.224 Valkyrie

When the .224 Valkyrie was first introduced, I yawned as I didn’t get what it was good for. AR-15 gunners have already been successfully shooting 90 grain bullets at 600- 1000 yards for over a decade and a half. With .223 Remington we simply seat the bullets out longer than magazine length in an appropriately-chambered rifle and single feed by hand. Competitors have been turning in good scores in Service Rifle, High Power, Mid-Range, Long Range, Palma, and F-Class using this technique.

Recently, .22 Nosler gunners have been using the same long seating technique with 90 and 95 grain bullets and achieving higher velocities than either the .223 Remington or the .224 Valkyrie. Gun writers, however, ignored these successes and gave the impression that absolutely everybody in the shooting community had been waiting with baited breath to be able to stuff 90 grain bullets into a magazine and then emptying that magazine as quickly as possible and out to distances of 1,300 yards.

I am very much reminded of legendary Border Patrol officer Bill Jordan’s famous admonishment, "You can’t miss fast enough to win." It appears to be true that one can reach that far with the Valkyrie depending on barrel length, the specifics of the powder charge, elevation of the range, etc. The same can be said of the older .223 Remington, though have never had anyone say they tried shooting it beyond 1,000 yards. Furthermore, where are all these ranges with safe backstops out to 1,300 yards?

In another lifetime I spent nearly two decades as Author Aaron Carter mentioned how excessive bullet jump can "negatively affect accuracy". a firing member of the All Army Reserve Shooting Team. I shot all over the U. S. and a fair share of the rest of the world and can’t remember ever being on a rifle range that allowed shooting beyond 1,000 yards (or perhaps 1,000 meters in some countries).

While there are some places open to civilians where one can safely engage targets beyond 1,000 yards, very few places exist within a two hour ride for most of us. Gun companies would have readers believe that the very act of buying one of their Valkyries will make the owner a successful longrange shooter. While it is important to long range shooting success that bullets arrive traveling faster than the speed of sound, that is only one of the important points.

Also important is for the gun/ammo combination to be capable of shooting tight groups and may be the greatest challenge for the Valkyrie. Last, but certainly not least, the shooter must be capable of delivering a perfect shot on demand. Over and over again. On top of all that, the shooter must be able to notice changes in range conditions that will move the impact of the bullet from target center.

It takes many, many years for most of us to develop these skills (some never do) and if the gun store salesman tries to convince you that buying a Valkyrie will allow you to shoot through varying range conditions, he either doesn’t know his business or isn’t being honest. Meanwhile, gun writers kept publishing lavish reports on the Valkyrie. They all parroted the 1,300 yard range and as time went on all of the articles started sounding more and more like those published earlier.

This left me wondering if some of these writers had actually gotten away from the air conditioner and ventured out for valid test firing or were they just "borrowing" the limited live fire research that other writers had previously done? Those gun journalists who never admit to shooting a group that is bigger than sub-minute continued their trend by reporting tight groups from the Valkyrie.

Meanwhile, likely spurred by these flowery reviews and the novelty of the new cartridge, coupled with an American tendency of buying everything that is new, sales of anything Valkyrie went through the roof. Reports were different when real shooters got their hands on Valkyrie rifles, finding four shortcomings. Three of them are fixable to some extent

On bottom, an old school Hornady Overall Length Gauge. Top, LTL (Length To Lands) Gauge by Dead Center Sports. Micrometer adjustable match bullet seating die used when finding bullet seating sweet spot. while I see less possibilities in getting around one of them. I’ll discuss all of these issues with emphasis on 90 grain bullet performance. Twist Rates The big draw of the Valkyrie is the short, fat case permitting 90 grain bullets to be loaded to magazine length.

Federal loads factory ammo with 90 grain Sierra Match King bullets and also offers 90 grain soft points for hunting, along with 75 and 60 grain loads. In 2019 Federal offered 80.5 grain Berger bullets and 78 grain Barnes bullets. Hornady loads ammo with their 88 grain ELD bullet and the DRT load uses a 90. This is a very nice selection of factory loads. Obviously, handloaders are free to use any other bullet that they may fancy. Different bullets require varying twist rates to achieve optimal performance.

We will limit this portion of our discussion to just factory loaded ammo and start with the 60 grainers. I have easily stabilized other bullets in that weight range and velocity in 20" barrels using 1:9 and 1:10 twist barrels. A 1:8 twist should easily stabilize both the 75 and 80.5 grain bullets. Competition shooters seldom use Barnes bullets so I have no experience with them.

