I've been doing a bunch of walk around GH hunting with the Box stock CZ527 in .223 Remington. After spending some time looking for a good load for the rifle I came up with the 40gn Nosler Bt seated 0.020" off the lands, pushed by 28.0g of AA2460 lit by a CCI400 primer. I finished developing the load last fall about the time the Ground Hogs retreated underground for the winter.

This spring after what seemed like a winter that would "never" end, I took the rifle out of the safe, fired 5 fouling rounds, let it cool for an hour while I messed around with some other rifles, then came back to it and fired this group at 100 yards.



The "flier", if you can call it that, was the 5th shot. It's a light barrel sporter and does better with 4 shot groups which doesn't bother me at all for my purposes. I turn the scope up 3 clicks (1/4 MOA per click) from the 100 yard zero and I'm effectively zeroed at 180 yards which gives me a 200 yard PBR @ 0.75" above and below the line of sight. I get very few shots at more than 200 yards here in the woods where this rifle is used, so I use a 3-9x40 scope. No muss, no fuss, no objective to adjust. Put the cross hairs where I want the hole and touch the single set trigger. To say this works out quite well is in the contest for understatement of the decade.

The performance of the 40g Nosler BT is nothing short of spectacular at killing ground hogs. The hydraulic shock appears to rip some of them open on the far side with splits of 6" to 8" long in the skin. A lot of the intermals come out through the split. There are no crawl off hits. It drops them dead in their shadow.

I confess to being very happy with this rifle and load for walk around GH hunting.

Fitch
Making the world safer for equestrians one ground hog at a time.

I've used that same 40g NBT on rock chucks here in Idaho out of a .223 with the same kind of performance as to accuracy and down range destruction.

Looks like you have a "go to" load for that rifle! And the chucks don't like it a bit!! The BT's are accurate in the little guns(bigger ones too......6mm's and 25's even the 7's and 30's) but the Hornady VMaxs are equally accurate and the destruction and havoc caused by them is immense!! SIERRA BLITZKINGS equal the VMaxs and surpass the Noslers for accuracy Charlie (GHD)

Fitch,

I have several good light weight bullet loads for two rifles chambered in 223.
One is 27.5 grains of H-335 and Sierra's 40 grain blitz bullet.
The other is 22.0 grains of IMR-4198 and Sierra's 45 grain (1310) spitzer.
26.0 grains of H-4895 with many different 50 grain bullets shoot too, with Winchester Small Rifle primers. I tested these loads with Federal 205 primers and they did not shoot well. One of my favorite 50 grain bullets is Speer's TNT, along with Nosler's 50 grain BT. Speer's 52 grain offerings also shoot well, and Sierra's 50 grain (1320) do too.

fitch, Try some VMaxs or Sierra BK's and report back...............thatis if you can find any to load!! All the varminter bullets are "out of stock" from the distributors it seems...........I'm an FFL with a gunshop and getting anything in varmint bullets as well as pistol bullets or .308 bullets is an exercise in futility! But the bottomline is: Hornady VMAXS and SIERRA BLITZKINGS in the 204, 224, 6mm, 257, 264, 284, 308 diameters are very explosive with exceeding accuracy and generally a little cheaper to shoot than the Noslers!Just my opinion......and I've got an asshole too. Charlie (GHD)

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Originally posted by groundhog devastation:
Just my opinion......and I've got an asshole too. Charlie (GHD)

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Originally posted by groundhog devastation:
Looks like you have a "go to" load for that rifle! And the chucks don't like it a bit!!

They are all broken up about it! Seriously, I hit what I'd estimate was a 10 pounder with a Texas Heart Shot at around 130 yards, in went in the back, traveled the full length expanding like a battering ram, and came out the front dragging most in the inner works with it. Bagged and in the dumpster.

quote:

The BT's are accurate in the little guns(bigger ones too......6mm's and 25's even the 7's and 30's) but the Hornady VMaxs are equally accurate and the destruction and havoc caused by them is immense!! SIERRA BLITZKINGS equal the VMaxs and surpass the Noslers for accuracy Charlie (GHD)

I've ordered some of the 55g Nosler BT for my .243Win that I rebarreled last winter. It's a cheap Adams and Bennett discard from a friend who had chambered it in 6mmBR for one of his Savages. I sawed the chamber off and rechambered it in .243Win. The factory barrel wouldn't do better than 1-1/2" groups with anything but the POS A&B barrel shot eight 5 shot groups in a row that had a combined aggrigate group size of .496" with 75g V-Maxes. That will do! Now I'm trying for as good a load with the 55g Nosler.

Fitch