At 0500 this morning it was 82F at my house in the county.

I've shot in 100F and it aint near as much fun!

hrmm I'll shoot until it gets to about 95. Starting out at 82 before the sun comes up doesn't look good does it...

Accuweather shows it cooling off the rest of the month.

I may get that data yet.

So I made it out to the range again today and while I was doing some work for a friend and gathering data I was able to Chrono and test a couple more rounds I picked up at Cabela's.

First that Herters Steel crap they sell?



I'd say it was plinking ammo at best. It is definitely .223 AMMO. I had zero issues with feeding in my Spikes Tactical, no FTF and not FTE.

Herters steel cased 55 FMJ = 2756 FPS

I would not hunt with this stuff unless you could do a head shot and this stuff isn't that accurate. I was lucky to do a 2" group at 50 yards. Plus, it would just pencil hole whatever you shoot. Good practice ammo for flinching shooters and training.


Winchester White box 62 grain green Tip M885...Now that's some good stuff.



3025 FPS average with 16" AR at 80 degrees temp. This stuff only varied about 30-40 fps. I was pretty impressed with it. I may stock up on some if this. Good looking ammo, and I got just over an inch group with it.

Remember from Page 1 the Federal Eagle Green Box M885 was only 2970 fps out of a 16" AR.


So those with the shorter barrels can get better use out of the Winchester White Box stuff. Plus it's better brass and better looking Ammo. That Federal stuff looks like crap.

(Need to edit this, the Brass in the Green Box Federal is Lake City. It just looks really rough and dented, dirty, ...well it looks like crap. The Winchester above is marked WCC and looks fantastic. So I stand corrected in saying the Winchester is better brass. I't just cleaner and better looking but Lake City is fantastic Brass.)

Now 9mm was Interesting. Test gun was a CZ 75B

I tried Unique first but I can't get the published loads. Their new container is grey and black and I have older Orange label ones and although I loaded 6.5grns under a 115 my average was only 1208 FPS.

Alliant says 1244 fps with 6.3 grns of Unique so I dunno. It was pissing me off anyhow because every time my loader indexed it would spill powder. 6.5 grns of Unique will damn near fill a 9mm case so if you use an auto index loader you may not want to use Unique for 9mm because it spills all over the place.

So off to 231. That's my favorite 9mm powder and I've been loading 4.8 grns under 115' RN for years for target practice.

I knew they were really light so I went for 5.3 grns. Bad Idea.

Average was 1326

That's a hot load in any gun. I believe 5.0-5.1 would be max and is what I will load and test again. That powder goes from smooth to really crazy in just a few tenths of a grain. M882 is 1263 FPS and that is the goal. I wished I could find some but nobody ever has it in stock. I want to weigh the bullet and look at the powder. Seems like the Military went from a 124 grn bullet to a 112 grn.

Temp today was around 80 and my speeds were down from when it was 104. Imagine that. I'm going to fine tune my loads and finally list my final loads that I will set in stone. Tomorrow I'll make adjustments and I've enlisted some good looking Female help for Friday's shoot.

26.1 Grns of H335 Netted 3082 FPS so I'm going to up it to 26.2
I want 3100 FPS out of a 16" AR and I believe this is going to be a final load.

I'll go up to 25.7 for the H335 on the 62 grn (After seeing the speeds of the Winchester White box) and leave it there, and 26.1 grns of TAC for the 62grn M885 as well.

24.6 Grns of TAC for the MK262 77 Grn Sierra SMK should get me at 2800 FPS as well.

I've left a little wiggle room on most loads. No reason to do max and all should be very effective.

Found another really good chart that shows the shorter the barrel the less range you have to obtain the 2700 fps threshold for bullet fragmentation.

Basically the 20" barrel is good for 130 yards, 16" is 105 yards and the M4 14.5" is good for 90 yards with the XM193 55grn FMJBT

You happen to find a chart just like this for the M855 62gr M109 bullet?
Great charts BTW.

Top 1/2

MK262 at the Bottom.

I went to the range again today (went several days without reporting anything) while it was 69 degrees and raining to see how my loads worked.

I was really close when it was 98+ to the speeds I expected...those were...

55 grn XM193 FMJBT = 3132 fps out of a 16" barrel.
62 grn M885 SS109 = 2989 out of a 16" Barrel (3025 fps from Winchester White Box troop issued) Goal 3000fps
77 grn MK262 SMK = 2730 FPS from 16" Barrel.


So I ended up working with 3 powders. H335, Ramshot TAC and WC844 milsurp.


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First the 55 grain. A few days ago I shot these loads....AT 98+ degrees..it was damn hot and humid. These were 10 shot strings.

