223 Remington Build

[mfernaz]

I thought I'd share another project of mine. Mostly done in my garage/wanna be shop. I wanted this to be as cheap as possible so I could keep the boss happy!

Remington 700 223 SPS

Greyboe stock

Tally Rings 

Leupold VX-R 4-12×50

 

Here is the beginning.

As you can see here the action port was a little long and the butt pad needs to be fitted.

Opened up the barrel channel free float the barrel.

Bedded and built up the elongated ejection port.

While that was curing gave the rifle a good needed cleaning as it was a used rifle.

After curing, shaped butt pad, and sanded down action area to match the contour of the stock.

Sent stock over to Applied Hydrographics(here locally) and had it dipped in black multi-cam.

While waiting for the stock to be finished, I bedded and lapped Talley rings, sorry no photos for that. Mounted scope and put it all together after retrieving the stock. Here is the finnished product!

I plan on shooting Hornady 53 grain V-max bullets in front of CFE 223, I have a ladder/velocity/pressure test loaded and will fallow up after the shooting is done, and will share my next step in the load development process. 

For you expert reloaders out there please chime in as reloading is a never ending learning curve. Thanks for looking and whatever input you can add.

[PRDATR]

I like H322

 

[Hoss50]

Good job. That is a nice looking little project gun.

[L Cazador]

Nice job with the stock. If you don't have brass that has been fireformed to the chamber, fireform new brass first before working on a load. Is this a factory chamber and do you know barrel twist? Also is this a repeater or a single shot? Repeater or single shot will dictate your seating depth and CBTO. After fireforming uniform primer pockets and flash holes. Use a headspace guage to set up  sizing die and bump no more than .002". Make a dummy round and find maximum CBTO for your rifle. Hopefully you have a caliper and a bullet comparator to measure the cartridge base to ogive or CBTO. The best way to find CBTO is to remove the firing pin assembly from your bolt and seat in small increments until you feel just a slight pressure on closing of the bolt. This will be the "touch" measurement or touching the lands. From there you will move either into the rifleing or "jam" or away from the rifleing or "off". Start at .010" off for your ladder test and work your powder load in .3 increments from moderate to max. CFE has a good burn rate for heavier bullets in the 223 so it should do well with the 53gr. Vmax. All this may sound like a lot of work but it will bring the best accuracy out your rifle.

[FB67]

Great looking rifle. Any update on how it shoots ?

[mfernaz]

2 minutes ago, FB67 said:

Great looking rifle. Any update on how it shoots ?

I actually went today to go shoot it, but the weather got us. Sunny at home pouring where we went.

Will get out again here shortly and update!

[mfernaz]

Went out and shot the other day at Ben Avery,  90° per my wind indicator very low wind. I was looking for my max pressure which I did not achieve and also compared my loads to factory Hornady 53 grain Vmax Superformance. 

Hornady Factory 

3381, 3390, 3360, 3318, 3351, 3357, 3429, and one error. I put three shots for a group.

And here are my reloads loaded to max length with Superformance powder and 53 grain Vmax

27.0=3072

27.2=3104

27.4=3105

27.6=3170

27.8=3124

28.0=3183

28.2=3218

28.4=3278

28.6=3234

28.8=3330

29.0=3358

29.2=3428

And here is the target from that group of 12.

I guess my next request of advice would be where do I go from here? Thanks for the advice in advance. 

[452b264]

Did you number the shots to correspond with the charge weight? 

[mfernaz]

Yessir I did. Shot in order from lowest to highest, with about 3 minutes in between shots.

[PRDATR]

Bench gun for bug holes, prarie dogs or yotes? That factory stuff was all over the place velocity wise as was the last target. Chasing muzzle velocity is one thing. But,,, what is your intended purpose for this rig?

If your're spanking yotes at any distance out to  a few hundred yards 100fps at the muzzle won't make a difference at 400 yards but it will be more devastating under 100 yards. Decide what you want the rifle to do and with what bullet. The bullet you want to use for prarie dogs isn't the bullet you want to use for foxes which isn't the bullet you want to use for yotes and most of all you need to match the velocity to the bullet construction. Chase accuracy first for small targets.