Here me out.

People often ask me about getting into long range shooting, and what kind of equipment they should buy.

My standard response is to buy a factory rifle in 6.5 creedmoor, 1000 rounds of ammo, a decent quality scope, training, and lots of range time.
I have learned over time that most people like the idea of long range shooting, but when it comes time to put in the range time, they are absent.

However, if a guy is willing to reload, and committed to learning. I recommend the 223 ackley with a 7 twist barrel. Here's why.

The 223 ackley only consumes around 27ish grains of powder compared to around 42ish for the creedmoor.
75-82 grain bullets have adequate bc, and can be pushed between 2900-3000 fps.
224 bullets are between 18-28 dollars per 100. 6.5 bullets are between 23-42 dollars per 100.
Brass is dirt cheap compared to other calibers.
Excellent factory 10 round aics mags that will accept a 2.5 coal.
No recoil.

Lets look at the numbers compared to the 6.5 creedmoor and a typical 308 winchester at 1000 yards.

6.5 creedmoor with a 140 hybrid: 8 mils of drop, 1.7 mils of wind at 10 mph.
223 ackley with a 82 berger. 8.4 mils of drop, 2.5 mils of wind
308 with a 178 bthp hornady. 10.7 mils of drop, 2.5 mils of wind.

You can see that the ackley splits the difference between a 308 and creedmoor.

It's not a perfect cartridge, however. Spotting trace, misses, and hits will not be as easy with a 224 bullet compared to either 308 or 264 bullets. 224 bullets also won't carry energy like the larger calibers.

The beauty of this cartridge is how cheap you can build ammo. This equates to more range time for less money. And believe me, range time is paramount when it comes to hits at long range. The guy who puts 2-4k rounds down range of 223 ackley will be well ahead of the game. No amount of wind cheating wonder cartridges will make up for actual rounds down range.

http://www.6mmbr.com/223rem.HTML
An old article, but still has some decent info.

Along that same line next week my 1-8 twist 22 DTi will be here. A 6.8SPC case necked to 22 caliber with a 30 degree shoulder once fired although Like the 223 AI your fireform loads shoot great.
It's in an AR15 platform and the plan is to run 75-80gr Amax at 3100-3200 fps if doable.
Not quite as cheap on the brass side of the equation but similar in powder usage.

Good stuff!

It does not split the difference with the 6.5 and the .308. It has the same wind drift as the .308, and windage is all that matters with straight up shooting. Low recoil, cheap to shoot, but not the barrel life of the .308

I really agree that time behind the rifle is paramount.

My next build is going to be a heavy barreled .223 bolt gun. Now I'm thinking .223 AI.

Good points all around.

Another point for reference purposes.

6.5 140 hybrid at 2800 fps generates 2436 ft lbs of energy at the muzzle.
.224 82 grain berger at 3000 has 1638 ft lbs
.308 178 hornady at 2600 has 2671 ft lbs

6.5 123 scenar at 3000 fps generates 2457 ft lbs.

The .223AI can shoot regular .223 ammo. - Some of the cheapest, most easily available ammo to be found.

And, as mentioned, a heck of a lot cheaper to reload for, too.

Like they say, if you can shoot it more, you'll get good with it.

Did not know that, nice write up by OP.

The downside to any ackley is forming brass. If just fire forming then no real data can be acquired to the time spent. There are other options but all requiring time or a added extra expense.

Sorry - new guy here. Forming brass? How does that work? That's extra time on top of the considerable amount of time it takes to handload?

In this situation you start with regular .223 Rem brass, and fire it in a .223 Ackley Improved chamber. The pressure from firing makes the brass fill the chamber and comes out in a different shape. A.I. chamberings have a straight case wall and a different shoulder angle making them more efficient. But on some A.I. chamberings you have to fire form the brass before you can take advantage of the A.I. case. So the first firing is just like the plain vanilla .223 Rem

This is a good explanation. Herr is a visual image of the difference in a parent case and a Ackley Improved case just omit the first case in the line up.



As far as forming goes it's either a full firing of the parent case in the Ackley chamber, cream of wheat or filler method and expensive hydraulic forming dies.

Thanks yall.

So that's 223 Remington on the right and 223 AI in the middle? And you get from Rem to AI by firing the Rem in an AI-chambered gun?

Happy birthday fireman!

No none of those are a 223. The middle is a 7mm-08 Ackley and the far right is a 308 that was either necked down to 7mm or about to be, either way case deminsions are the same besides neck diameter.

I love fast twist 22s but I don't mind burning a little more powder to get those 75s more in the 34-3500 range. Should be a fun project there.

Sorry guys. I should have included info about the fire forming process.

Dee, I never thought shooting 3-500 rounds of plain jane 223 as being much of a pain. Surely a guy could find good use for those fire forming loads.

Not a pain but you will have no useful data velocity will be down so dope will be completely different if using the same bullets. If just running generic 223 then your just making noise. It's not a pain but not beneficial either in the learning curve.

Even if it's not a pain, wouldn't it eat up a lot of your savings?

not too much, as .223 in an AI chamber it still very accurate, and once you have them done for a good bit unless you lose them as you will get 6+ loads on a good .223 case. one could argue that your chewing up barrel life but that would be inaccurate at best. before I stepped up my game to a fast twist 22-250, i was running a 223ai and probably would have stayed but this was in the time before AI put a .223 mags on the market which solved the major pain in my azz with respect to loading this round. I went to the range, in two days i fire formed 3-400 rounds banging steel it was fun and preped my brass....

I'm opposite of this. I'd rather cream of wheat or hydraulic so whenever I do actually send one down the barrel I get useful field data out of it.

Every round you fire from any cartridge, AI or otherwise, is a fire-forming shot, if you're loading for best precision with minimal headspace. No big deal there; just shoot as you normally would. Once you generate a sufficient stockpile of fire-formed brass, readjust your zero and you don't have to worry about it again for a long while, as brass life will be very good if you used good brass to begin with.

There is no real downside to AI'ing a cartridge except the increased cost of the reloading dies. Even if you don't hotrod your loads, and even if the velocity gain is minimal, the AI case design with its sharper shoulder and straighter case walls means less brass stretch, which means longer brass life and less case trimming.

I've seen several AI chamber rifles that shot the plain vanilla "non-AI'ed" round almost as well out of the AI chamber as the fire-formed round, so it's not as if the fire-forming shots are wasted. Might as well have fun shooting them too. If the round is headspacing properly on the shoulder/neck transition and if your rifle shoots well to begin with, there's no reason why you shouldn't get at least decent accuracy with the non-AI ammo.

Well said, guys.

Indeed.

Cream of Wheat is for eating, I'll always take the trigger time!

I'd like to hear how it works out. My only experience with case forming for a rifle cartridge was an 8mm-06 I once owned, and that was quite a while back.

On 223 or smaller cases I use a q-tip end cut off in the case mouth it's less of a mess. Just take a few grains of pistol powder in a primed case then cut the end of the q-tip off and stick into the case mouth. After this hold the bore straight up and fire the results are a perfectly formed ackley case or in my results a 6mm TCU (6mm-223 Ackley). If you use bigger case's you need a filler to get a full fire form if not the shoulders aren't fully squared out but case capacity is very similar. I did this with the 7mm had 200 formed pieces within 20min walked into the loading room and proceeded to do true load development. Here is a pic of the case that was just pistol powder. You can see the shoulders aren't fully squared but the rest is formed out. It's parent case, partially formed and fully formed.