Off topic so was deleted.

kevinbear wrote:Edgehit, do you think there is enough difference between the 6x223 and the 6x222mag to justify not useing the 223 case? I have thousands of commercial 223 brass casings, {won't all fit in a 5 gallon bucket}.

Yes, you're limiting your load options with the smaller case. Two grains of powder makes a large velocity change with these tiny cases. Hence the amazingly efficient velocity for powder charge ratio that Dan correctly claims in posts above this one. And by the way, I was surprised find peak pressure with tiny incremental changes in powder charge. Id go from no pressure sign to a stiff bolt and mega-flat primers in 0.3 grains. I personally cannot recommend a small bolt face silhouette rifle for someone with my experience level. It's just easier to develop loads using cartridges with medium bolt face. TONS easier. Again, my advice from a relatively new comer to reloading and HP competition. YMMV

My first custom gun project was an XP-100 in 17 Mach IV in 1983, that was quite a learning experience for young reloader. Pick one powder and buy a 8 pounder of it, do the same with the primers brass and bullets so that the components are consistant. Then work up loads useing a chronograph and a micrometer, both reveal the onset of high pressure before it can become dangerous. Try and read everything Ken Waters ever wrote, propellent profiles would be a good start.

edgehit wrote:

kevinbear wrote:Edgehit, do you think there is enough difference between the 6x223 and the 6x222mag to justify not useing the 223 case? I have thousands of commercial 223 brass casings, {won't all fit in a 5 gallon bucket}.

Yes, you're limiting your load options with the smaller case. Two grains of powder makes a large velocity change with these tiny cases. Hence the amazingly efficient velocity for powder charge ratio that Dan correctly claims in posts above this one. And by the way, I was surprised find peak pressure with tiny incremental changes in powder charge. Id go from no pressure sign to a stiff bolt and mega-flat primers in 0.3 grains. I personally cannot recommend a small bolt face silhouette rifle for someone with my experience level. It's just easier to develop loads using cartridges with medium bolt face. TONS easier. Again, my advice from a relatively new comer to reloading and HP competition. YMMV

Gents,

As I've said before, the TCU family of cartridges were originally designed for break-action pistols like the Contender with slow-twist barrels designed to shoot relatively light bullets. The only exception that I remember was the 7mm TCU that had a 9-twist barrel because the market for it was pistol silhouette competition. Back in 81 I purchased a 10" Contender in 7TCU, man did that puppy shoot.

When the TUC chamber reamer is designed so that only the boattail of a heavy-for-caliber bullet is below the case's neck-shoulder junction, powder capacity is substantially increased. A 6 TCU round to be fired in such a chamber should hold about 29 grains of VarGet when a 107 SMK is seated. That load should drive the bullet to about 2,700 fps. The 6-04 would probably be good for another 2 grains of powder that should propel the bullet to 2,800 fps.

Wow. In comparison, my remington 600 Mohawk in 243 with an 18" barrel drives a 95 gr nosler 2775 fps with 36.5 gr Varget.

edgehit wrote:Wow. In comparison, my remington 600 Mohawk in 243 with an 18" barrel drives a 95 gr nosler 2775 fps with 36.5 gr Varget.

Joe,

If your rifle had a 26" barrel, the MV for that load would be somewhere in the 3K fps neighborhood. A 243 with an 18" barrel has a lot of case-capacity for such a short barrel length. Since the brass is a bit over 2" long, the actual bullet-acceleration length is about 16". Compare that to a 26" barrel's acceleration length of about 24". That is 50% long than your rifle's bullet-acceleration length. A 243 has a case volume of about 76 grains of water, a 6TUC only about 42 grains. That is what makes the 6TCU far more efficient than the 243, especially in short barrels. Here's a good example of what I'm trying to say. Out of a 15" XP-100, chambered in 243, 35.0 grains of VarGet will propel a 95-gr Nosler to about 2,600 fps. Out of a 26" rifle barrel that same load will produce an MV of about 3,000 fps. Out of a 15" barrel chambered in 6TCU, 27.0 grains of H335 will propel a 95-gr Nosler bullet to about 2,600 fps. Case closed.

