my barrel hates the 123 SST

[snell]

I often heard of barrels that perform dismally with certain bullets but have never had the experience... until now. My upper was made by Hardened Arms (since out of business ) and they used an in-house barrel. I have been struggling trying to find that one load that really shines. I've gone through 200 SSTs and a pound each of TAC and CFE223 with terrible results. At 100 yards 3-4 inches are the norm with an occasional flyer worse then that. I finally tried some Sierra 120 Pro Hunter and am quite pleased. Five shot, 200 yard groups, are consistently 2" or less. I'm using a near max load of CFE223 that is delivering velocities just shy of 2500 fps (18" barrel) and single digit SD. I leave for North Carolina on Sunday and will post the results (assuming I get a shot with the Grr).

Art

[A5BLASTER]

Good luck on your hunt sir.

While I haven't tryed to do any handloads with that bullet. All the sst ammo I have bough in the last year to year and half have been bout the same. 3 to 4 inch groups at 100 yards.

Now I have some sst ammo that I bought a couple years ago and they shoot great. But I don't hunt with those bullets I'm more of a bonded and copper bullet guy for hunting.

[Happy2Shoot]

I also had a crappy barrel from Hardened Arms. Their customer service chick had their name misspelled in her signature line. Oh well. I fixed my barrel using every trick I knew.

Take the upper apart.
Face / lap the upper. Coarse then fine valve lapping compound.
Bed the barrel extension with the special loctite
Properly torque the barrel nut
Lap the muzzle crown with a slotted brass screw. Coarse then fine valve lapping compound.

I also lapped the rifling with http://www.davidtubb.com/final-finish-loaded-ammo

Shoots just under MOA with just about every load. Plus during load development I noticed most powder charge increments shoot to the same spot with the same group size. Weird. It just shoots.

[ported45]

I too was saddened to find that Hardened Arms had to shut their doors. I have a 5.56 and a .300 Blackout from them that shoot single hole, 3 shot groups at 100 yards.

Had an 18" Hardened Arms Grendel. Shot 129 ABLR/8208 amazing (5 round group into 0.27 MOA according to Range Buddy app) at 2315 fps.

The more I played around with the idea of loading/unloading in hunting situations and chasing brass or messing with a brass catcher, I eventually decided that I wanted a bolt gun in Grendel instead of AR format.

The Ruger Predator that I got to replace the Hardened Arms upper seems that it will be a shooter, too! Getting more velocity with less powder for the same bullet.


Best of luck on your hunt!!!!

[Bearcatrp]

They sucked for me too out of a match faxxon barrel. Did find the nosler 120 gr BT shot the best but cost to much for me. ended up with Speer GD 120 gr. Took a bit to get the right load with 8208 but shoots fine now.

[justinspicher]

Not real happy I just picked up some of these bullets. I was expecting them to be a decent round. The ELD-M rounds shoot awesome out of my 16” barrel and can set up.

[1Shot]

I couldn't get the SST to shoot in two different barrels no matter what powder or charge I used. Both shoot GREAT with the 120 Sierra Pro Hunter and the 120 Speer Gold Dot using IMR 8208. I have killed a bunch of deer in the past with the 120 Sierra PH out of a 6.5x55 out at yardages where it has slowed down to the velocity range of where the Grendel runs and it does a good job on deer. I killed one deer with my 20" BCA barrel Grendel last year running the 120 Gold Dot 2550 fps. Shot was at 111 yards into the center of the chest as the doe faced me. BANG FLOP! AWESOME destruction of the vitals and exited out of the belly as I was shooting downward from a shooting house. Penetration was about 20" with a thumb size exit hole. This was the ONLY deer I saw during 2 1/2 weeks. Black/blue tongue had hit big time in about a 30 mile radius that included my hunting lease. Before that you could about close your eyes and fire you rifle and kill a deer there were so many. I helped do crop damage control on this land for 15 years were my buddy and I had to take 100 deer a year off the farm. Only thing this did was remove most of the inbred pieball deer and help the genetics. Could not really tell we put a dent in the population. They had one outbreak of black/blue tongue a few years back that did knock the population back a little bit but this latest outbreak about wiped them out. I will take a few years for deer to filter back into this area.
Hope you have good luck in NC. I hunted in Northampton and Halifax Co. for about 35 years. Due to hunting buddy getting too old and sickly to hunt anymore and I having no place to park my camper plus not being able to keep up the lease on the land myself as well as getting some age on me I have given up hunting there and will be doing my hunting around my home in the mountains of TN. I will be using my 18" Grendel AR loaded with the 120 Sierra PH this season.

