Longer barrels, lighter bullets and tweaking twist rates may be just the ticket to putting some fangs in this high-performance critter getter at long range.
After testing four different .224 Valkyrie rifles over the past few months, I’ve got a pile of empty brass that’s begging to be reloaded. Taking what I’ve learned from firing more than 2,000 factory rounds of the new cartridge in every bullet weight offered has taught me a few things about what works and what doesn’t.
Sorting some of the wheat from the chaff has pointed me in the right direction for building a few accurate loads. Following are a few things that I’ve learned about the .224 Valkyrie.
The Valkyrie’s claim to fame is the ability to shoot long, heavy-for-caliber projectiles with high ballistic coefficients. Theoretically, these bullets will stay super-sonic beyond 1,000 yards and stay accurate enough to hit targets. My own experience shooting 80- to 90-grain .224 bullets from the larger .22-250 is that a 1:6.75 is the minimum that will stabilize 90-grain bullets consistently. A barrel with a 1:6.5 twist rate seemed even more reliable when stabilizing these long bullets.
Barrel length contributes to the Valkyrie equation, too. What I learned from shooting 90-grain .224 bullets from a .22-250 is that the bolt-action rifle — I built on a Savage Model 10 action – benefited from having a 24-inch barrel. This kept bullet launch velocities high enough to allow the 1:6.5-twist barrel to do its job stabilizing bullets. On the other hand, it would over-spin light 50- and 55-grain bullets. Driven too fast, varmint bullet with thin jackets commonly vaporize from centrifugal force.
Here’s where the early AR-platform .224 Valkyrie rifles on the market ran into problems. Barrels ranged in length from 16 to 22 inches, with the shorter tubes robbing the long bullets of velocity needed to stabilize.
One of the negatives that’s a common theme on the Web regarding the .224 Valkyrie is that ARs wouldn’t shoot the 90-grain bullets accurately. Rifle makers blamed bullet companies, and they both blamed the reamer companies.
After the dust began to settle in late 2018, Sierra released a statement about their 90-grain bullets: “The Bulletsmiths at Sierra Bullets typically recommend a 6.5-inch twist barrel for the #9290 22 cal 90 gr. HPBT bullet. However, for cartridges like the .224 Valkyrie that can push them over 2,650 fps muzzle velocity, a 7-inch twist barrel will stabilize the bullet correctly.” That statement is key to understanding some of the negative information about the .224 Valkyrie floating around.
Delayed Gratification
A lot of talk has been generated on the Web about the .224 Valkyrie cartridge since its introduction, and some of it wasn’t very favorable. During the first year of production I experienced months-long delays in receiving production test rifles. The delay was explained that the chamber reamer supplier for one of the leading rifle companies had to re-tool to improve the Valkyrie’s chamber dimensions. “Out of spec” reamers seemed to plague the firearms industry. Rifle manufacturers were probably as much to blame as the handful of companies that were cutting the reamers. Since Federal Cartridge had put so much marketing emphasis on the new cartridge’s release, rifle manufacturers raced to catch up and build their own AR-platform rifles. Many of the rifle makers gave the reamer makers varying dimensions, such as chamber throat length, when they ordered reamers. Further complicating the situation, some rifle makers who outsourced their barrels ordered blanks with varying twist rages that ranged from 1:6.5 to 1:7.5. Bottom line, performance didn’t live up to the hype.
Now that a couple of years have passed, it’s time to rethink the Valkyrie. It seems that lighter bullets weights are performing well, and one AR barrel manufacturer has settled on 1:7.7 as the ideal twist rate.
AR15 Performance to the Rescue
Known for their 6.8 SPC knowledge, AR15 Performance recently built a batch of 20-inch .224 Valkyrie barrels made specifically for hunters using the Hornady’s 80-grain ELD and shorter bullets for hunting. Their customers have reported good accuracy with the new 85.5 Berger as well. They claim the slower twist barrel will also give better performance with the lighter varmint bullets than the 6.5 and 7 twist barrels. “The 80 ELD will outperform the 88s, 90s and 95s due to the higher velocity, (approximately 2,900 fps from a 20-inch barrel), the higher B.C.s of the 88-, 90- and 95-grain bullets will not catch up,” their web site proclaims.
