I have been shooting groundhogs with the Sierra 52-grain Bt Hp Match bullet in my 223 Remington. They are very accurate but don't seem to open up well past 225-yards. The chronograph reading on my load are 3340 FPS. So I'm about as fast as I can push this bullet from the 223. The rifle is a Cooper with a 1 in 12" twist so I would like to stay with the 52-grain bullets. I have noticed that Hornady offers an A-Max .224 52-grain bullet. Has anyone had any experince with this bullet in the 223 on varmints past 225-yards. I would be interested to hear how they preformed accuracy wise and their expansion on varmints. My experince with A-Max bullets on varmint has been with the .308 A-Max bullets of 168 and 178-grain. They have been very accurate and explosive on varmints.

I have had some experience with the 105gr 6mm Amax's. A good friend of mine shoots these in his 6mm-284. I have seen him shoot several groundhogs with this bullet and generally, the results have been varied. At times, the bullet will leave a good sized hole in the groundhog while others, it just punches right through them. I have heard some mention of the earlier amax's made having this problem. While i realize that the 105 gr Amax is a lot more bullet than the 52gr bullet that you are wanting to shoot, the bullet was initially meant to be a match bullet like the sierra that you are shooting now. If i remember correctly, the Amax jacket is fairly thick. While you won't get expansion like you sould out of a vmax or sierra BK, you will probably see some expansion, probably even more so than you do with the sierras that you are currently shooting. The only way to know is to try them out. I'm sure someone on here has tried this before. On a side note, you may want to try the Speer 52gr TNT HP bullets. I have found them to be very accurate in my .22-250. They also expand rather violently on groundhogs. Good luck and good hunting. Let us know how it turns out!
Ruck

quote:

Originally posted by Sendaro:
I have been shooting groundhogs with the Sierra 52-grain Bt Hp Match bullet in my 223 Remington. They are very accurate but don't seem to open up well past 225-yards. The chronograph reading on my load are 3340 FPS. So I'm about as fast as I can push this bullet from the 223. The rifle is a Cooper with a 1 in 12" twist so I would like to stay with the 52-grain bullets. I have noticed that Hornady offers an A-Max .224 52-grain bullet. Has anyone had any experince with this bullet in the 223 on varmints past 225-yards. I would be interested to hear how they preformed accuracy wise and their expansion on varmints. My experince with A-Max bullets on varmint has been with the .308 A-Max bullets of 168 and 178-grain. They have been very accurate and explosive on varmints.

If you want an accurate and explosive 52 grain bullet, then try Speers 52 grain HP. I am sure it will get a good rating from any varmint hunter and shooter who has used it, way past 300 yds.

I tried it based on price first. I continued to use it based on accuracy and in field performance.

cheers
seafire



Just read Rucks posting above, so that makes mine vote number 2 for the 52 grain HP Speer!

I think Ruck is right in that the jacket on the A-max's is probably a little bit too thick for reliable explosive results on varmints. The heavier A-max's are actually recommended for use on deer-size game and I believe that even the .22 caliber versions have relatively thick jackets to sustain higher speeds and rates-of-twist they may be subject to. Consider the 50 or 55 grain V-max bullets. They've both flown very well for me, although I haven't used them on anything much past 200 yards...yet.

both the sierra and the amax are made for punching holes in paper and are not made for expansion. Plastic tips work well, try the sierra blitzkind, hornady vmax or nosler ballistic tip