I am Texas Sheepdawg. My warnings are clear. I will confirm that my R&D on these rounds are pushing the envelope.
What worked in my AR15 will NOT work in your AR 15. My AR is unique. I strongly advise in all of my posts on the 230 Grain FMJ to start low at 38.0 grains of LilGun and work your load up. Know your chamber. INTIMATELY.
All of my loads were developed with the help of Timothy LeGendre almost literally looking over my shoulder.
My advice to all of you is this. Do NOT use my current R&D data for the 230 Grain FMJs for any rifle with a 1:16 twist. That data is intended ONLY for AR15s with the 1:24 TWIST.
YOU’VE BEEN ADVISED.
It was a pretty nice day today, but the wind out at my place was a bit higher than I wanted. Down in Ebola Central, (Dallas), they were only reporting winds out of the northeast at around 9mph, but up here closer to OK., I was getting gusts up to 20-25 miles an hour, out of the east northeast so that was putting a considerable crosswind over my range. I was not in top shooting form. I had been at work all night, so I was beat, plus I had a sinus headache. But I've put this range test off for too long. So I popped about 800Mg of ibuprofen and sucked it up. I set up a target and then attempted to set up my Chrony and other stuff but the goats were way too curious about what I was up to, so I had to set off a firecracker to send them hustling to the barn.
So anyway, these are Remington 230 Grain FMJs. They have brass jackets, not copper. I found them for I think $22 a bag of 100. I figured that if I could get the copper jackets to perform like I did, maybe these would do the same and have a stiffer jacket. The results were less than stellar in some respects, yet I do honestly feel like I really didn't do my part today as far as accuracy is concerned so I'm just going to say that as far as accuracy, I'm going to have to revisit that part of the project later when I'm not so fatigued. As far as function and performance, they cycled well and they held together well down range. Penetration was as expected and they literally caused one of my stacks of sand filled tires to lean over a bit after penetrating the railroad ties. They hit very hard. But the grouping is where I started to have concerns. But since I was not feeling all that great, accuracy is just something that will have to be revisited.
So here's the details and results.
WARNING. These loads exceed SAAMI pressure Specs.
This data is for informational purposes only. This group and myself DO NOT recommend that anyone push their loads this hard. My rifle is different that others. What works safely in my rifle may not be safe in your rifle.
Remington 230 Gr FMJ RN (brass jacket) .451"
450 Bushmaster cases 3X fired+
WSR primers
44.5 gr LilGun
COL 2.125"
Lightly taper crimped then LeGendre Side crimped followed by a final taper crimp to .474"-.475"
Range to target, 100 yards.
Chrony F1 set at 10 feet from muzzle.
10 shots fired in two different strings of five rounds each.
First string
2610 FPS
2560
2541
2564
2532
AVG FPS 2561
ES 77.57
SD 30.21
----------
Second String
2573 FPS
2523
2505
2479
2489
AVG 2514 FPS
ES 93.82
SD 37.05
All cases ejected at about 2:30-3:00 O'clock
All cases experienced some mild sooting and slightly flattened primers.
But there were no ejector or extractor markings. Which probably means that I need to back off just a bit.
The interesting anomaly here is the slow reduction in FPS as each shot progressed.
As for accuracy, every shot hit the target in a diameter that would kill any large creature grave yard dead at 100 yards.
But as for ragged holes. Not today.