Federal 224 Valkyrie/Larue AR

[Sisco]

A 224 stable out to 1300 yards? 

 

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/10/04/larue-surg-224-valkyrie-big-3-east/

[jtallen83]

You can bet if LaRue is on board it will be a great cartridge. Some day when I grow up I'm gonna have a LaRue rifle.

[edgecrusher]

?

[ARTrooper]

https://fieldjournals.com/2017/10/06/the-ar-15s-creedmoor-224-valkyrie-vs-22-nosler-and-6-5-grendel-modern-intermediate-calibers-025/

The charts are just projections off of the case model... but if actual performance comes close to this, it will be a very impressive round indeed. I am interested to see some more data and how this caliber progresses. using 6.8 cases is a nice plus also.

[survivalshop]

  Interesting Target Cartridge , probably not legal to hunt big game with a .22 Cal. in most States .

[ARTrooper]

In Wisconsin you can deer, wolf, and black bear hunt with .22 Cal as long as it isn't rimfire. and if it has the energy it says it will, then it should be a nice close to medium range hunting round. problem is I have only found target bullets that would work for .224 valkryie, no hunting bullets.

[shepp]

3 hours ago, ARTrooper said:

In Wisconsin you can deer, wolf, and black bear hunt with .22 Cal as long as it isn't rimfire. and if it has the energy it says it will, then it should be a nice close to medium range hunting round. problem is I have only found target bullets that would work for .224 valkryie, no hunting bullets.

Bet hope your a good shot shooting a bear with a .22 cal, not gonna make a big enough hole to bleed out

[Sisco]

Bear in Wisconsin? 270 minimum. 12 gauge slug even better.

[survivalshop]

2 hours ago, Sisco said:

Bear in Wisconsin? 270 minimum. 12 gauge slug even better.

 Damn 12 ga. Slug in any form is the most deadliest round out there for hunting , of course under 100 yards for most slugs . I do have one Deer Kill at 158 yards , but with a Designated Slug Gun, rifled bbl. with Hornady 300 gr.,Sabo's . Most have been under 100 yards .

Edited October 18, 2017 by survivalshop

[shepp]

MY buddy can do a consistent pie plate group at 150 with his wife’s 20 gauge slug gun. Thought that was pretty impressive 

Edited October 19, 2017 by shepp

[survivalshop]

10 hours ago, shepp said:

MY buddy can do a consistent pie plate group at 150 with his wife’s 20 gauge slug gun. Thought that was pretty impressive 

    Several of guys at Camp went to the 20 ga. , but they all had Remington rifled BBL's & shooting Sabo rounds & all shot good  like that. Now that we can use Straight wall rifle cartridges , most went to the 45-70 or 444 Marlin . 

  When I was using my 12 ga. 1100 Remington , smooth bore , I started to use "True Ball " Slugs , I think made for LE , but they shot real good with the smooth bore BBL. , Stoned every Deer I shot with them .

 

   This Cartridge the 224 Valkyrie looks good & I will have two read more on it , as far as Mags needed & such , but the only thing I see with all the large Powder capacity , small Bullet Cartridges is , Short Barrel life . I guess if your a Target shooter , that won't be an issue , because you will be changing barrels out regularly any way. 

   I too have not found a Hunting Bullet for it , yet .Should not be an issue for Bullet makers to produce some though .

   

[ARTrooper]

23 hours ago, shepp said:

Bet hope your a good shot shooting a bear with a .22 cal, not gonna make a big enough hole to bleed out

lol. not saying I would hunt bear with a .22 cal or even a .243 cal. Just stating what Wisconsin's laws are. for that matter, I would never go deer hunting with .223 either because even with the best hunting bullet, the longest shot I think the caliber has the energy to humanely take down a deer, with a well placed shot, is 50 yards. according to the little I have read of .224, it has a lot more energy that might give me the confidence to use it as a short range hunting rifle if it has a respectable bullet that can cause a nice wound. 

 

Yeah survival, I was thinking the same thing about barrel life with this one, seems a lot of the newer calibers seem to follow that trend as they are trying to use longer/slimmer bullets with as much case capacity as possible. A lot of nosler's calibers have the same problem. 

