Quest for perfection loading the .221 Remington Fireball

Guns Magazine, May, 2003 by Charles Petty

Up to this point everything has been done using Remington brass. Benchrest shooters prefer cases made in Finland or Sweden, but neither of those firms make .221 brass. They do, however, make .223, and Redding has dies for the forming job. Folks, this is where we get to the point of more trouble than it's worth.

Preparing 25 cases was literally hours and hours of work, and when those were fired there was an insignificant .017 inch reduction in average. Now I know that on a different day, with the planets in different places, I'd almost surely get different results--but with no disrespect to those wonderful folks overseas, in this instance Big Green's brass will do nicely, thank you very much.

So here you have an abbreviated version of a process that took many months and many, many, trips to the range. I could probably have stopped with the discovery of Lil'Gun and a load that happily hovered around half an inch and was hundreds of feet per second faster than anything previously known. But that is what makes accurate rifles and handloading so much fun. You never know till you try.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Cooper Firearms Of Montana

[406] 777-0373

www.cooperfirearms.com

Hodgdon Powder

[913] 362-9455

www.hodgdon.com

Hornady Manufacturing Co.

[308] 382-1390

www.hornady.com

Redding Reloading Equipment

[607] 753-3331

www.reloding.com

Remington Arms Co.

[800] 243-9700

www.remington.com

CHART 1

PRIMER COMPARISONS

 Primer    Velocity  ES   1     2     3    Avg. Group

   CCI      3,620    63  .312  .261  .295     .289
 Federal    3,638    58  .343  .240  .348     .310
Remington   3,650    63  .404  .381  .421     .402

CHART 2

           Velocity   1     2     3     4     5    Avg. Group

Un-turned   3,607    .414  .481  .347  .417  .516     .435
Turned      3,574    .440  .360  .259  .357  .434     .370