I have never been able to shoot the heavier bullets in any of the 22 caliber rifles that I have tried. All of then had the standard 14-inch twist. The other day I got hold of a second hand Remington 700 BDL in 222 Remington. Upon examination, the barrel had a few rust pits in it, but the action and the stock looked just fine. I put a bore scope through the barrel. The throat area looked great, but about half way down the barrel it was absolutely awful! The surface of the bore was eaten by rust for about 4 inches.

I have a Hart 22 caliber barrel blank, # 4, which has a 9-inch twist. I thought of replacing the factory barrel on this rifle, with this one and see how the heavier – 60 grains and above – would shoot.

I chambered the barrel for the 223 Remington, as I have just received a brand new reamer from Dan Green of Forgreen Tool Manufacturing Co. The reamer was cut for the minimum SAAMI specs. The barrel was then finished and crowned at a final length of 27 ½ inches. I bedded the rifle in an H-S Precision synthetic stock.

I went through the minimum of barrel break in. That is I fired 5 rounds cleaning the barrel after each round. Then I fired 5 more rounds, cleaned the barrel again, and then fired two fouling rounds and proceeded with the following tests.

We used the Federal 205M primers in Federal Gold Medal 223 cases. All bullets were molly coated, and seated long enough to engage the rifling.

All groups are 5 shots at 100 yards.