CZ 550 Varmit

[bartrak]

I have cz 550 varmit laminated stock 22-250 that I am trying to work up a good ground hog/coyote load for. I have tried several powders,H380,Varget,H4895 and get about the same group with each using 40 and 55grn Vmax and 52 grn Sierra hpbt. I am having problems trying to get the correct seating depth on each. My gun must have a long cut throat. When I try to seat them out near the lands (within 5-10 thousands) I don.t have enough seating depth for my bullets. The 40grn goes in less than 1/8" and the 55grn goes slightly father but not enough to hold the bullet. Does anybody have any suggestion or have had the same problem? The groups can be covered with a quarter most of the time at 100yds,but I believe it should do beter.

 

[FAL Shot]

I have a CZ 527 in .204 Ruger with approximately the same problem. It was an issue with some of the earlier .204 Ruger CZ 527's. If you seat the bullets just off the lands, then the bullets were too long for the magazine.

So, I had the bullets seated just far enough to work in the magazine. With 40 grain bullets accuracy doesn't suffer. You can cover the groups with a dime at 100 yards.

I use a 40 grain V-Max with 28 grains of Accurate 2520. My rifle has the 26" heavy barrel that is no longer available in the 527, so I wouldn't want to lose the longer barrel just to get a newer rifle that has a shorter seating depth.

My rifle doesn't like 32 grain bullets, but I just want to shoot the heavy stuff so it's not an issue. A long bullet is probably going to stabilize even if it has a long jump to the lands because it has a long bearing surface. Maybe this was a safety issue in order to prevent overpressure from overzealous handloaders who shove their bullets into the lands and then try to shoot max loads.

I just got through checking 16 different loads in my brother-in-laws Ruger M77 MkII .22-250. 55 grain V-Max with 38.5 grains of Big Game gave a .25" group. One of the stinker groups was 34.9 grains of 4064 and I forgot which bullet, but it measured 2.1". 4064 was bad with 4 different bullets, and it's regarded as one of the best .22-250 powders.

Moral of the story is you have to try different powders and bullets with each rifle. Seating bullets just off the lands isn't always necessary for accuracy as well. That's probably only necessary for short bullets with a short bearing surface. If they hit the lands tilted over, they may never straighten up and leave the barrel with yaw.