What’s better

A 22-250 or 223 AI with the right barrel and Bullet combo

Probably the .22-250 if your goal is speed, but everything you get in life you pay for.

Pros
No fire-forming
More case capacity
More speed

Cons
brass more expensive
More recoil (would only matter in prairie-dog town, but still)
Higher powder cost per round

22-250 if you don't care about barrel life. That being said both will require reloading so I'd throw 22 creed/22xc/22x47L in the mix as well. If you plan to run a dam setup like an aics both will require tweaked mags.

I’ll take a different approach. Depends on the barrel twist. A 22-250 with a 14 twist doesn’t do much for me. As much as I love my old 220 Swift, I’d go for a 223AI and heavier bullets. If I ever rebarrel the Swift again, it’ll have a twist that will let me shoot that Sierra 65 gr GK. That’s all I need, and if it would stabilize that bullet, I know it’ll also stabilize the Nosler 64 gr BSB.

Yup.

I have both, and both shoot heavy bullets. 75's on a 1:8 in the .22-250, yielding 3200 fps. 80's on a 1:7.7 in the .223 A.I. yielding 3085 fps.

So they are awfully close in performance. The good of the .22-250 is no fire forming. The bad is it uses 30% more powder. Not really an issue for me, just buy more powder.

The .223 A.I. gets better fuel mileage, in other words.

AI your 22-20 and watch those Velocities climb but so does powder consumption. Nothing is free

Not worth the fire forming to .22-250 A.I. for me. Straight .22-250 is fast enough for my uses.

22 creed gets you more capacity with no ff. A simple no down from 6 creed or properly stamped brass from alpha. You can also buy loaded ammo from coppercreek.