55 grn FMJBT at 98 degrees F WITH

26.6 Grains of TAC 16" AR = 3136 FPS avg
26.1 Grains of H335 16" AR= 3082 FPS avg
26.2 Grains of WC844 16" AR= 3006 FPSa avg

So I decided that I would do 26.0 H335 (I had to go buy a brand new lot as I was out so I started .1 grain higher) I didn't mess with the 26.6 Grains of TAC as it was over 3100 FPS and hot enough. I moved up to 26.5 of WC844.

Results were less than impressive for the 55 grain FMJBT from a 16" AR at 69 Degrees F

26.0 grains of H335 = 2991 FPS
26.5 grains of WC844= 2993 FPS

So even with more powder we lost quite a bit of velocity. I would not go over these charges as they are adjusted for hot days and anything over this would certainly be dangerous on a very hot day.

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The 62 grain M885 was the same result. Goal was 3000fps I started out at 98 degrees + first with

26.0 grains of TAC = 2950 FPS
25.5 grains of H335 = 2939 FPS
25.7 grains of WC844= 2931 FPS

Today at 69 Degrees

26.2 grains of TAC = 2907 FPS
26.0 grains of WC844 = 2906 FPS
25.6 grains of H335 = 2902 FPS

Looks to me like Milsurp WC844 is closer to TAC than H335 in a .223 case. In fact it's almost exact.

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And last the MK262 Sierra OTM SMK 77 Grain. Goal is 2730 FPS out of a 16" AR

I started at 98 degrees F with 24.4 grains of TAC in a 16" AR for 2600 fps.

Today at 69 degrees F

24.8 grains TAC = 2662 fps
24.5 grains WC844 = 2646 fps

I couldn't find much data on H335 and the 77 Grain so I started pretty low

23.9 grains of H335 = 2584 fps.

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The WC 844 provided the Tightest groups today in all three bullet weights. I was a little surprised on that.

I'm waiting for a target trigger to come in for my Spikes AR so I can do better shot groups. That standard trigger sucks.

I'll try to get some target pics up in a bit.

I'm pretty much at Max for most of these loads and I caution going above them. I'm surprised on my findings that many people say that WC844 and H335 are the same. The lot I have may as well be TAC.


I used Federal 205M match Primers cup thickness .0225. Remember this is the MINIMUM primer thickness and I wanted to make sure it would hold. Anything thinner will get pierced on a hot day with these loads.

All my SHTF loads will use the CCI #41 primer.

All brass was trimmed to 1.750



and the 62 grain and 77 Grain bullets were seated to a depth of 2.255. Milspec depth is 2.260. The tips varied and I didn't want them scraping the inside of my mags so I shortened it .005. I didn't have any XM193 pulls so I used the Winchester 55 grain FMJBT and they seated a bit shorter at 2.225". The milspec XM193 Factory issued rounds are 2.250". According to TM 43-0001-27 the M193 is supposed to have the same depth of 2.260. You'd need some really long 55 grain bullets and I'd say the Factory XM193 depth of 2.250 would be more reasonable.

Flash holes were uniformed and Primer pockets were reamed...



And the Pulled bullets were weighed. They varied from 61.8-63.1 grains. Most fell around the 62.6-62.8 grain range and all the ones I shot were 62.7 Grain. So if you do buy the pulled bullets, don't expect anything close to matching weights...they are not match bullets for sure and not that accurate. In fact they suck. Even at 50 yards the groups are around 1.5". Not sure what non pulled bullets are capable of but these things suck for accuracy.




For 55 XM193 I would NOT load more than...

26.1 grains of H335
26.6 grains of TAC
26.5 grains of WC844


For M885 62 Grain SS109

26.2 grains of TAC
26.0 grains of WC844
25.6 grains of H335


and for the MK 262 Mod 0 77 grain Sierra SMK

24.8 grains TAC
24.6 grains WC844
24.1 grains H335

These loads will be at speeds on hot days. DO NOT LOAD OVER THESE to get the speeds up on cool days as they will be way over on hot days.

These loads were tested under both conditions and I would not mess with them by going up.

I would like to try with other powders like 2230, CFE .223, a couple of the IMR powders and such.

I did load some 55 grain Sierra Sptizers and 52 grain Hornady BTHP's on top of 26.0 grains of H335 and shot under an inch group. It started out as 1 big hole... Those are friggen awesome bullets..both of them. Very accurate....Blitz Kings are next.

Also, I'm having a hard time finding out the fragmentation threshold of the SOST MK318 round. I will call Federal tomorrow and TRY to find out, but I've read where it could be as low as 1900 FPS. I know it's under 2300 fps but how low I don't know.

I do know if I was a LEO or in the Military with a Carbine length barrel of 14.5" or under, the MK318 SOST WOULD be my goto round. It should even work out of a 10" barrel past 100 yards. That is damn impressive.

My second goto bullet for unarmored targets would be the MK262 Sierra 77 grain.

I would love to get my hands on some of that new M885A1 62 grain EPR. I've read it was really high pressure and a muzzle velocity of 3150 FPS ...same as the XM193 55 grain speed.

Wow, great info