New .22-caliber, lead-free bullets and long, slender target bullets mean it’s time to reassess the rifling twist in .223 Remington rifles. Standard one-in-12 and one-in-14-inch twists in .223 barrels are keeping .223 shoot­ers from receiving full use – and fun – from their rifles.

My Remington Model 700 SPS .223 has a 12-inch twist. It shoots itsy-bitsy groups with Sierra 40- grain BlitzKings, Nosler 55-grain Ballistic Tips and Sierra 60-grain hollowpoints. But the 60-grain bul­let is about as long as the rifle’s twist will stabilize. If I want to shoot the rifle in an area or range that requires lead-free bullets, my options are limited. The rifle shoots fine with lightweight lead-free bullets like the Nosler 35-grain Lead Free Ballistic Tips, but heavier lead-free bullets fail to stabilize in the rifle. Just for the heck of it, I shot Barnes 50-grain Varmint Grenade bullets in the rifle. It was a good thing there was a tall mountain behind the targets, because the bullets flew all over the place.

There has been some concern that bullets with a thin jacket shot at such speeds might tear apart in flight from the stress placed on the bullets by such a quick rifling twist. I’ve shot thin-jacketed bullets like the Hornady Super Explosive and Sierra hollowpoint and Blitz bullets as fast as I could out of my Savage .223 with no problems. However, most of the Hornady 50-grain Super Explosive bullets with 28.0 grains of W-748 did disintegrate in flight when shot through a Smith & Wes­son M&P15 PC .223/5.56 NATO with a one-in-8-inch twist. The few bullets that did not tear apart hit a foot or so to one side or the other of the target at 100 yards. Still, this is really no problem because only a few bullets made these days have such thin jackets, while dozens and dozens of bullets readily accept any­thing a quick rifling twist can dish out.

Sierra’s 69-grain MatchKing bullets with their boat-tails and long tapered noses shot well in the Savage’s one-in-9-inch twist. With 26.5 grains of Vihtavuori N540 the MatchKing bullets had a muzzle velocity of 3,022 fps. Groups were .66 inch at 100 yards, 1.08 inches at 300, 3.30 inches at 400 and 4.00 inches at 500 yards. I can certainly live with that. However, prairie dogs cannot.

Sierra recommends a minimum 8-inch twist for its 77- and 80-grain MatchKings. However, the Hornady Handbook of Cartridge Reloading Sixth Edition states a one-in-9-inch twist was used to shoot its 75-grain A-MAX bullets. So I thought Nosler Custom Competition 77-grain hol­lowpoint boat-tails might stabilize in the 9-inch twist of the Savage Preda­tor Hunter rifle. Just to see, I shot five of the bullets with 23.0 grains of H-4895. Much to my delight, the bullets grouped in .73 inch. Two other loads with Reloder 15 and Varget also shot well.

I figured, however, there was no way the Nosler Custom Competi­tion 80-grain hollowpoint boat-tails (HPBT) would shoot worth a hoot from the Savage. These bullets have an extra long taper to their noses that makes them much longer than the Nosler 77-grain HPBTs. A cou­ple of months ago, I shot 80-grain bullets in an Anschutz Model 1770 with a 9-inch twist, and the bullets hit the target sideways at 100 yards. So I never even considered loading any of the 80-grain bullets in the Savage.

However, one day I was shoot­ing the 80-grain bullets in a Smith & Wesson M&P15 PC .223/5.56 NATO with an 8-inch twist. At the conclusion of shooting the Smith & Wesson, five cartridges remained loaded with 80-grain bullets and 23.5 grains of Reloder 15. I hap­pened to have the Savage along, so I shot them through it just to see. To my surprise, the bullets grouped in .73 inch at 100 yards.

So back at the loading bench I went to load more of the 80-grain bullets. As the load table shows, five-shot groups with H-4895 and TAC shot accurately.

The Nosler Reloading Guide 6 states its 80-grain bullets must be loaded to a longer cartridge length than the 2.26-inch maximum over­all cartridge length for the .223/5.56 NATO, but exact cartridge length is not mentioned. The Sierra Re­loading Manual 5th Edition lists 2.55-inch cartridge length for its 80-grain MatchKing, so that’s the cartridge length I used. However, at this length cartridges will not fit in standard length magazines and must be fed into the chamber by hand. The Ramshot Load Guide Edition 4.2, though, lists a cartridge loaded length of 2.26 inches with the Sierra 80-grain and its TAC powder.

It would certainly be handy for cartridges with 80-grain bullets to feed from the magazine. So I split the difference between Sierra’s and Ramshot’s cartridge length rec­ommendations and loaded TAC propellant and the Nosler 80-grainbullets in cartridges with a 2.40 inch length, which just fit in the Savage’s magazine. Velocity and accuracy were nearly the same as cartridges loaded to the longer 2.55 inch length – without fumbling around with each cartridge.

The Smith & Wesson M&P15 PC has an even faster twist of one in 8 inches. This autoloading rifle also shoots great with bullets from 35 to 80 grains. It shot five of the long lead-free Barnes 50-grain Varmint Grenades as tightly as .68 inch at 100 yards. Nosler 77-grain bullets grouped in .76 inch, and Nosler 80

grainers, 1.21 inches.

I did keep the cartridge length of the 80-grain bullets at 2.55 inches for the M&P15. That long car­tridge length required single feeding of cartridges, but it really wasn’t a hindrance. I just dropped a cartridge on top of the magazine follower, pushed the bolt release button and the bolt flying forward shoved the round into the chamber.

The M&P’s one-in-8-inch twist probably is a better choice than a 9-inch twist if you are going to shoot the heavy 77- and 80-grain bullets 500 yards and farther. Once velocity has substantially fallen off way out there, the faster rotation of the bullets from the 8-inch twist may stabilize them better.

What advantages do these heavier bullets provide over standard 55-grain bullets fired from the .223? A noticeable gain in bullet energy isn’t one. Bullet energy severely falls off at 500 yards with the 55-, 69-, 77- and 80-grain bullets. The 55-grain bullet retains about 360 foot-pounds (ft-lbs) of energy at that distance or about twice that of a 40-grain bullet at the muzzle of a .22 Long Rifle. The 80-grain bullet retains an addi­tional 200 ft-lbs of energy, but that’s still not much.

The heavier bullets do hold onto more of their velocity. The 55-grain bullet retains 52 percent of its 3,350 fps muzzle velocity at 500 yards. The 69-grain holds onto 58 per­cent of its original 3,000 fps muzzle speed. The 77-grain bullet keeps 61 percent of its initial 2,700 fps and the 80-grain bullet, 65 percent of 2,700 fps. The end result is all four bullet weights are flying ±50 fps of 1,700 fps at 500 yards.

Bullet drop way out there actu­ally favors the 55-grain bullet, with a drop of 40 inches when sighted in to impact one inch high at 100 yards. The 80-grain bullets drop an additional 15 inches, but bullet drop is easily compensated for by sight adjustment or holdover.

Reduced wind drift is where the long and heavy bullets prove their worth. A 55-grain bullet drifts 30 inches in a 10 mph wind at 500 yards. An 80-grain bullet, though, drifts only 22 inches. If you’ve ever shot in the wind, you know a reduc­tion in wind drift certainly makes hitting a target much easier.

With a faster than standard ri­fling twist in a .223 we don’t have to choose between light and heavy bullets. We can have fun with all .22-caliber bullets whether shooting 40-grain designs to pick off ground squirrels in a farm field, loading our .223s with 55-grain bullets to hunt sly coyotes or with heavy and slen­der bullets to shoot targets at long range.