Jump to content
308AR.com Community
  • Visit Aero Precision
  • Visit Brownells
  • Visit EuroOptic
  • Visit Site
  • Visit Beachin Tactical
  • Visit Rainier Arms
  • Visit Ballistic Advantage
  • Visit Palmetto State Armory
  • Visit Cabelas
  • Visit Sportsmans Guide

OCW CFE 223 & 178gr A-Max


seasprite

Recommended Posts

DSCF0373.jpg

I know I said I was going to take a break but here I sit at it again this time I'm using 178gr A-max with Winchester cases :cookoo: is there a cure <dontknow>.

I've got 30 test rounds loaded up from 43.7gr to 46.4gr of CFE223 in .3gr increments. The Winchester cases once fired some from my gun some not. The brass has been sized, trimmed, debured and camphor, primer pockets uniformed and flash holes debured. cases have been weighed and sorted to within 1.0gr. The cartridge length is 2.820".

Testing will be on Fri. expected high temp. 43* plan on taking the chronograph if the wind is not to high hate to see it blow over. You guy's have a safe and fun Thanksgiving  <thumbsup> 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cool, good luck seaprite. You should see up to 2550ish fps out of the 16" with the warmer ones. I went warmer than that too and got up to 2600. But groups up there sucked.

I'm gonna run it again to make sure, pretty soon. The hotter loads that I shot grouped badly but the ES's/SD's were great. I wish I had 300+ yards to shoot those loads. Apparently I'll have to drive far to shoot far  :'(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well bad news fellas I got to the range to only find out that they were not open  :'( I checked the web site before I left to see if they had posted they weren't opening today but there was no notice so I thought it was business as usual but that wasn't the case. There was at least 6 other cars waiting at the gate when a conservation employee drove by and saw all us waiting and said they wouldn't be open today. So in my frustration I put the rifle away and grab my Springfield 1911A1 and my High Standard HD Military and went to the indoor pistol range to do some shooting with my wife. On are way home stopped at Harbor Freight and saw they had a gun safe on sale for $260.00 (normally $400.00) plus I had a 25% off coupon so I ended up with price of $195.00 which is a little over 1/2 price off so that worked out pretty well I thought. The bad news now is that I'm going to be working my butt off for the next month (UPS) so it probably won't be until January before I can test these loads. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ok my screw up. Saw your pic and thought well then saw .223  :-[  Looking for a .308 and remembered Lee does not work for .308 in the turret.

The Lee classic turret press does work for the .308, Thats the only press I own and it turns out good ammo as long as I do my part. I don't know about Lee's other turret press with the aluminum base vs. the cast iron base.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Well I had a day off on Sat. so I headed for the range to do some testing. The weather conditions were as follow:

Temp: 44* with a low solid overcast wind n/a

I took the chronograph with me but due to the conditions I was not able to get any readings.

I also took a clean target and with the help of the ON TARGET program I plotted the center point of each group to with a different colors of pencils that my daughter had. This works good as long as you don't have flyers or pull shots which I did >:(. My upper OCW is going to be between 45.5gr and 45.8gr of CFE 223. I haven't really decided on a lower node yet but I want to say around 44gr.

NoFail, If you have chrony readings 45.5gr through 45.8gr could you post them so I can get an idea of how fast these are running. Thanks

I had no pressure signs through the test which makes me wounder how far I go but I think I'm going to be satisfied where I'm at. Now on to the target pics, you guy's might notice a .50cal hole in one my targets from a guy that was 2 lanes to the right of me go figure <dontknow>.

Now I'm off to load for seating depth test going to start at 2.820 and go down to 2.780. I don't think I'll be shooting all these have a feeling I'm going to hit high pressure before then I just hope I find a good depth that my gun likes before then.

post-1747-136297286606_thumb.jpg

post-1747-136297286611_thumb.jpg

post-1747-136297286615_thumb.jpg

post-1747-13629728662_thumb.jpg

post-1747-136297286628_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yep, I have a record here for 45.9 gn cfe223 in Winchester brass & 178 Amax.

Just 3 shots in the summer I don't have temp

High 2545

Low  2520

SD:  12.4

EDIT:

Here's most everything I have on it, bro.

A pic is worth a thousand words, lot's of pics I want to get payed for my private info  <laughs>

I'll get back to this testing sooner or later. Actually I want to rerun the whole thing again. I think my shooting skills are a little better than when I ran these thru. I SS media brass cleaning method now and just I've gotten better at doing all this stuff I think. Oh Man, SS media tumbling is the only way now that I've done it  <thumbsup>

Note: That printout with the 46.8 gn cfe223, shot #4 belongs as shot #1 for the 47.1 gn printout. That 47.1 looks to be a good place to work around. As I remember the Winchester brass came out looking pretty good and it was warm weather. Nice ES/SD too  <thumbsup> I think this CFE stuff likes to be shot higher end charges, at least in mine.

IMG_0744.jpg

IMG_0746.jpg

IMG_0745.jpg

IMG_0747-1.jpg

IMG_0748.jpg

IMG_0749.jpg

IMG_0750.jpg

IMG_0692.jpg

IMG_0693.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

NoFail, you have me thinking I should go a little higher on the charge weight since you went a full grain heavier than me. You got some nice velocities from that test to. I just got done processing the brass from the last test and I tell you what, its holding up alot better than the 168gr loads. I only had to trim 2 pieces out of the 30 that I shot and the primer pockets felt nice and tight like they haven't loosened up at all. I'm going to continue with my seating depth test and see what happens. Hopefully I'll be able to put up some chrony results this time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...