.224 Bullets made from .22 LR brass in a AR?

[Faret]

Has anybody had luck with these bullets in a 1-9" twist AR barrel? Shooting in a 16" wylde barrel and cannot get a descent group. Have made and shot some with copper jackets and they shoot real well so I know it is not me or the gun, dies. TIA

[clodhopper]

I got fair results with 1 in 8 twist barrel, bolt gun by keeping velocities down around 2300.
Bonding the core and jacket may help.

[Forrest r]

While not the greatest by any means.

[IMG][/IMG]

Typical groups I'm get with either bl-c2, h4895, cfe223 and any primer and mixed range brass. I made some 55gr hp's and they shot the same 1" to 1 1/2" 5-shot groups @ 100yds. I like the 62gr bullets better so I went back to making them.

[IMG][/IMG]

The rifle I'm using is nothing special, it's a 1 in 9 twist cheap savage axis hb. A local shop had them on sale, a rifle/scope combo. Along with a mail in rebate for $50. So I sold the scope that came with it for $75 and got a $50 check from savage and ended up with $200 in the rifle after taxes.

[IMG][/IMG]

I haven't done anything to the rifle other than shoot and clean it. No mods to the flimsy stock, heck haven't touched the trigger on the thing. Whatever it was set at from the factory is what I'm using.

Anyway, cheap rifle in a cheap stock using mixed range brass and free mixed 22lr cases and free range lead for cores. I'm getting groups like the ones pictured above.

It doesn't seem to matter if I use 22lr jackets or copper jackets, some 62gr hp's I made from copper jackets with mixed range brass and some 20+ year old pull down powder that I was burning up.

[IMG][/IMG]

Got 1" groups with those also with a load that the rifle liked and up to 1 1/2" groups from the rest.

[IMG][/IMG]

Planned on doing a couple of things to tighten the groups up:

Been saving 22lr jackets from the same lot/case/brand of ammo.
Worked up 1000 pieces of lc brass from the same lot.
Debating to either buy a good stock for that rifle or stiffen the cheap plastic one that's on it.

Not a ar, not the best groups but I never really expected to get moa from all this mixed and matched blammo ammo and and that cheap rifle.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Rimfire cases are very accurately dimensioned, and brass is a fine jacket material. Dave Corbin considered that there are only two obstacles to their being as good as any other jacketed bullet. One is that being so thin they can't handle as high velocity as conventional jackets, and are too frangible for game which is large even by .22 centrefire standards. (I would guess that if there was such a thing as a thick brass jacket, it would be more inclined to crack or wrinkle than copper, but there isn't.) The other is that very slightly larger groups result from the indentation of the firing-pin. I don't think it very much matters how well you iron it out, as a perfect outside will still leave irregularities in thickness of the metal.

It could be a good idea to section a few bullets and see if you can detect what I would expect, irregularity of the way the core fills the jacket, either at the base or inside the tip if the lead doesn't come all the way to the tip of the jacket. Use a lubricant for the core, but as little as you can, because a little blob of trapped lube is like a bubble, much lighter than lead.

[Houndog]

The biggest trouble I see with shooting bullets made with 22 RF casings in an AR is the barrel twist rates are FAR to fast for good results! With the 1/9 or faster twists the core and jacket are starting to separate when firing and there's little we can do about that except keep velocities low. For best results our 22 RF jacketed bullets should be fired in either a 1/12 or 1/14 barrel. MAYBE Armalite had it right when they used 1/14 in the original M16 with 55gr bullets and changed it to 1/12 when the 62gr bullets were specified by the DOD!

[Prospector Howard]

You might want to try going heavier on the bullet weight, if you aren't already. I've been making bullets from .22 brass for about 15 years. Most of that time I was making lighter bullets in the 57 grain area with decent results. Once I started making 68 gr soft point bullets I've had much better results. Lately I've upped the weight to close to 70 grains and like them even more. I have three .223 rifles with twists that are 1-9, 1-10, and 1-12. They all shoot better with the heavier bullets. Give it a try, I bet you won't be sorry.

[AggieEE]

Maybe off topic but here goes. Has anybody tried using two lr cases one inside the other? I'm trying to think of a way to bond the two jackets together, sweat soldering comes to mind along with a host of problems doing it. Does anybody have access to solder paste used in surface mount soldering? It's very small balls of solder mixed with flux. Any other ideas?

[BT Sniper]

1/9 twist will shoot bullets made from 22lr brass very well. All my original testing was done with a 9 twist in a very accurate Savage 223 rem. I have shot many groups under 1MOA threw this gun with bullets made from 22lr brass and have posted many pics here of such groups.

I have since acquired a 12 twist barrel and have found it to also shoot these bullets very well.

Sure twist rate has a bit to do with it but so does the quality of the barrel and probably the cleanliness of the barrel too.

As far as the AR platform..... well I've shot many groups under 1MOA out of a Armalite 9 twist with 24" barrel so I'm certain it can be done, just takes a bit of load development.


Keep at it and swage on!

