224 Valkyrie

[lyle_destroys]

Im seriously considering selling my ruger 22-250 and getting a 224 valkyrie barrel, bolt, and good trigger for my AR for predator hunting and long range steel plinking. Anybody have any experience with this round?

 

[go4thegusto]

Yep, sold my Rock River 6.8 barrel and bought a Ballistic Specialties Ultralight stainless fluted 224 barrel and carbon handguard. Cut over a pound from my coyote rifle. Took to indoor 100 yd underground range we have here and shot 1/2 inch groups! (match ammo, Fusions not so good, have not tried new Hornady ELDX load yet but I bought a box)Right with the best of any bolt gun I have owned.
I like the versatility of a much heavier bullet for larger game. Cool round. Had my CDS cap set up for it.

 

[lyle_destroys]

Yep, sold my Rock River 6.8 barrel and bought a Ballistic Specialties Ultralight stainless fluted 224 barrel and carbon handguard. Cut over a pound from my coyote rifle. Took to indoor 100 yd underground range we have here and shot 1/2 inch groups! (match ammo, Fusions not so good, have not tried new Hornady ELDX load yet but I bought a box)Right with the best of any bolt gun I have owned.
I like the versatility of a much heavier bullet for larger game. Cool round. Had my CDS cap set up for it.

I like the sounds of that. Im not big on selling my stuff but lately I have been trying to reduce the amount of reloading supplies to have on hand. And if I can get sub moa factory ammo that saves a ton of time.

 

[Ndbowhunter]

As much as I like a .545 bc bullet at 2700ish

It’d be hard to leave .384 bolt face when a guy can buy 2850fps in a .4bc package for 43cents a pop.

 

[go4thegusto]

As much as I like a .545 bc bullet at 2700ish

It’d be hard to leave .384 bolt face when a guy can buy 2850fps in a .4bc package for 43cents a pop.

Many of the 224 barrels come with a fitted bolt face included. Easy swap

 

[Ndbowhunter]

That wasn’t my point.

What i’m saying is for varmints, deer, lopes, prairie dogs and plinking it’s just plain hard to beat the grin to price ratio of frontier 75gr ammo.

The slight gain in ballistics doesn’t outweigh the fact that good ammo is twice the price and still within the same general ballistic envelope.

Compare black hills 77gr tmk at 2800 (20” velocity) to 88gr eld-m at 2640fps (20” velocity) and The Valkyrie comes out ahead but not by leaps and bounds.. assuming 1800fps is bottom expansion velocity the 77gr tmk passes threshold at 625 yards in my atmosphere and the Valkyrie 88gr at 675 yards.

Frontier is 575 yard gun

Valkyrie beats the 77gr tmk by 3.5” at 500 in 10mph full value wind and the 75gr 5”.

 

[PathFinder]

Admittedly, no actual experience. But I did hours of research and really tried to talk myself into one over a 5.56 last summer. In the end my conclusion was that there was no functional advantage to the Valkyrie as anything but a target round. People weren't getting near advertised velocities in most cases, definitely not enough to justify the difference in cost (even as a reloader). I think it would be an awesome steel shooter, but the fast 22s and 24s are better coyote rifles. Even for my SPR AR-15, I went with the 5.56. More smiles per $, nearly equal performance to 600 or so. I still have the itch to try a Valkyrie barrel, but talk myself out of it every time I see the real world velocities they are producing.