KB and Crew,

I finally got a set of 6.5-TCU dies so some dummy rounds could be made to head-space the Krieger 6.5-284 barrel that was sent to Pharr today, for setting back to 6.5-04. Last week I got to thinking about how the 123 SST Hornady bullets might work on rams. As we saw from Bob's bullet-ectomies, those SST's have hell'a thick jackets. At only 123 grains, they would not produce much more recoil than 6mm, 107 SMK's and should have considerably better ram-knockdown performance, more "clang for the bang," so to speak. Some 6.5mm, 123 SST's landed at the front door just before Christmas. After futzing around with formed 6.5-04 brass and the 123 SST's, it looks like they will work very well with the chamber that the 6.5-04 will have. Based on experience, I'd guess that the 123's should be able to be launched to 2,750 fps. Using the same bullet for CPT's with 20.0 grains of H4198, 2,200 fps, recoil will be very, very mild and pig knock-down well above what is required. Some computer simulations were done to quantify recoil, pigmentum, ramentum and wind deflection at the ram-line. Here are the results. I'm thinking the 123's would be a much better option than going 6mm-TCU for very mild recoil, yet have much better ram performance than launching the 6mm, 107 SMK's.

6.5-04 & 123 Hornady SST's & 28" Barrel & 10 lb Rifle:

CPT Load: 20.0-gr H4198, MV = 2,200 fps; Recoil = 4.2 ft-lbs; Pigmentum = 0.936 ft-lbs

Ram Load: 30.0-gr VarGet: MV = 2,750 fps; Recoil = 7.3 ft-lbs; Ramentum = 1.014 ft-lbs; 10 MPH Crosswind Deflection = 4.0 MOA

As you can see, this might be the ultimate, super-mild-recoil setup. Once Mark Pharr ships the rifle back to me, I'll be doing a bunch of testing and will report back with the results.

A couple of questions Dan, would the 6mm have less wind drift at all the ranges including rams if you used full power loads {one load for everything}?
What would the numbers look like for a 6mmx04 in a hunting rifle configuration , say 8.5lbs with a 24'' barrel?
BTW it is an interesting idea to use the 204 case as the basis for these wildcats, whose brass is the best, Norma?

KB,

The Hornady 204 brass is excellent, what I'm using. Winchester's 204 brass is cheaper at $26/100. Using that brass for the CPT loads should be just fine, but for rams, given the higher pressure load, I'd go with the Hornady brass. The ram loads for the 6-04, 6.5-04 and 7-04 will all have about 55,000 PSI of pressure. The tougher Hornady brass should last while the Winchester might suffer from loose primer pockets after a few firings. That happened with my original 6.5-TCU, so Lapua brass was used for the ram loads, Winchester for CPT loads. Norma is excellent, but more expensive at $62/100.

The 6-04 will not have an advantage over the 6.5-04 with respect to wind deflection. But, the 6.5-04 will perform much better on rams with the 123 SST bullet for only a small increase in recoil.

For a 6-04, HP Hunter rig weighing 8.5 lbs, the recoil would be about 7.2 ft-lbs when launching the 107-gr SMK to 2,800 fps.

You'll eventually find that the Hornady .204r brass is crap. Inconsistent downrange performance and short lifespan. If there is one thing that us guys over on the .204R forum (http://www.204ruger.com/forum/) agree on it is the poor downrange performance with Hornady .204R brass and premature split necks. Some guys are reporting loosing half the brass to split necks after only 2 or 3 reloads. Also, guys have solved poor accuracy issues simply by going from Hornady brass to other brands.

On the other hand, I use Hornady brass in my 6.5 Creedmoor and it is damn near on par with Lapua quality.

In my .204R I use Winchester brass and am very pleased with it. My 32gr Sierra BKs are just over 4,100fps and my brass is holding up after 4 reloads. I have a lot of brass and haven't lost but 3 pieces so far to split necks. I imagine that I'll start seeing more loss as I move into my 5th cycle. Maybe I should concentrate on using one batch of brass and see how far it goes. I imagine annealing the necks would prolong the life.

Trent,

So far I've opened up 200 rnds of 204 Hornady brass to 7mm with zero split necks. As an aside; if the inside of the case necks are not properly lubed, case-neck splitting will increase. Since I don't know the abilities of the posters whose posts I read at the 204ruger.com link, I've learned not to put too much faith in such posts. One New Zealand poster complained about many split necks when using 204 Hornady brass. That is probably the poster you are referring to. First, his rifle may have a very sloppy chamber in the neck area. That will certainly cause increased neck splitting because the brass has to expand much, to much to seal the chamber. That excessive expansion in the cases' neck area will work-harden the brass quickly and lead to split necks. Also, the poster may have gotten a bad batch of brass that had not been anneal before leaving the factory. My lot of brass has been annealed properly. Lapua had that problem years ago when they first shipped their 6.5-284 brass, brass that was too hard, and Norma had just the opposite problem, their early batches of 6.5-284 brass were too soft.