BT

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Maybe off topic but here goes. Has anybody tried using two lr cases one inside the other? I'm trying to think of a way to bond the two jackets together, sweat soldering comes to mind along with a host of problems doing it. Does anybody have access to solder paste used in surface mount soldering? It's very small balls of solder mixed with flux. Any other ideas?

I haven't heard of it being done, but it could be, and so far as I can see the main snag would be the cost of at least one more die to make the one that slides inside the other.

I don't really think there would be much disadvantage in having such a jacket unbonded. Like any pressure vessel with two skins, it would resist internal pressure (which causes bullet blowup in the air) a little less than a solid jacket of double thickness, but much better than one of single thickness. Much the same would probably apply to impact performance on game, and it would resist heat penetration and core melting as well as it would if bonded.

The Germans go in for double jackets in commercial bullets, or used -to, to produce controlled expansion, and I don't believe they were bonded. I could imagine that giving marginally less accuracy than the best bullets of simpler construction, but while the rule of competitive benchresting is that everything matters, it shouldn't be significant for a hunting bullet.

If there is enough clearance for solder to penetrate between the sides of the jackets, there is enough for the inner one to get off-center, either in manufacture or if the solder temporarily melts through bore friction. I don't know the size of those tiny balls, but if you must use it, I would say make the clearance too small for them to be between the sides, and let them rise from the base area by capillary action once melted. Superglue might be better, but I would trust to pure mechanics.

[Wolftracker]

I get the best result with 63 to 69 gr. bullets in my 16' R-15 with 1:9 twist at around 2900 fps. Typical groups are 11/2 to 2." I could probably do better with a better trigger as this one is "creepy." That's my story and I'm stickin to it!

[DukeInFlorida]

Im using the starting load of BLC(2) and find that I get the exact same group size using Hornady 55 gr hpbt vs my own swaged 22lr swaged bullets (bt snipers tools).
-
all my shooting is done in two 16" barreled ar's with 1:9 twist

Its taken me a lot of time to develop a method/system for assuring that the weight of each bullet is within a .1 grain variance. And, make sure that the noses of the swaged bullets are as closed up as possible . I dont sort jackets by manufacturer any more. But, I can and did refine a system of matching the jacket and core weights such that they there dead on 55 grains. Those flew even better.

Faster does not not mean more accurate. Faster does mean flatter trajectory. But th harmonics of the barrel, and the dynamics of the bullet create too many problems with trying to get fastest = accurate. In my instance, for whatever reason, slow seems to be more accurate in my two ar's that shoot these bullets.

[Forrest r]

I use allot of bl-c2 in the 223's for plinking also. 25.5gr of bl-c2 and those 62gr hp's I swage do surprisingly well. In the pictures I posted earlier there was a ladder test with the:

Swaged 62gr hp made from range lead and 22lr mixed cases
Mixed nato brass/free range brass
25.5gr of bl-c2

That combo gives me moa accuracy out of that cheap rifle doing 2900fps. Pictured in the ladder test it gave me a 5/8" group with 3 bullets in the same hole.

I'm not blaming the rifle by any means or the mixed brass. What I am saying is I'm not really giving the bullets I make a fair chance. Most people buy those cheap rifles and toss the stock and buy a Boyd's and glass bed the bbl'd action in the new Boyd's stock. The end result is they shoot like lasers. As anyone that has ever chased their tail looking for accuracy knows. The 1st thing you do is use the same lot of brass, not range pickups that are made from different mfg's, different years, 1x/multiple x times fired.

In reality I'm extremely impressed with these home swaged bullets made out of 22lr cases. I've ran the ladder tests with home swaged 55gr & 62gr hp's using 3 different powders now. And have had the 55gr bullets just over 3200fps and the 62gr bullets right at 3000fps with a max load of cfe223.

Duke in Florida made an excellent remark about tightening the point of the bullet up as much as possible. I tried making some hp's with a large hp hole and I never could get them to shoot. So now I use them to season the bbl at the start of a range session. When I started swaging bullets that had a constant hp hole/tip size, the groups shrank. The next set of bullets I make are going to be sp's in the 68/69gr weight as Prospector Howard suggested. Been thinking about making a 69gr sp bullet for awhile now, after reading his post it's going to happen.

There is some talk about cores in this thread. I really don't know a lot about the subject other than:

I use tsp to clean the cores after I run them thru the squirt die. The tsp will actually roughen/etch the surface of the cores which is supposed to make them grab the sides of the jackets better. Don't know if it's true or not but that's what I do.

The 22lr cases that I turn into jackets are .220" in diameter. When I seat the cores in the jackets they get bumped up to .223". The point forming die takes everything to .224".

I'm sure there's an accuracy point to everything, these bullets made from 22lr cases are no exception. Every bbl is different also & so far I've only shot these home swaged bullets out of 2 different bbl's. The bullets could take max pressure/max loads from 3 different powders along with some 20+ year old pull down powder. They never exploded or came apart and always left round holes in the targets. The limited # of 5-shot groups I've tested (around 100 groups so far) have produced groups ranging from 5/8" to 1 1/2" groups. This is with nothing more that blammo ammo components and a $300 rifle/scope combo that had a $50 factory mail in rebate.

