A small cartridge for long range work

[Billinthedesert]

I've been finding myself intrigued by the latest generation of hyper-streamlined .224 bullets intended for fast twist barrels (1:7) and for cartridges like the .22 Creedmoor, 22 GT and Hornady's Grendel-derived 22 ARC. The ballistic coefficients of these bullets are simply amazing, to wit: Hornady's 88-grain ELD Match has a B.C. of 0.545. While some shooters want to run some of these little hotties through an AR platform, a bolt gun makes more sense to me, and both Hornady and Sierra list gas gun loads (52,000 psi) and bolt gun loads (62,000 psi) which typically get you another 200 fps over the gas gun loads.
The beauty of these cartridges lies in how pleasant and relatively easy they are to shoot for long range work out to 1,000 yards. A quarter century ago I thought I would dip my toe in mid- to long-range shooting on an old military range we had access to and bought a Ruger long-range M77 with heavy barrel and target stock in .300 Win. Mag. Adding a big Sightron scope and bipod brought the beast up above 13 pounds and it still kicked the hell out of me. Convincing myself this was supposed to be fun, I got rid of it and pretty much lost interest in long-range. The advent of the high-velocity fast-twist .22s eliminates all of these issues.
So now I have a little Howa Mini-1500 in 22 ARC to fool with. I've loaded some 73-grain Hornady ELD-Ms for barrel break-in and some 88-grain ELD-Ms just to try them. After doing a lot of reading on the long-range precision shooting Subreddit I found a recommended SWFA 12X42 MRAD scope and ordered Ryan Cleckner's "Long-range Shooting Handbook," which gets very high marks. Looking forward to messing about with this outfit, but darn if the wind season isn't just around the corner.
The cartridges, from left, are .223, .22 ARC and .30-06. The bullets, from left, are the Hornady 88-grain ELD-M, 80-grain ELD-M and 73-grain ELD-M.

 

[Mokaa]

Amazing how far the little .22s have come. Way more fun without punishment

 

[Billinthedesert]

Certainly is. I put 30 rounds through the new Howa this afternoon, getting used to the rifle and trigger. I will adjust the latter for a bit lighter pull as it is coming in at 2 pounds, 12 ounces on the Lyman scale and not terribly consistent. I did have four under a half-inch and three in about one third at 100 yards with a 15-20 mph breeze coming in over my right shoulder. Considering how rusty my rifle skills have become, I think it is a good start. Now to do some ladder load tests. I have also ordered a chassis stock -- the affordable Trybe Defense -- and the classic Harris S- BRM bipod.