52 grain Hornady ELD

[gerrycaruso]

I got some 52 grain ELDs for a slow twist .223 bolt rifle that shoots best with Sierra 52 grain Match Kings. They shot lousy. I loaded some for a 1 in 8 twist bull barrel AR15 and they outshot everything else. I'm guessing that even though they're 52 grains, they're too long to stabilize in the 1 in 12 twist of the bolt gun. Anyone have any other ideas?

 

[mac1911]

I got some 52 grain ELDs for a slow twist .223 bolt rifle that shoots best with Sierra 52 grain Match Kings. They shot lousy. I loaded some for a 1 in 8 twist bull barrel AR15 and they outshot everything else. I'm guessing that even though they're 52 grains, they're too long to stabilize in the 1 in 12 twist of the bolt gun. Anyone have any other ideas?

Are they that much longer?
Does the eld have a short sharp boat tail ?
How fast are you pushing them? Late 80s 52 grain was heavy. Try pushing them close to max?
Way back we shot alot of random 223 through out boltgun. IIRC it was 1/14 and we shot alot of 35-40 grain bullets and if I recall , 3300fps +?

 

[Eli]

Hornady recommends a minimum of 1 in 14 Twist. Try plugging your load into a ballistic stability calculator. Kwk has a good online calculator that’s easy to use. Or it’s possible you just happened to find a bad accuracy node with the bullet. You can always try loading and shooting them at higher or wider range of charges

 

[mac1911]

What are you loading them at for velocity?
You may need to bump the velocity to pick up some rpms? Im wondering what the good range of rpm is for a 22cal at high velocity 240,000 rpm?
Way back when i was young I remember 22lr was idea around 50,000rpm? 30ca 150,000-180,000?

 

[mac1911]

Something I always forget to mention.
didyou clean your bore and especially the lead/throat before testing new bullet profile?
My match AR gave me fits when testing different bullets.
I was pulling my hair out when I would test some bullets and everything would be ok then go and shoot a known load and groups would fall apart.
sometimes i could shoot 8-12 rounds and it would "foul out" and settle down. In the end I stopped testing multiple bullet types in one sitting unless I cleaned the bore. After cleaning the bore it would only take 2-3 shots for the barrel to settle down for those bullets.