Another cause of the New Zealand poster's case splitting may be excessive crimping. Excessive crimping will increase case-neck splitting.

I can think of no reason why the Hornady brass I have will degrade accuracy. The weights are consistent as well as neck and body thickness. Also, the primer pockets and flash-holes are consistent. I do have 50 rnds of Norma brass so testing them against the Hornady is possible.

Proper neck annealing will considerably reduce or even eliminate neck-splitting. Back in 95 when getting back into HP pistol silhouette, my XP-100 with a factory 7BR barrel split case necks like crazy. I knew Ken Light from shooting at the Fresno, CA matches. He convinced me to purchase one of his annealing machines. My annealing program back then was to anneal after every 3rd firing. PRESTO!!! No more split necks. And, after some serious testing with a 223 Palma rifle showed that freshly annealed cases had about 1/2 the ES of brass fired 3 times, all my match brass is annealed after each cleaning. One issue about being able to properly anneal cases, they should not have any powder fouling on the necks, inside or outside. Powder fouling acts as an insulator. If it is not removed, inconsistent annealing will follow. A rotary tumbler, like this, http://www.buffaloarms.com/Thumblers_Tu ... %20Tumbler , will clean the cases as if they were new. A number of friends are using this stainless steel media, http://www.buffaloarms.com/Stainless_St ... el%20media in their Thumbler's Tumblers. I'm still using small triangular cut ceramic media. After fired cases are run through the tumbler, they are rinsed and dried in the oven at 250 F for one hour in a steel colander, after which they are annealed.

I've been shooting the .204R for a couple of years now and researched it for about a year before I bought it. So in three years I've never seen anything good said about the Hornady .204R brass. We have talked about it extensively over on the 204Ruger forum. I think the poor accuracy would be linked to inconsistent neck tensions. I don't believe there are any of us crimping our .204R ammo. There are a couple guys on the forum that are 20 caliber wizards. The gentleman that goes by "RickInOregon" is a knowledge-base on his own, especially in the "sub calibers".

I'll be curious to see how many loads you end up getting out of the Hornady brand brass. I absolutely love it in my 6.5 Creedmoor.

Trent,

Thanks for the feedback. As I like to say, "Targets tell no lies." As soon as Pharr ships the rifle back to me, testing and reporting will commence. I've already loaded over 100 rnds for the 7-04 so that testing will happen first.

Dan, what are your increments for going from .204 up to .284? You going .22, .24, .26 and then .284?

It's an interesting project you have going here. I don't think I'd take it to Arizona or Missouri but it sounds like a fun cartridge at ranges where Rams fall normally.

Trent wrote:Dan, what are your increments for going from .204 up to .284? You going .22, .24, .26 and then .284?

It's an interesting project you have going here. I don't think I'd take it to Arizona or Missouri but it sounds like a fun cartridge at ranges where Rams fall normally.

Trent,

To expand from 20-cal to 7mm the tapered expander in my 7 TCU, FL die was used, no extra steps. But, as mentioned earlier, the cases were well lubed at the mouth so that the expanding did not cause neck splits. I use hydrous lanolin in a small, white cap (fits on a small propane canister) that has just enough lanolin in it to create a bead in the case mouth when it is dipped into the cap. I expand about 1/2 way, then rotate the case about 1/2 turn and then finish expanding. This technique has worked the best for me and is quick and simple. One can typically purchase hydrous lanolin at health food stores. It is the best lube I've ever used when forming cases. The lanolin can be thinned using castor oil, as it is a bit too thick to use for sizing cases when FL sizing if one wants to use a rolling pad. It substantially reduces friction and thus makes it easier to form wildcats, even ones that have a lot of brass moved about during forming.

An 8-twist, 7-04 launching the 177-gr Cauterucios to 2,325 fps will take care of the Ben Avery rams for sure. I don't know how bad the MO rams are so can't say. But, the 7-04 will take down rams better, with said load, than any 260 launching 140-gr bullets.

Terminal ramentum for the 7-04 load is 1.333 ft-lbs. Terminal ramentum for a 260 launching a 142 SMK at 2,800 fps is 1.258 ft-lbs, But, those ramentum numbers don't tell the whole story about how well each load will topple rams. The 177-gr, Cauterucio bullet will have a much longer dwell time, thereby transferring more ramentum to toppling rams. The ram-knockdown power of the slower moving 177-to-180 grain, 7mm bullets is astounding.