14 Caliber Blog

The weather cleared and I got another chance to run the 8.5 grain bullets with IMR 4198 and Hodgdon 4198 in the 14/221 Walker. I only ran them in 1 test rifle this time which was a 1 in 7 twist rates.

The bullets still showed great stability and pretty good grouping with a load of:

IMR 4198 = 16.6 grs, 16.8 grs and 17.0 grains , (5 shots each powder loading), CCI BR4 primers, 8.5 gr Extreme Accuracy Moly coated.

Hodgdon 4198 = 16.6, 16.8 grains, CCI BR4 primers, 8.5 gr. Extreme Accuracy Moly Coated.

The chronograph could not pick up any of the shots fired today. I think the bullet speeds are just way too fast for the CED Millennium chronograph. From running the loads in quick load they should be clocking in just over 4900 fps. (I normally find the quick load data to be pretty close on this test barrel.) Quick load predicted 4929 fps for the 17.0 grain load of IMR-4198.

The IMR-4198 stepped up its game today and did better on this round of testing then the Hodgdon-4198. All rounds were fired with CCI-BR4 primers. I’ll try to switch back over to the CCI-450 as soon as I get in the next accuracy node to see if it tunes in better.

(I did not get a chance to finish out the 17.0 grain load on the Hodgdon 4198 for this test.)

All of the bullets held together with no bullet blow ups even though they must have been clocking in at over 500,000 RPM’s. I’m very impressed with this core and jacket combo. Normally anything at or above a 15 grain bullet weight would have started to come apart already.

At the end of my test I ran 2 test rounds into 2 full soda cans to show a couple folks what they will do. Both cans turned into 2 flat sheets of aluminum foil with a lot of wet mist in the air. Both of the guys watching were pretty awestruck at the results.

I think I can even push these bullets in the 1 in 7 twist barrels up the 5000 fps range. I saw zero core melt outs and the holes in the paper were all perfectly cut. All primers and brass showed no signs of pressure at this point.

As always stay on target,
Carl C.

Extreme accuracy

I did a quick preliminary run with both IMR 4198 and Hodgdon 4198 to see how the newly designed 8.5 grain bullets held up for stability. I ran them in my 14/221 Walkers to get some info for folks shooting them. (Both of the test guns I used for this testing are 1 in 7 twist rate Pac-Nor Stainless Super Match barrels with 3 land heavy groove.)

Both rigs showed great stability and decent grouping with the initial load of:

IMR 4198 = 16.2 grains , CCI BR4 primers, 8.5gr Extreme Accuracy Moly coated.

Hodgdon 4198 = 16.2 grains, CCI BR4 primers, 8.5 gr. Extreme Accuracy Moly Coated.

The chronograph started losing them and no longer reading as soon as I stepped above the 4700 fps range. The highest reading I could get was 4760 and it would only capture an occasional round. It was very frustrating to say the least.

Both rigs liked the Hodgdon H-4198 better for some strange reason. The IMR is usually the chosen powder in both of these test guns. Both also showed an improvement in accuracy as soon as I switched over to the CCI 450 small rifle magnum primers. Sadly the chronograph could not get a reading on those test rounds to let me know the speed range on them.

The primers and brass showed no signs of pressure and I was ready to step up the speed a bit but without a chronograph that would tell me where I was at I decided to wait until I have the strain gauge and laptop hooked up to them.

None of the bullets came apart even with a light rain starting to fall. With a 1 in 7 twist rate that put them well above the 480,000 rpm level. The J4 Jackets held up well and had zero failures. In the 1 in 9 twist 5000 fps should not be a problem from the RPM standpoint.

I’ll try to run them in the 14 Hornet Extreme and the 14 TCM Extreme on my next outing. It should give me both ends of the spectrum on the speed range for these 8.5 grain bullets.

I hope this info helps and as always stay on target,

Carl C.

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