Plinking rounds for AR (.223)

Good morning all.

I have been reloading for about 6 months now and have only reloaded for my bolt action .308. I have worked up a few loads that are shooting half inch groups and having a lot of fun with it.

I have been processing .223 brass and ready to try some loads for that. I have only semi-auto rifles in .223 and right now just want to have a plinking load. I have a few boxes of 55 grain soft points. Do you guys still go through a load work up for this type of round? Is there a sweet load that everyone just knows about? I also have some 69gn BTHP's that I would like to work up a load for that is very accurate, at some point. Thanks for any input.

Yes. It's not any more difficult to load ammo that will shoot well.

Well, daggum. That wrapped it up in a nutshell, didn't it. Now I just feel lazy.

Then your plinking ammo will also serve as hunting ammo. I'm not saying you need match quality stuff, but you can definitely improve accuracy by playing with charges and seating depth. After you get it figured out you dont have to work on it anymore.

My plinking/hunting round is 25 grains of Win 748 with a Hornady 55 gr soft point or FMJ. The boat tailed FMJ are easier to seat. These rounds group well and cycle 100% in all of my guns.

It has been told that depending on the twist of your barrel what heavy grain bullet would work. Mine is 1:7 so I don't shoot anything heavier than a 62 grin.
Anyone else want to cherp in go ahead.

You can shoot 75 or 77's without an issue with a 7 twist. At times 75's can be found at pretty reasonable prices.

I have read many different opinions on primers for .223 in a semi-auto. Do you guys have an opinion? Some say small rifle primers, some say CCI 41 or other AR specific primers, and some say small magnum. Also, found a decent deal on CFE223 powder. Anyone tried it?

I run Sellier Bellot small rifle primers most of the time with no issues. They are often on sale for $19.99/M at Cabelas. Just make sure all primers are completely seated.

CFE223 is good stuff in my bolt gun. Haven't run any in an AR.

Backwards thinking. Heavier bullets will do better in the 7 twist.

CFE 223 is good but so are others. Like Varget. Until late you loaded what you could get. Now with more choices I use more CFE than others for both bolt and AR in 223. 5 Stand Dan will post powders here regularly so watch for him. I think he has an 8 pounder listed now for like $155. Don't quote me and look for yourself. No primer issues to date with CCI small rifle. All be it I'm a newbie as well with only 2 years and maybe 6k made to date. Half of that pistol.

Good luck.

I have dumped so many of the different powders suited for 223/5.56 that it's funny. The 223 I'm guessing will perform for plinking with anything that will burn. Buit like was said you find one that will make accurate plinking round then that is also a hunting round. I load so many powders cause had abundance of powders that would only go towards the AR and not work so well in bolt guns. I load plinking loads that don't push case capacity.

For mass production of plinking rounds for my 1:9 16" AR I like 25 grains H335 and a 55 gr hornady soft points. I clean and inspect range brass, resize, and then just trim pieces over max length. I like the H335 because it throws very consistently in the rcbs uniflow. But my most accurate loads will have either imr3031 or benchmark for slightly more accurate loads. Although ive loaded 1000's of rounds for AR using Win primers, i do not anymore after a couple of slam fires. BTW for trimming 100's of 223 brass at a time the Worlds Finest Trimmer is worth every penny.

I agree lots of powders to choose from I like AR Comp for that bullet weight range.
I use Alliant 1200R for lighter bullets and loading large volume because it doesn't take as much powder. 22-23gr give me 3100-3200fps versus CFE223 takes 28gr or more so a pound goes further.
On primers with AR's you can buy the CCI 41 but I never have. I do however stay with harder/thicker cup primers such as Rem 7 1/2/ CCI 450/CCI BR/ and avoid Rem 6 1/2 /Regular CCI or Federal.
I also have loaded about 4000-5000 of the Sellier& Bellot as mentioned above .... So far so good.

I do the same for case trimming. I think the last batch I did was loaded with imr 4064. It doesn't meter extremely well, but I bought a bunch of it off of a friend when powder was scarce.