[StainTrain]

I wish this new cartridge well.  This, along with the 22 Nosler and the adrenaline shot the 6.5 Grendel seems to be getting, is a good thing.  I have come to temper my expectations.  Whether is be brass that won't hold up, magazines that don't feed, extraction issues, crappy barrel life or lack luster muzzle velocity (I'm looking at you Grendel),  I keep coming back to the .308 and 6.5CM to meet my long range needs in the semi-auto platform. 

I will likely try to this one out once the newness has subsided. 

[ARTrooper]

I still got to finish my 260 build before I even think of anything else. but I would like something in an ar-15 platform that I could use to take deer at 100-200 yards with a well placed shot. Grendel is winning in that race. I think 22 nosler while having some ballistic improvement over .223, I don't really think it has created the nitch in the market it needed to in order to stick around. While creating greater velocities, 22 nosler doesn't change the game compared to .223 in the way of bullets as I know people that have loaded 77gr bullets in .223. The case of the valkryrie sets itself apart by allowing for longer .22 cal bullets with greater weight for more energy and greater bc.

So I can't wait to see if it stands up to the hype and how it compares to the 6.5 Grendel.

 

[98Z5V]

48 minutes ago, ARTrooper said:

 but I would like something in an ar-15 platform that I could use to take deer at 100-200 yards with a well placed shot.

Short AR-15 in 5.56, loaded with Barnes 5.56 70gr TSX round.  Something with a (legal) 16" barrel.  That round will drop a deer DRT, at that range.  In it's tracks. 

Edited October 22, 2017 by 98Z5V

[StainTrain]

Yeah, man.  Lots of whitetail have been put down with .223/5.56.  Those TSX are gtg.  

Edited October 22, 2017 by StainTrain

[survivalshop]

  

9 hours ago, ARTrooper said:

but I would like something in an ar-15 platform that I could use to take deer at 100-200 yards with a well placed shot.

  Don't forget the 25-45 Sharps , its out of the .22 cal.range  ,but its an AR 15 Framed cartridge & the .25 cal. 90 gr. SGK is shooting real nice so far in my tests , Chrono'ed over 2700 FPS out of a 20" bbl. . Know doubt the .223/5.56 can bring down a Deer , but the .22 cal. is , in my book, marginal in Deer hunting , I wouldn't use one unless I had to . 

  I made some Barnes 62 gr. TTSX loads for a friend , for his son's .223 Bolt Gun & he said they worked just fine ,one shot drop .

 

  This new Cal. with Match Bullets , not sure how it would perform in a Hunting situation . Looks like a Good long range wild cat round for a Paper target . Seems thats what they had in mind any way . 

Edited October 22, 2017 by survivalshop

[ARTrooper]

23 hours ago, 98Z5V said:

Short AR-15 in 5.56, loaded with Barnes 5.56 70gr TSX round.  Something with a (legal) 16" barrel.  That round will drop a deer DRT, at that range.  In it's tracks. 

a couple of years ago, I lost a big buck that I had a clean lung shot on using 90 gr .243 win rounds. Deer was on its back but got up and walked away. 3 hours of tracking and nothing. Now I have taken over a half a dozen other deer with that same rifle and bullet, but because of that one time, I like to go with as much energy as possible.

[98Z5V]

That 25-45 so far is a good one, with a 90gr GameKing - SS was right, with what he said - I snookered him into loading that projectile.  I haven't hunted anything with it yet, but it is a hell of alot more punch than any 5.56 I've tested it against.  300BLK is another option.  That thing is plug-n-play, just use a 300BLK barrel.  You use all your standard .308 diameter bullets, and there are Barnes TSX that will work WELL in a BLK build.  They make a 130gr TSX .308 bullet that would be ideal in a 300BLK hunting rifle, supersonic speeds and all. 

For your situation, wanting something small and 5.56-ish, that's what I'd do.  16" 300BLK build. Nothing will get away within 200 yards.

Edited October 25, 2017 by 98Z5V

[EngrBob]

On 10/21/2017 at 9:16 PM, ARTrooper said:

I still got to finish my 260 build before I even think of anything else. but I would like something in an ar-15 platform that I could use to take deer at 100-200 yards with a well placed shot. Grendel is winning in that race. I think 22 nosler while having some ballistic improvement over .223, I don't really think it has created the nitch in the market it needed to in order to stick around. While creating greater velocities, 22 nosler doesn't change the game compared to .223 in the way of bullets as I know people that have loaded 77gr bullets in .223. The case of the valkryrie sets itself apart by allowing for longer .22 cal bullets with greater weight for more energy and greater bc.

