading a new bullet, by jamming the bolt closed on case and letting the throat show me the seating depth that will allow it to touch the lands...

Then I set the die up, to that, and then back it off about an 1/8 turn and call it good...That distance will vary a little on my various 223s...

All of mine are bolt actions...

This bullet is about as long as a 50 grain TNT or a 50 grain Ballistic Tip...

Thanks, SeaFire.
I always check my rifle throats, too.
I was just wondering how much the bullet intruded into the powder space in the case.

I don't really think pressure is going to be a problem with the lighter loads, however...

Mike,

I didn't have the bullet intruding into the powder space at all.. the bottom of the bullet was still in the neck..

I always like to seat my bullets as little down into the case as I can get away with.. I accept magazine length as a limitation.. other wise I get them throated out like I did both of my 260 Remingtons ( Ruger 77s)...

If you are not looking for a Blue Dot load but want a real accurate and fast load for this bullet...

24 grains of IMR 4198 is a one hole shooter in my rifles at 100 yds..with the 36 grains VG here..

Thanks for the info.

Yesterday one of my shooting buddies tried these bullets in a forth rifle with no success.He has three no goes with 1 in 14" twists; fair results in a 1 in 12. Next week we hope to try them in a 12bvss-s & a Steven mod200 in .223. Both these rifles have good repeatability. roger

Roger try a load of 24 grains of IMR 4198.. this did very very well in two different 223s.. one with a one in 12, and one with a one in 14 barrel on it..

one hole group at 100 yds.. definitely the pick of the litter so to speak out of all the powders I tested..

25 grains of IMR 3031 also did well...

Any update on these bullets in the faster 224s, Seafire? Gonna do some testing myself but am positive someone ELSE has shot em out of a 220 Swift. I can imagine that there is a "TOO FAST" for them or they will erupt BEFORE entering, but just guessing at this point. That would be a bad thing IMO.

Somewhere in your hoardes of email, you have one from me too on your blue dot test and records.

Gotta find out what these will do out of a Swift and at what FPS they WONT go through Wile Coyote.

Still new, still reading all info here. I'll be caught up in 2021.

I have not shot these in the 22.250 with Blue Dot.. however they seem to mirror all 40 grain bullet data with Blue Dot...and will not take a little greater charge, even if a 10% lighter bullet...

I don't own a 220 Swift, but one member wrote me that he had chrono'ed results with his.. using a 40 grain HP Sierra, with a charge of 18 grains of Blue Dot ( if I recall.. I am actually testing this in a 22.250 at the moment) and was looking at MV in the 3750 fps range...

There would not be much difference in data between a 220 Swift and a 22.250 using Blue Dot..a Swift would probably take ONE more grain of powder as max load... and same thing applies to the 22.250 AI...