[Smokin7mm]

The issues I have found with bullets swagged from 22lr shot in an AR is a combination of speed and twist. My AR is a 1-8" twist. I tried some 60gr bullets I made up for testing and they shot fine until the velocity increased to a point (I was not chronographing at the time) where that bullets were not making it to the target. Based on the loading manual I am guessing the velocity was around 2600fps where the issues started. In another test I was shooting some 107gr 6mm bullets I made from 22mag cases. If pushed from my XP-100 6TCU with a 1-7" twist they would come apart when the velocity got much over 2200fps. When shooting a 100gr bullet made from a 22mag case and shot from my Weatherby 243 winchester with a 1-10" twist pushed to around 2900fps there were no issues.

Bret

[Utah Shooter]

There are so many variables when you are making your own that I think it would be almost impossible to tell you what is wrong without seeing your process. We can all say what we think but I do not think I have enough info to tell you what I think. The bullets that I make are using only Eley and Lapua 22lr brass. What are you calling not a decent group? Who's dies are you using and what weight are the finished bullet? How does the "column" (thanks Brian Litz) look after seating?

I have shot mine out of 1:9 twist bolt and AR and 1:8 twist AR with continuous sub moa if not under 3/4 inch.

[Houndog]

The last few posts here sort of made my point for me. 22rf jackets DO work, and I use bunches of them myself. If you keep velocity around 2800FS or less they will work fine in a faster twist barrel, and when we increase bullet weight to the 65-70 range that's about what we can get from the 5.56. With a 55GR bullet we can reasonably get into the 3150-3250FS range and that's where jacket failures will occur with the faster twist barrels. If you watch your targets closely you will see small lines radiating out of the bullet hole that look like a fine pencil mark. That is where jacket failure is starting to occur and accuracy will progressively worsen as we get faster. If we continue to push our bullets faster we will get bullet blowup before they reach the target caused by excess rotational force. That's why I use and like the 1/12 and 1/14 twist barrels. My favorite AR15 is an A2 profile rifle with a 20 1/2 long 1/14 twist barrel and it shoots my 22rf jacketed 55gr bullets at 3200fs just fine. (one inch and sometimes better groups)

I fully appreciate Prospector's suggestion to go heavier weights and I fully agree with him, but I don't have the point up die to do that. One of these days I'll have to get Brian to make me a tipped bullet point up die.
BTW: I've used a set of his dies and they are every bit as good as my Sherman dies.

[Faret]

There are so many variables when you are making your own that I think it would be almost impossible to tell you what is wrong without seeing your process. We can all say what we think but I do not think I have enough info to tell you what I think. The bullets that I make are using only Eley and Lapua 22lr brass. What are you calling not a decent group? 2-3" groups at 100 yards. Who's dies are you using and what weight are the finished bullet? Corbin H dies 6s 55 gr with a modified Aneat swage press. How does the "column" (thanks Brian Litz) look after seating? Just like any other I have seen.

I have shot mine out of 1:9 twist bolt and AR and 1:8 twist AR with continuous sub moa if not under 3/4 inch.

Questions answered ^

[Faret]

Think I have found my problem! I have recleaned my jackets and cores and the groups are now right around a inch. I am confident now that they will work in my gun just need to refine my methods a little. Cores must have been slipping in the jackets because before nothing looked like a group to me. Before they looked more like a shotgun pattern but still had round holes in target! Thanks for all the help and suggestions! You guys are the best!

[Prospector Howard]

One other thing on the heavier bullets: Not only have I found that they shoot better as far as consistent groups go, I get better impact on the target. I shoot a lot of steel and you can tell the difference when they hit the target, (better oomph), which only makes sense. It wouldn't make much difference if you could just shoot the lighter bullets faster, but I've found there is a limit to the speed before they have a tendency to come apart.

[Randy C]

Everything I've done is 6mm out of 22shorts 22lr and 22mag brass, I shoot them in my 243wssm they all shoot good if I do my part wright, you will find the sweet spot-it takes time, I learned how to do it here by asking, some folks took the time to help me through private messages and phone calls, I cant thank them enough. I have Richards Dies there good dies but there not polished, Keep us posted on your progress and keep the pictures coming when you refine your bullets and targets, you have some good looking bullets for being new to the process. They need to look all the same and weight the same to shoot the same, It takes time to get your cores wright-let alone to get everything to work smooth and consistent through the dies and have a bullet that looks and shoot like factory bullets. If you buy some factory bullets or have someone give you some the same weight your shooting /reload them/ you will see how well they do. Work on your breathing and trigger pull that will make a big difference for most people. there's nothing worse than a hard trigger, It helps to have thick skin when posting on these message boards.

[Combat Diver]

I got couple hundred .224 LR cased swaged 55 gr bullets from a member here couple years ago. Shoot them out of my 1:7 14.5" AR at about 2700 fps. No issues but then I made them for training ammo for a 25yd range do drills with. Got a 1:14 Green Mountain barrel on my wifes AR so tagging this for further reference.


CD