So I can't wait to see if it stands up to the hype and how it compares to the 6.5 Grendel.

 

This year I am taking the 6.5 Grendel and the 6.8 SPC builds into the field to see which performs best vs. Whitetail/Mule Deer.  Both seem to shoot very flat out to 200+ yards although I am getting a little better consistency with the 6.8.  Both are very light setups making them ideal for carrying as I prefer moving around to sitting in a blind.  We shall see.

Edited October 23, 2017 by EngrBob
Typo

[survivalshop]

 

16 hours ago, 98Z5V said:

I snookered him into loading that projectile.

  And all the load testing with the Chronograph 

[ARTrooper]

On ‎10‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 10:49 PM, 98Z5V said:

That 25-45 so far is a good one, with a 90gr GameKing - SS was right, with what he said - I snookered him into loading that projectile.  I haven't hunted anything with it yet, but it is a hell of alot more punch than any 5.56 I've tested it against.  300BLK is another option.  That thing is plug-n-play, just use a 300BLK barrel.  You use all your standard .308 diameter bullets, and there are Barnes TXS that will work WELL in a BLK build.  They make a 130gr TSX .308 bullet that would be ideal in a 300BLK hunting rifle, supersonic speeds and all. 

For your situation, wanting something small and 5.56-ish, that's what I'd do.  16" 300BLK build. Nothing will get away within 200 yards.

I have no doubt that 25-45, 300blk, and 6.8 spc can take deer beyond 100 yards with the right load... but I am a bit of a high bc whore. lol. I like those high bc bullets (and calibers that can use them). And sadly, not many calibers that will fit a standard at-15 platform have the case shape for these long slim high bc bullets. 

[survivalshop]

5 hours ago, ARTrooper said:

I have no doubt that 25-45, 300blk, and 6.8 spc can take deer beyond 100 yards with the right load... but I am a bit of a high bc whore. lol. I like those high bc bullets (and calibers that can use them). And sadly, not many calibers that will fit a standard at-15 platform have the case shape for these long slim high bc bullets. 

  Just because its a high BC bullet , doesn't mean it will perform better expanding & expending energy into the Game Animal or that the high BC Bullet will even make a difference at 2-300 yards , they seem to get the best performance at the long range shots . 

    I for one, here on this Forum will love to hear your review of this Rifle & its Caliber though .

[ARTrooper]

52 minutes ago, survivalshop said:

Just because its a high BC bullet , doesn't mean it will perform better expanding & expending energy into the Game Animal or that the high BC Bullet will even make a difference at 2-300 yards , they seem to get the best performance at the long range shots . 

    I for one, here on this Forum will love to hear your review of this Rifle & its Caliber though .

yeah I know a high bc bullet is best for longer ranges, but that's where plinking steel comes into play. I love shooting target at around 600 yards, though I would never take a shot on an animal at that distance. 

I would love to review this caliber for you guys... but hard to find any information at all on the .224 valkryie.

http://6mmar.com/224_AR.html

The .224 AR on the other hands, has die sets and load information out there for it. The difference being it uses a 6.5 Grendel case instead of a 6.8 SPC case. So, correct me if I am wrong, the .224 AR should give the same 90gr bullets a slight higher velocity because of greater case capacity due to the Grendel case being slightly wider than the 6.8 spc case. This of coarse assuming the necks both taper at about the same length. Problem being is there is so little info on there on them, although seems to be more for the .224 AR.

[98Z5V]

17 hours ago, ARTrooper said:

yeah I know a high bc bullet is best for longer ranges, but that's where plinking steel comes into play. I love shooting target at around 600 yards, though I would never take a shot on an animal at that distance.

Why not? It's highly possible. Just takes practice.  Long Range Hunting has been around for a very, very long time. Most of the people that you hear about though, are reference as "Snipers."  There are more and more "Hunters" doing it now, and it's becoming more and more practical to take longer shots.  It's not just from a technology standpoint (fancy scopes and what not) but from an evolution in powder, bullet, and firearms components manufacturing. 

Get after that shiit, brother. 

 

 

With the proper equipment, I wouldn't hesitate taking an ethical hunting shot on a 2-legged vermin at 600 yards.  5.56 will do just fine in that role, and can go even longer.  With different equipment, the ranges increase.  I don't know why we worry about that on the same-sized 4-legged variety. 

Edited October 25, 2017 by 98Z5V