P
ANNEA L-RITE CARTRIDGE BRASS ANNEALER
Starting at $98.00 - Satisfaction Guaranteed View video & products -
www.cartridgeanneal.com
Enterprise Services, LLC Phone orders to 479-629-5566
because the Zee Ring inserts are self- aligning and therefore, while tightening the rings, it is impossible to significantly stress either the gun or scope as a result of poor alignment between base and rings. These seldom line up anywhere near to correctly and these never line up perfectly. Zee rings make scope-ring alignment a non-issue and have other advantages. Here, I will test various bullets
and propellants that were not avail- able when I did the original study with this rifle and retest one load. Because of the typically too-long throat in this chamber, it is not feasible to seat some light bullets close to touching the rifling while maintaining enough shank-seat- ing depth to assure as much durability as I prefer for varmint hunting loads. Use of longer-necked custom cases (see below) solves this problem. Alliant has a new propellant
that has great promise for launching lighter bullets from the 221: Power Pro 300-MP (Magnum Pistol). This high- energy propellant has a burn rate that is nominally similar to H110 but in any load where it has the right burn rate it will generate significantly more velocity than any other available propellant will. Unfortunately in the 221 it seems to be just a bit too fast burning to offer much, if any, velocity advantage. The high-energy propellants now
offered by Alliant and Hodgdon in sev- eral burn rates are canister versions of the bulk propellants that Federal and Hornady have been using for decades to generate extra-performance factory loads. Formerly, the reason these multi- deterred propellants have not been offered in canister-lot versions is that it was considered infeasible to produce such propellants with the requisite lot- to-lot consistency in burn rate, energy, and density. Those issues do not bother factory
ammunition producers because their ballisticians necessarily always develop loads afresh for each new propellant batch. When batches are measured in tons, such testing does not represent
www.21stcenturyshooting.com
Products for the 21st Century
Shooter/Reloader All products
100% American made! Lifetime Guarantee
much added expense. This testing is far less expensive than the added cost associated with creating canister-grade propellants and even when ammunition producers do use those more-expensive propellants, prudence and liability is- sues still require load verification with each new batch. Few handloaders have either the
means or the desire to do pressure test- ing and therefore we must settle for using canister-lot propellants and ac- cepting whatever lot-to-lot performance variations that approach entails. The worst I ever documented was fully 150- fps variation in a 225 Winchester load
O C S 10-5 T-Th
Specializing in New & Used Hunting, Target & European scopes — NightForce, Sightron, Swarovski, Kahles, Zeiss, Leupold, Bushnell, B&L, Redfield, Unertl, BSA & other scopes.
1-800-831-4324 Orders Only • Questions (785) 889-4859
Email-ballentine@bluevalley.net•16875 Victory Rd.•Onaga, KS 66521
using a common propellant to launch 40-grain BTs. Of course, the new lot was slower and the charge filled the case so it was not possible to resolve this issue by increasing the charge and I had to switch to a different propellant. I tested for maximum-load charg-
es with 2400, H110, Lil’Gun, 300-MP, A1680, and IMR4227A (my designation for the Australian-made version). This represents many of the propellants that promise near-maximum per- formance in 221 Fireball loads using 35- to 40-grain bullets. The data in the associated table suggest a charge that is ½-grain below the point where sig-
221 Fireball: Maximum Load Data For This Rifle Tested
Bullet, OAL (in) Hornady 35 NTX @ 1.943
Primer Fed-100
Fed-200 Fed-205M Barnes 36 VG @ 1.899
Fed-100 Fed-200
Fed-205M Nosler 40 BT @ 2.006
Fed-100 Fed-200
Fed-205M Nosler 35 BT-LF @ 2.001
Fed-100 Fed-200
Fed-205M
Hornady 40 V-Max @ 1.922 Fed-100 Fed-200
Fed-205M Sierra 40 BK @ 1.994
Fed-100 Fed-200
Fed-205M
Powder 2400
H110
Lil’Gun H110
Lil’Gun 2400
H110
Lil’Gun H110
Lil’Gun 2400
H110
Lil’Gun H110
Lil’Gun 2400
H110
Lil’Gun H110
Lil’Gun 2400
H110
Lil’Gun H110
Lil’Gun 2400
H110
Lil’Gun H110
Lil’Gun
Charge 14.8
17.0 17.0 16.9 16.9
14.0 17.0 16.6 16.9 16.8
13.7 16.7 16.3 16.6 16.2
14.2 16.5 16.1 16.4 16.0
13.7 16.7 16.3 16.6 16.2
13.7 16.7 16.3 16.6 16.2
www.varminthunter.org Page 51
B
E
A
L
I
L
M I
E
L N
T N
U
N I
S E
S ' E
T
D
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196