my barrel hates the 123 SST

[Clays23]

123 sst and eld shoot better in my rifle at the Hornady recommended length of 2.245 also cfe 223 hasn?t worked great for me either I prefer tac, 8208, 2520, or benchmark

[Cornbread]

The one common thread I see here is cheap barrels. A good barrel will shoot most of the common bullet weights good and some really good. You get what you pay for.

[snell]

Well, no joy with the grr in North Carolina this year. The warm weather must have put the deer off the regular pattern 'cause there weren't many kills made at all :-( Perhaps next year. I picked up a box of Hornady 123 SST factory when I stopped by Green Top on the way home and will try them on my next range trip. Results to follow.

[FLshooter]

The one common thread I see here is cheap barrels. A good barrel will shoot most of the common bullet weights good and some really good. You get what you pay for.

No truer words have ever been spoken.The cheaper barrels or most factory barrels are much finickier than a quality barrel.You need to break them in and spend much time and ammo figuring what they like.I finally realized that I was wasting $100’s in ammo and the barrel did not always end up shooting as accurately as I’d like.
I rather own 20 rifles w/quality barrels,than own 50 rifles w/mass produced barrels,where accuracy is in the luck of the draw.My Bartlein 6.5 Grendel bull barrel shoots everything well and required no break in from shot one.And my less expensive Criterion Hbar is not far behind.Just remember ,the Money you save buying a cheap barrel will be spent on ammo trying to get it to shoot.And don’t forget,time is money!Took me years to realize.In most cases,you get what you pay for.

[empTshell]

I was also having problems with bad grouping with the 123 sst bullets. Both reloads and factory. But I don't think the barrel was broken in. After more shooting and a few cleanings the factory are now about .5" at 100 yards. Still need to play with my reloads.

[caleb90]

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.

the barrel on my ar is a hardened arms aswell, 20in with a crown. i was looking for barrels while doing my build that wouldnt break the bank and would be cheap like a bca, and a company that would make me one that wasnt threaded because i live in liberal NY!. fast forward and my only gripe with the barrel is it has a short throat. i can get eld bullets to clear the lands at 2.245 sierra pro hunters clear at 2.260. but before i even had the barrel in hand, i ordered 500 123gr nosler custom comps and 500 100gr nosler custom comps. the shape of the bullet and orgive give me fits for coal. the 123gr heads i have to seat at 2.200 to clear the lands and same for the 100gr. nosler told me to use there balistic tip data for the 100gr cc so seating at that depth wasnt an issue. but for the 123gr heads i had to reduce loads and work up ladders using a cronograph to find the best fit for powder charge. the 100gr heads were easy made 1 test batch of charge weights in .3 gr incronments and found a winner. the 123gr im still working on. started with cfe 223 and i couldnt get a group, found my max charge and started playing with coal. still couldnt get a group. after almost a pound of powder i switched to h335, and im darn close to having a good load just gotta do more tweaking but has promise. i have also tride cfe 223 in my 223 bolt gun with not so stellar results, at this point i really dont want to even give cfe 223 another try. even though it gave me great velocitys, i lost about 100fps switching to h335 but the group size was well worth it

[A5BLASTER]

the barrel on my ar is a hardened arms aswell, 20in with a crown. i was looking for barrels while doing my build that wouldnt break the bank and would be cheap like a bca, and a company that would make me one that wasnt threaded because i live in liberal NY!. fast forward and my only gripe with the barrel is it has a short throat. i can get eld bullets to clear the lands at 2.245 sierra pro hunters clear at 2.260. but before i even had the barrel in hand, i ordered 500 123gr nosler custom comps and 500 100gr nosler custom comps. the shape of the bullet and orgive give me fits for coal. the 123gr heads i have to seat at 2.200 to clear the lands and same for the 100gr. nosler told me to use there balistic tip data for the 100gr cc so seating at that depth wasnt an issue. but for the 123gr heads i had to reduce loads and work up ladders using a cronograph to find the best fit for powder charge. the 100gr heads were easy made 1 test batch of charge weights in .3 gr incronments and found a winner. the 123gr im still working on. started with cfe 223 and i couldnt get a group, found my max charge and started playing with coal. still couldnt get a group. after almost a pound of powder i switched to h335, and im darn close to having a good load just gotta do more tweaking but has promise. i have also tride cfe 223 in my 223 bolt gun with not so stellar results, at this point i really dont want to even give cfe 223 another try. even though it gave me great velocitys, i lost about 100fps switching to h335 but the group size was well worth it

Not trying to be rude. But I would get rid of that barrel. It's just me but dealing with a improply throated barrel is a accident waiting to happen.

You could pick up a 20 inch group buy barrel from this fourm for under 200 bucks and be much better off.

[caleb90]

Not trying to be rude. But I would get rid of that barrel. It's just me but dealing with a improply throated barrel is a accident waiting to happen.

You could pick up a 20 inch group buy barrel from this fourm for under 200 bucks and be much better off.

the nosler custom comps are the only ones that give me issues, i loaded a dummy round with sierra 120gr game kings. 2.260 coal feed and chambered no issue

[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.

Just to add to the total knowledge of the site: I just got an email back from Ruger that their Grendel Predator rifles do NOT have the compound throat.

[A5BLASTER]

Just to add to the total knowledge of the site: I just got an email back from Ruger that their Grendel Predator rifles do NOT have the compound throat.

Really? Huh so it may not be a grendel. Are you sure the person you was talking with knew what they was talking about?

[ported45]

Hopefully they did. Took them a week to respond to my request on if their Grendel had a SAAMI compound throat or straight, parallel throat. Straight throat was the answer.

Would be nice if someone with a bore scope or chamber casting alloy could verify or not.

[grayfox]

Funny their lawyers would even let them do a non-Saami chamber...
And then call it "Grendel" to boot.

[LRRPF52]

Funny their lawyers would even let them do a non-Saami chamber...
And then call it "Grendel" to boot.

It's easier for companies to cut chambers with parallel throats than compound.