220 swift

[Hog head]

So, I did a search and pretty much couldn't find what I needed so here I am. I need a good place to start on an m77 in 220 swift. I'm just looking for brands of powders that are the proven favorites for this caliber and any quirks that I may run into along the way. I saw one thread about brass dimensions is there anything else I need to watch for? Thanks for the help in advance

[cecILL]

Same rifle. 41gr H380. 52gr HPBT.

[joed]

IMR4064 is one that works well with the Swift. Probably anything near that burn rate will also work.

[603Country]

When I bought my 77V in 220Swift, I read up on favorite loads. Some gun writer said that a 55 gr bullet over 38.5 gr of IMR 4064 was the gold standard. I worked up to that load and found that he was right. I've been using that same load for 35 years with 3 different bullets.

[Hog head]

Picking powder from the burn rate chart is a ways further down the rabbit hole than I have ventured in handloading. Please define "close to". How close is close to. This goes beyond my original post,but maybe I'm sneaking further down the rabbit hole and it seems like a good time to ask.

[Mobuck]

I use IMR 4064 in my Swift.

[98 220 swift]

I also use imr 4064. But I use 40gr bullets. Best velocity and accuracy.

[Roadkill2228]

38.5 grains of 4064 under a 55 grain nosler varmagedon tipped bullet worked great. It's a finicky cartridge. I'd be curious to try the new imr enduron 4166.

[the jigger]

My Swift is a "poor boy" custom built on a Savage FV action with an E.R.Shaw
1in12 26" barrel. IMR4064 and 60gr Hornady V-Max shoot minute of prairie dog out to 400yds on a quiet day.

[Hog head]

Thanks again for the replies. It would seem that imr4064 is the winning combo. I'll get started pretty soon then,that's the one powder I have the most of on hand.

[Unclenick]

Originally Posted by Hog Head

Please define "close to". How close is close to.

If you look at burn rate charts they have no actual burn rates listed. That's because a burn rate test is an expensive bother and even if you do it to your competitor's powders you don't know if the samples you got are on the high, low, or middle range of their burn rate tolerance. Each maker seems to keep that information proprietary. As a result, people mostly guess by roughly what pressures some common cartridges using about the same amounts of the same powder get with the same bullets. The problem with this is, since the standard burn rate lab test is under one set of standard conditions and none of those loads represents those exact standard conditions, you have sort of a guess but nothing definitive. As a result, no two "relative" burn rate charts seem to put powders in exactly the same order. So "about" is as close as it gets with them.

What you can count on is that Hodgdon's chart will have the burn rate order correct for the powders they distribute. They have a target burn rate they order each powder made to, so even though two lots of two similar burn rate powders might reverse the order, it won't be by much. You can count on Alliant's chart to have the order right for their own powders. You can count on Western's chart to have the order right for their own powders. You can't count on either to have anyone else's powder correctly pigeon-holed. Any burn rate chart that doesn't have each distributor's powders in the same order the distributor does has made an error. But even if they do, whether they correctly order their close powders ahead or behind a competitor's is a which or a guess.

And, BTW, those burning rate orders, even from the company that makes the powders, are still only true for standard burn rate test conditions. Here's a consequence of that:

In the mid-1990's Dave Milosovich published a test in which he loaded .308 Winchester cartridges with 180 grain bullets to specific velocities using IMR4064 and IMR4895. IIRC, he loaded them to 2200, 2300, 2400, 2500, and 2550 fps (max). At 2200 fps, it took less 4064 than 4895 to reach that velocity, suggesting 4064 was the faster powder. At 2400 fps it took the same charge weights of each, implying their burn rates were the same, as their chemical compositions were the same (it's the grain geometry more than deterrent coating that differs and controls progressivity characteristics of these powders). By the time he got to 2500 fps, it took more 4064 than 4895, implying the 4064 was the slower powder under these higher pressure conditions.

