223 Super 14

Well after thirty some years of owning Contenders, I finally bought a 223 Remington Barrel.
If I were giving advice to someone getting into Contenders "when TC was still in business" on what "Factory" Barrels to get. My advice would be a 22 LR, 223 Remington, and a 7x30 to hunt with. I had never taken my own advice on the 223 Barrel.

Last month while at my Semi-Local (50 miles away) Reloading shop the owner told me that he had a smoking deal on a Contender Barrel. The owned knows I am a serious handgun hunter. What he produced was a Like New Blued Super 14 Contender Barrel, with a Weaver Base, a High Quality set of Blued Steel Rings and an older Burris 5X with Target Knobs. This was about as nice a set up "on a 223 Barrel" as could be assembled around 1990.

On my agenda today is cleaning the barrel. Checking the base screws, and swapping the scope for a NEW Burris 2-7. I may swap scope bases if I have a spare EGW Base on the shelf. I have been changing all of my scope bases over to EGW the last few years. Much easier to move scopes around when everything has a compatible scope base.

I will next need to assemble some ammunition for the 1 in 14 twist barrel. I have a quantity of FC once fired Brass from a Class at the Range. I have lots of 50 Grain Hornady V-Max Bullets left over from a 221 FireBall Rifle I had several years ago. I have several powders that will work fine. I will need to decide between WW748, AA2015BR, TAC, SW Tactical, and IMR4895. I have some First Run AA2200 that I need to start using up also.

We have the Hand Gunners Get Together coming up the 25 of September 2022 at the Big Piney Sportsman's Club. I need to get the 223 Barrel up and running before then.

I sure hope this barrel is a shooter.

Bob R

That sounds like a ton of fun on the relative cheap. Let us know how it shoots. Back when ammo was available and cheap, I would get the Fiocchi 50gn vmax for <$0.40 a round and it shot close to 1/2 moa for me.

The .223 is a great contender round. My super 14 wears a riflescope. The extra x’s are very handy on targets. My barrel likes 40gr nosler bts and H322. Ive also shot a fair amount of blue dot with the same bullet. Blue dot is not “normal” for such use, but you would have to look up james calhoun information on it, along with more internet research.

A factory super 14 223 should be 1:12” twist.

Any photos?

I put a load together using FC Brass, 50 grain Hornady V-Max Bullets, and 25.0 grains of Shooters World Tactical Rifle. That was one full grain under a maximum load, so I was pretty confident I would not have any issues with ammunition on my first range trip.
I decided to leave the old Burris 5X on the barrel to start with. After shooting the old 223 Contender I may just keep the Burrix 5X on it. I do have a question however. How can you reset the Burris Target Knobs back to ZERO after sight in? The turret looks to have (three allen screws ????), however I did not find an allen wrench that seemed to fit them.
The barrel is antique enough to still have the Non-Split Locking Lugs. I had to slam it pretty hard to get it to fire. I will probably need to address that issue also. It looks to shoot well enough that I would not mind throwing some $$$$ at it to get the Bugs Out.

More load work up to come. I have numerous powders that would work in the 223 Remington. I will probably work with SW Tactical Rifle, AA2015, AA2200, and WW748. I did not have as many 50 Grain V-Max bullets as I thought. Looks like around 400. I did have several box's of Sierra 55's however. I have enough bullets on hand to keep it running for a few years.

Any advice on the Locking Lugs and Burris 5X Target Turrets would be welcome.

Bob R

Bob I have a 2.5-7 T/C illuminated scope I will be pulling off my XP if you have any interest in it.

I have about decided to keep the 5X Burris. I really like dialing the range in.
So far I am not shooting as small of groups as I would like. I have been shooting Encores and M48's with rifle scopes so much lately, I may be expecting too much from the Handgun scope.
I may install a 20X Super Sniper to work up loads, and see exactly how well the barrel shoots.

Bob R