The AR15 Performance Valkyrie chamber dimensions matches the SAAMI spec drawing perfectly. The freebore for this barrel is much shorter than most barrels on the market and should produce better accuracy with long high-B.C. bullets however this batch will be limited to bullets 80 grains or lighter. The AR Performance barrel is also Melonite treated to reduce bore erosion.
AR15 Performance’s .224 Valkyrie barrel allows for a bolt recess of 0.125-inch, and its profile is 0.850 under the handguard, 0.750 at the gas block and 0.718 to the muzzle
The 4150 Chrome Moly Vanadium steel barrel’s twist rate is 1:7.7 with Hybrid 3R button rifling. It uses a rifle-length gas tube, and the barrel itself weighs 3 pounds, 3 ounces.
To build this upper, I used an Anderson Manufacturing upper receiver, an AR15 Performance bolt and a Bravo Company Manufacturing 15-inch handguard. This all nicely attached to a Bravo Company BCM-4 lower fitted with a CMC trigger.
Seating Depth & Runout
One of the things I’ve learned about loading the .224 Valkyrie is that it seems to be ultrasensitive to bullet seating depth. I measured 10 rounds of Federal’s 90-grain SMK and found that they were 2.249 inches overall length, which was more than 0.050 shy of touching the chamber throat. Pulling 10 bullets with a Hornady collet puller, I weighed each charge and found that seven rounds were 26.3 grains, and 26.4 grains for three rounds. While I was at it, I measured runout on 10 rounds of factory ammo and found three had zero runout, five had 0.001 runout or less and the remaining two had 0.003 runout.
I set my Redding seating die to re-seat bullets 2.309 inches. I re-dropped 26.3 grains in six of the cases and seated the bullets. Using a Hornady tool, I rechecked runout on the seated bullets and got either less than 0.001 or adjusted the bullet to fit that parameter. I chambered one by slowly closing the bolt and using the forward assist to lock the bolt. I extracted the round and found no evidence that the bullet was touching the lands. I sent five rounds down range and got a nice little 0.719-inch group.
A few days later, I measured seating depth with several bullets in the chamber of the AR15 Performance barrel, using a Hornady O.A.L. gauge. I picked four bullets that fit my target weight range, as well as picking a couple of powders with which I recently had success in the Valkyrie.
I set the seating depth on the 80-5-grain Fullbore Target Berger to be 0.014 off the lands on top of varying charges of Vihtavuori N150. I worked up to 25.7 grains of N150 in Federal once-fired cases sparked by CCI small rifle benchrest primers. This load produced 2,799 fps on average. The first five rounds downrange produced a 0.502-inch group, but fired cases show high pressure signs of ejector swipe the case head and a couple of backed-out primers. I backed down to 25.6 grains, which only dropped to 2,785 fps. The smallest 5-shot group measured 0.458, so I had something encouraging with which to work.
I worked through a similar progression with Sierra’s 77-grain Match King, Hornady’s 80-grain ELD Match and Berger’s 77-grain OTM Tactical with N150. Velocities remained similar, and groups hovered around 1 inch at 100 yards.
It is interesting to note that measuring and O.A.L. with similar weight bullets showed quite a bit of variability of seating depth to the point of contact with the chamber throat.
Overall Length & Seating Depth
I worked through the same progression of loads with Hodgdon CFE 223 and settled on 26.4 grains as the maximum for this rifle with all four bullets. Velocity hovered around 2,800 fps, but accuracy wasn’t anything to brag about.
Even though the top velocities of the .224 Valkyrie is produces very similar velocities as the .223 Remington, given the same barrel lengths, it still offers the possibility of shooting longer bullets and keeping their loaded length within the confines of an AR magazine. Spend some time punching these bullets and velocities into a ballistic calculator and sending rounds down range and you’ll find that these loads have “legs” when reaching for longer ranges.
SPECIFICATIONS
- TYPE: AR15 DI
- LOWER: BCM-4
- UPPER: Anderson Manufacturing
- HANDGUARD: BCM 15-inch Key-Mod
- BARREL: AR15 Performance
- LENGTH: 20 inches, Melonite coated
- TWIST: 1:7.7
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