So, what you see there is that actual, in-situ burn rate varies with the pressure you are loading to. 4064 varies less with pressure than 4895, meaning it takes more grains of 4064 to increase velocity 10 fps than it does to get there with 4895. That's got a plus and a minus side to it. The plus is that 4064 is less affected by a given amount of charge weight error. The minus is you can't adjust velocity as much with it before you run out of room in the case. This means you need to vary it more to tune a load, which is good from the standpoint of temperature stability and anything else that influences pressure. But it also means you won't find sweet spot loads for it in as many different chamberings or with as many different bullet weights as you will with 4895.

The above advantages and limitations are even more true of Varget than of 4064, so you find fewer combinations of cartridge and bullet weight that are great with Varget than are with 4064. BTW, Varget was originally intended to compete with 4064, so it's another powder I would consider giving at least a try in the 220 Swift.


The late Dan Hackett reported in the mid-1990's that he'd had a 40X in 220 Swift that he couldn't get to shoot well. Keep in mind that Hackett was a benchrest competitor, so his idea of shooting "well" is bugholes. This particular rifle had put five shots into 3/8" as its best group and averaged more like 1/2" with some groups over 5/8". He tuned his loads up and down, but it got no better than that. Then one day he made a felicitous mistake. He had always loaded his bullets to jump about 0.020" to reach the lands in the throat, a distance that common knowledge at the time held was best. But the mistake he made was in changing to a 50 grain Nosler BT which was 0.015" longer at the ogive than the previous bullet he had been loading. He needed to turn his micrometer seating die adjustment out 0.015" to keep that same bullet jump, but instead he turned it the wrong way and wound up going in deeper by that amount. So now the bullets had a 0.050" jump to the lands instead of 0.020", and everyone knew that was way too big for precision. Hackett didn't notice that error until he had 20 rounds loaded. He considered pulling the bullets, but decided it was too much bother and he would just shoot the rounds up in practice. To his astonishment, those 20 rounds turned in two 1/4" 5-shot groups and two true bughole groups in "the 1's" (between 0.1 and <0.2").

The bottom line is that there are lots of things to tune and try and you can't always rely on what consensus suggests is best. If you listened to it today, you would load 0.015" off the lands or else in actual contact with the throat. Some guns shoot best like one of the other of those, but not all. Every gun has the possibility of behaving differently until you prove it doesn't.

[UnkBK]

I used 4064 with great results but changed to H380 because it metered so much easier.

[Unclenick]

But did it shoot better? One of the funny characteristics of 4064, and the reason Federal has used it in Gold Medal Match and government Mk 316 Mod. 0 sniper ammo is that low sensitivity to charge weight errors and less temperature sensitivity than some others in that chambering. The GMM .308 168 grain SMK ammo I've pulled down has had about 1% charge weight variation from one round to the next, but it all shoots very well. But that is .308 and not .220 Swift, and that can make a big difference.

[Hog head]

Unclenick, that was a very informative post and clearly defined "close to" for me. Thanks. I seldom ever just take the general consensus as the gospel truth but use it as a starting spot. Before I found the firing line I would have just bought as many powders as I could find in my books and eenie meenie miney moed away, spending way too much money and time in the process. Now not so much. I can usually get the accuracy I need in two or three choices from everybody else's experience.

[F. Guffey]

Unclenick, that was a very informative post and clearly defined "close to" for me. Thanks. I seldom ever just take the general consensus as the gospel truth but use it as a starting spot. Before I found the firing line I would have just bought as many powders as I could find in my books and eenie meenie miney moed away, spending way too much money and time in the process. Now not so much. I can usually get the accuracy I need in two or three choices from everybody else's experience.

Years and years ago I had a friend that was mad, he was complaining about something I could not change and that made him madder (that word just does not seem correct). Anyhow Hodgdon had samplers, they would send a reloader three different powders for testing and then one day the offer was gone. I could have had more sympathy for him but he never told me about the deal so I never missed the offer when it was gone..

F. Guffey