[LRRPF52]

You guys need to specify whether you have a SAAMI chamber or a conventional freebore, because I've shot composite groups of 2 different types of ammo with different bullet weights and profiles into 2.1" at 200yds with my Lilja lightweight Wasp barrel, which has a SAAMI chamber.

That rifle is very light, 7lbs 12oz with the Unimount and 2.5-10x32mm Vortex Viper PST, yet it still cuts ragged holes with 10rd groups at 100yds, and sub-MOA (.8" vertical, .4" horizontal) at 1000yds, rapid-fired.

I have yet to shoot a bullet or load through it that doesn't perform really.

Across multiple Grendel barrels with SAAMI chambers now, the 123gr SST has been one of the main loads that shoots really well.

A lot of manufacturers will say they have a SAAMI-spec chamber, but then use a conventional freebore because they were steered into that reamer or don't want to deal with getting compound throat reamers.

Especially with all these low-priced barrels popping up all over the place, don't expect them to shoot anything but a few older design tangent nose profiles from quality bullet makers well. 2-4"groups would be really disappointing though.

[plainsman456]

I quit trying to get them to shoot using the Hornaday Custom ammo.

They just suck in 3 rifles.

Have found some joy with 110-120 grain bullets.

Have not played with heavier but might try one day.

[lazyengineer]

Mirrors my own experience. I could never get 123 gr SST or ELD-M's to shoot that great. The 120 gr and 129 gr seem to shoot a little better, for whatever reasons.

[ported45]

You guys need to specify whether you have a SAAMI chamber or a conventional freebore, because I've shot composite groups of 2 different types of ammo with different bullet weights and profiles into 2.1" at 200yds with my Lilja lightweight Wasp barrel, which has a SAAMI chamber.

That rifle is very light, 7lbs 12oz with the Unimount and 2.5-10x32mm Vortex Viper PST, yet it still cuts ragged holes with 10rd groups at 100yds, and sub-MOA (.8" vertical, .4" horizontal) at 1000yds, rapid-fired.

I have yet to shoot a bullet or load through it that doesn't perform really.

Across multiple Grendel barrels with SAAMI chambers now, the 123gr SST has been one of the main loads that shoots really well.

A lot of manufacturers will say they have a SAAMI-spec chamber, but then use a conventional freebore because they were steered into that reamer or don't want to deal with getting compound throat reamers.

Especially with all these low-priced barrels popping up all over the place, don't expect them to shoot anything but a few older design tangent nose profiles from quality bullet makers well. 2-4"groups would be really disappointing though.

100% true or not I do not know because I did not check it when I got it, but I asked HA before ordering and they said they used SAAMI spec with compound throat. All I know is that Lynx barrel would really stack bullets together at 100 yards (farthest range I have to shoot on in town) with 129 ABLR, Hornady 129 SP, and the 120 Gold Dot.

[Keef]

It's all BCA's fault!

[FLshooter]

While searching for my 6.5 Grendel hog hunting bullet,I tried 130 g SST w/25.7 g H335 through my 22” criterion hbar barrel.I got moa groups.But,the 123g w/27.3 gr H335 were tack driving.

[s3silver]

Never could get the 123 sst to shoot either out of three AR grendels. One is a Shilen 6.5 LBC, AR Stoner saami spec, and BHW saami spec.

[daved20319]

I don't know if hate is the right word, but my Howa HB doesn't seem to like the factory 123 gr. SST load. Was using them as test ammo after bedding and trigger work, had I not seen reports here of them being not so hot, I'd have been bummed at the 2-3" groups at 100 yards. But I was prepared, a switch to Black with the 123 gr. ELD-M brought groups down to about an inch, and another switch, this time to some test loads with 90 gr. TNT's, had groups under 3/4" for the first couple of increments, will finish the series on my next range trip. Will definitely be ordering more of the TNT's soon. Later.