what grain bullet

[iluvmybigtoys]

i have an ar with a 14.5 barrel and a 1:7 twist in it. what grain bullet would be best to reload with. the 55g seem to be a little wild at 100yrds i dont think there is enough twist for that light of grain bullet. can anyone gimme some help. the gun is for all around shooting. fun plinking and coyote hunting. i have an acog 4x scope on it.

thanks in advance

[fireblast713]

1:7 will stabilize the heavier 77g bullets, you might want to try those

[Tomcat088]

i have an ar with a 14.5 barrel and a 1:7 twist in it. what grain bullet would be best to reload with. the 55g seem to be a little wild at 100yrds i dont think there is enough twist for that light of grain bullet. can anyone gimme some help. the gun is for all around shooting. fun plinking and coyote hunting. i have an acog 4x scope on it.

thanks in advance

The 1:7 will stabilize 55 grain bullets, AND heavier bullets. One of the things that you're saying is contradicting the other. You mention that the 1:7 twist may not be enough twist to stabilize that light of a bullet. Typically heavier bullets are the ones that need more twist, with the lighter bullets needing less twist. If you're not familiar with this principle, you will probably need to get with an experienced reloader before you start reloading ammunition. Doing so without proper instruction could be dangerous, or possibly fatal. The heavier bullets will work for what you're talking about doing as well, but when you start to go with heavier bullets, they also get longer. Sometimes you get longer than magazine length, so that you have to load the bullets as singles. This is not what you want from a semi automatic rifle, so you need to look at your OAL before you throw a bunch of heavy bullets in brass. Hope that helps.

[afrattner]

The 1:7 will stabilize 55 grain bullets, AND heavier bullets. One of the things that you're saying is contradicting the other. You mention that the 1:7 twist may not be enough twist to stabilize that light of a bullet. Typically heavier bullets are the ones that need more twist, with the lighter bullets needing less twist. If you're not familiar with this principle, you will probably need to get with an experienced reloader before you start reloading ammunition. Doing so without proper instruction could be dangerous, or possibly fatal. The heavier bullets will work for what you're talking about doing as well, but when you start to go with heavier bullets, they also get longer. Sometimes you get longer than magazine length, so that you have to load the bullets as singles. This is not what you want from a semi automatic rifle, so you need to look at your OAL before you throw a bunch of heavy bullets in brass. Hope that helps.

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What he said

[Lycanthrope]

My 1:7's never liked the 55gr bullets. Groups didn't tighten up until I got over 70gr with the 77gr Nosler Custom Competition being my current favorite.

Lycanloadedtomaglengththrope

[X-Man]

What he said; Lycanthropeknowshowtohandloadammo. I share his experiences, my rifle, with its 1 in 7 twist, doesn't shoot commercial 55gr with much accuracy. But when I use a handloaded 69gr or 77gr bullet (Sierra OTM Matchking) the improvement is impressive.

[Rundownfid]

I feel your pain, have recently been struggling with this. Someone should make a good, 62 gr HP cheap. All I can say is get on Wideners and Graffs and look at what they have and buy a few 100 and try. I just bought some 69 gr HPBT from Wideners that are looking promising, but I hate to spend even that much on plinking-practice (the Siera 69 gr HPBTs were making me cry). Armscor 62 FMJ are adequate in my gun for practice and even fast stages in matches, but I can't find them just now.

My AR likes .55 Gr V-max but isn't very accurate with 55 FMJ, I suspect it is because the V-max are a little longer??

Best of luck with this, ARs are coming with rifling so fast that they are not optimized for the 50-62 grain bullets. Were I buying again my AR would have a 1 in 9 twist. My Bolt .223 would get the faster twist, unfortunately, I am stuck with the reverse.

[max384]

i have an ar with a 14.5 barrel and a 1:7 twist in it. what grain bullet would be best to reload with. the 55g seem to be a little wild at 100yrds i dont think there is enough twist for that light of grain bullet. can anyone gimme some help. the gun is for all around shooting. fun plinking and coyote hunting. i have an acog 4x scope on it.

thanks in advance

You might want to use two bullet weights. One for plinking and one for precision. If you're just plinking and don't need great accuracy, 55gr will do just fine, and will save you money. But for your precision loads, you may want something over 70 grains. Here's a good website that discusses bullet weights vs. twist rate.

[1911shooter]

I like the 90gr burger VLD's they are a great bullet and shoot verywell from the 1-7 barrels. I would suggest you get a box and try them.

[iluvmybigtoys]

Thank you everyone for the different bits of advice. i only have a singal stage press as of now so all my reloading will be done care and causion. thanks again so much for the help guys

keith