6.5 G powder?

[Scrape hunter]

Imr 8208 is my favorite, cfe 223 is not consistent in my rifle, H4895 is one I would like to try in my gredel...

[richj]

old school, using ww748 with 120 hpbt and AR-Comp with 108. Still use 3031 also

[lazyengineer]

old school, using ww748 with 120 hpbt and AR-Comp with 108. Still use 3031 also

3031! I actually really like that powder - I bet it runs great.

[Okie_Poke]

My go-to with my old barrel was CFE 223. I was getting more velocity out of it with 123s than other powders I had tried, and accuracy was acceptable for what I was doing. 31 grains under any Hornady 123 bullet worked just fine. I didn't notice huge swings in velocity with it in varying temperatures, but I wasn't chasing the utmost in precision or long range performance either. I'm in Oklahoma, so temp swings are a thing here too. It was safe in 100 degree weather and still went bang when it was freezing.

I've had decent luck with Benchmark and 123s in terms of accuracy; however, it's a bit fast-burning for that bullet weight and velocity in my 18" barrel is topping out around 2400 fps at max charges. My older 16" barrel was slightly slower than that but also got good accuracy from Benchmark.

AR-COMP is also worth trying, if you can find it and don't mind lighting gold on fire. I'm going to be testing LEVER, H4895, SW Match, and maybe some others this spring and reporting on their performance in my X-Caliber thread. I don't think I've ever seen 8208 XBR in the wild but would test that if I could find it.