I went on their website and couldn’t find a recommended twist for their They listed the ballistic coefficient but not the length and both are needed for most twist rate calculators. If you are interested in shooting this bullet I recommend contacting the factory and getting their twist rate recommendation. That brings us to the 90 grain bullets. Back in the early 2000s we tried to stabilize 90s in 1:7 twist barrels. Most of us found the bullet would go into the target straight but groups were fat.

Bullet manufactures recommended using 1:6.5 barrels and groups tightened up a bunch. These tests were carried out at the same velocities as the Valkyrie is producing today. Folks, it is written right on the boxes of 90 grain Sierra Match King bullets in large, bold, red, all-caps print, "6.5" TWIST BBLS ONLY"! It is pretty obvious to me that the bullet maker has strong feelings about this. And what Sierra is stating on their bullet boxes agrees with what a bunch of us have verified in actual range testing.

In spite of the fact that all of this was well proven by the mid 2000s, advertisements for Valkyrie uppers and barrels today shows a staggering number of 1:7 low-bid button rifled barrels of questionable parentage. Given the precision of 90 grains bullets is best with 1:6.5 twist, what happens to shorter bullets that stabilize in slower 1:8-1:10 twist rates? They’re overspun! Overspinning bullets is not like "too much ice cream" (which can be a good thing).

Overspinning bullets will tend to exacerbate any flaws in the ammo and make groups larger. Depending on the marksmanship and reloading skills of individual gun owners, some may not notice these larger groups. I use state-of-the-art testing equipment that eliminates marksmanship errors and the result of overspinning is easy for me to notice. The Valkyrie is a prime example of what happens when you try to cram 15 pounds of potatoes in a 10 pound sack.

Trying to shoot bullets all the from 60-90 grains in the same gun is just bound to compromise the performance of some of them. So, if you area gun owner who purchased a Valkyrie at his local gun store where the salesman had no clue about different twist rates and you ended up with a slower 1:7 twist, what do you do? If you intend to shoot at greater distance with magazine-length bullets, begin by testing 90s. If group sizes exceed your expectations as I predict, try a box of the new Federal 80.5 grain Gold Medal.

Berger designed the 80.5 bullet many years ago for the .223 as a legal Palma bullet. While Palma rules disallow the Valkyrie, it does shoot this bullet supersonic and stable out to 1,000 yards in longer barrels with a stout load. Any idea of shooting this bullet seated to magazine length in an AR-15 accurately out to 1,300 yards is probably pie in the sky. Handloaders might want to also try the equally good 82 grain Berger. Chambers Twist rates are not one size fits all. Chambers are the same.

Before discussing chambers, we have to mention bullets because the two

Center, a 90 grain Berger Boat Tail in a Valkyrie casing seated longer than magazine length. On right, .223 Remington with a 90 grain SMK seated long for single feeding in a Wylde chamber. The bullet does not extend nearly as far down as the same bullet in the Valkyrie. are very much related. "Varying ogive profiles" sounds esoteric but any American Gunsmith reader has looked at a fair number of bullets.

You probably noticed that ogives (bullet nose cones) of some hunting bullets are more rounded whereas long range target bullets are more pointed. When an ammo manufacturer loads a half dozen or more different shaped bullets to magazine lengths some will be closer to making contact with the chamber’s throat.

Looking at that very long 90 grain SMK bullet (over an inch) one might think it would be one of those bullets that would have a short jump before contacting the throat, however, measurement reveals the .224 Valkyrie SAAMI specification chamber has the 90 jumping longer than optimal. Most chambers have freebore in front of the cartridge case mouth at bullet diameter before the lands.

This provides some support to the bullet to help keep it from tipping while offering little resistance to forward movement and reducing pressure with heavier powder charges and higher velocities. Unfortunately, too much freebore will result in larger groups and longer freebore combined with normal throat erosion over time causes the barrel to "shoot out" at lower round counts. The SAAMI chamber for the Valkyrie has 0.050" of freebore and every 90 fired jumps that far before entering the throat.

I’ve heard of other Valkyrie chambers designed by gunsmiths with even more freebore. I pulled bullets from Federal’s initial Valkyrie loadings and Hornady’s 88 grain offering and none of them required this excessive freebore to chamber. The 75 grain American Eagle had the least amount of jump but was still excessive. The 88 grain Hornady had the most jump at nearly 1/10". How did SAAMI end up approving a chamber design with such excessive jump?

During early Valkyrie development there was great pressure on SAAMI to approve something. My guess is back then nobody predicted 88 grain Hornady and 80.5 grain Berger and Barnes bullets available in factory ammo. Perhaps out of an abundance of cau- Left, some theories state unsupported bullets swell out under pressure.

