8208 powder

[carlread308]

Does anyone else use 8208 powder in their 223, I'm loading the max recommended load of 21 grains with not good results, thoughts comments suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks Carl.

[mauserjr]

Hi Carl ..Never used 8208 but have been loading / shooting .223 on range and bush forever . In early 90,s used 23.5 gr of BM2 with a 68/69 gr pill in a Tobler 9Twist barrel ..very good results .Lately been using 23.2gr of 2206H with a 80gr pill (berger or Amax ) with outstanding results in a lite factory Tikka 8 twist barrel .A mate is using 23.3 with 80 gr Sierra,s in Varmint Tikka 8 Twist and shoots like stink . Suggest worth a try . Watch pressure ..using ADI brass bumped back 2 thou ..Federal or CCi primer .Regards JR

[Brad Y]

Yes very good with 55gr projectiles. Great velocity. Too fast for 80gr in 30 inch barrels

[DenisA]

G'Day Carl,

I tried it recently in my 30" Fclass rifle. It has a long throat running 80.5gn FB. The burn rates too high for the heavier pills and according to Quickload you cant put enough powder in the case to get good MV. I confirmed this on the range. Where I can get 2950 fps with safe chamber pressure and good accuracy using AR2206h, I lost approx 150 - 200 fps (from memory) trying BM8208.
Between BM8208, AR2206h and AR2208, I have personally foundAR2206h to give the best balance of MV, node length and accuracy.
My experience with the 223 and 80.5gn FB's is that the node lengths with all 3 powders are VERY short, the longest being 0.3gn long. I suspect its because it has such a small powder chamber and a small amount of powder is a larger percentage than we would see with larger cartridges.

Throat length is critical with target .223's. SAAMI spec factory chambers cannot run close to the same loads as longer custom throats with heavy pills. Be careful.

[CamoWhamo]

I use it with the 77gn Sierra's and Bergers in my 20" barreled Tikka CTR.

My loads are around 23.2 - 23.6gn (in Lapua brass) after tuning and somewhere around 2720fps on average. Accuracy is great.

I went with the BM8208 to get most efficiency in my shorter barrel. For a longer barrel you might be better served with a slower powder. I just got some 2206H last week and will try that soon for comparison.

[carlread308]

Thankyou all for the input, I think I will go back to using 2206H . Thanks again much appreciated.

[pgcpty]

I'm, responding to this topic rather late in proceedings but have had outstanding results using 8208 with 80gr projectiles in my F Standard rifle having previously used 2206H. Ive used 8208 in 3 Krieger 30" barrels chambered in 223Rem to date, 2 in 7 twist and one in 6.5

I use QuickLoad for load development calibrating Ba from test firings and shoot 5 x 5 shot groups around the nominal QL centre to locate lowest ES load. For 3 x 30" barrels the low ES load of 15 is 24.8 grains of 8208 and remarkably the 6.5T barrel chambered with a PT&G ISSF reamer with an extended throat to shoot 90 grain bullets uses the same load. i.e. 80.5gr Berger Target COL 2.452" with 50th jump to lands. This was a pleasant surprise insofar that the same load works in 7 or 6.5 T barrels.

Using the load outlined above I scored 120.11 at 300 meters on Saturday 22/5 at Malabar RR

Cheers
Peter

BM8208 223REM Load Development.jpg