Right, uneven powder may create more gas (drawn on the right of the bullet) in some places. tion, SAAMI chose to err on the long freebore side so almost every .224 bullet could be safely stuffed in a Valkyrie. In trying to optimize 90 grain bullet performance I went in the opposite direction. Working with Dave Kiff out at Pacific Tool & Gauge (PacificToolAndGauge.com, we came up with a Valkyrie chamber with zero freebore.

The 1 degree/30 minute leade angle allowed 90 grain SMKs seated magazine length to sit right behind the throat with almost zero jump. Groups have been quite good. I control pressure by using a 20" Bartlein gain twist barrel starting at 1:13 and ending at 1:6.5 at the muzzle. Starting with a twist rate about half the final, desired twist is ideal and this is the same that has proven effective with 90s in .223 Remington and .22 Nosler.

Bullet stabilization only "cares about" the final twist as it exits the bore and there are disadvantages to spinning a bullet at 300,000+ RPMs all the way from the chamber to the muzzle. I discuss this further in "Revisiting Gain Twist" (November-December 2013) and have found this so effective that I am able to use maximum powder charges listed by Sierra in zero freebore Valkyrie chambers with no pressure issues and tight groups. Brass I know of three companies making Valkyrie brass: Federal, Starline, and Hornady.

The first two are soft and their service life will be short even with moderate loads. Starting with virgin brass, Federal and Starline brass had primers falling out of the pocket after the third firing

despite having thicker walls than needed, which just contributes to higher pressures. Thick case walls also limits the amount of some stick powders that will fit. Hornady case walls run 0.001-0.002" thinner, allowing for higher case capacity and more room for bulky stick powders. Hornady brass seems to be made of stouter material and holds primers better. The only disadvantage of the Hornady brass is, as of this writing, it is more difficult to acquire.

I found Federal brass holds about one grain of water more than .223 Remington. By coincidence, my load workups for the Valkyrie came out wanting one grain more powder than the same powder in a .223 with a Wylde chamber. When shooters heard that the Valkyrie holds a miniscule amount more powder than the .223 they assumed that the Valkyrie would produce great big velocity increases but my chronograph readings showed virtually the same speeds.

Excessive Bullet Seating The fourth and last major factor limiting precision with 90 grain bullets in the Valkyrie has to do with the enormous distance down into the powder column that the back of the bullet extends. For folks insisting on loading 90s to magazine length, this may be the most difficult issue to fix as the back of the bullet is below the shoulder/case sidewall with about a half inch of the bullet below the case mouth.

There have been theories posited for decades, long before the invention of the Valkyrie, about how this will contribute to fat groups. I tested these deep bullet seating theories in the .223 Remington and found this concern is overstated, however, none of the bullets in my .223 tests were seated as deep as 90s in the Valkyrie. Summarizing the two excessively deep seating theories will help with understanding. Picture a cartridge with part of the bullet below the case neck swelled out to egg shaped.

Some theorists posit that expanding gas from the burning powder "smacks" the base of a bullet when it lacks support and prematurely obturates when the back end swells out. When that swelledout section is then swaged back down in the rifling, damage to the bullet occurs. Influencing the bullet to move forward before the premature obturation limits damage. Gain twist rifling can be helpful in allowing bullets to begin moving forward earlier.

Gain twist also limits other bullet damage (bullet skid) that can occur with uniform twist barrels. Longer freebores should also allow deep seated bullets to begin moving forward and limit deformation, however, excessive bullet jump results in fat groups. The 90 grain Berger B. T. bullet has a thick jacket and may resist this deformation better than the Sierra 90.

The second theory states the powder is not always ignited or burned evenly and uneven combustion may create more gas on one side, causing the bullet to tilt. Such bullets will enter the barrel throat crooked and deform, resulting in fat groups. This is not all that different than bullets seated in case necks at an angle during loading. Sinclair International makes a tool that inserts through the neck of an unprimed case to chamfer the inside of the flash hole.

Precision shooters claim creates more even powder ignition. Some of them also claim that using one of these tools can result in more consistency in velocities, always a good thing. The Valkyrie case has a longer neck than the .223 which is thought to combat bullet cocking due to powder burning unevenly. Full disclosure: I have not personally conducted any testing of these flash hole tools and am simply repeating what some Benchrest and Long Range competitors have told me. Let the buyer beware.

The back of a 90 grain bullet seated deep occupies space and limits gunpowder that can fit. Also, unless the powder is packed evenly, one side of the bottom of the bullet may be met with greater resistance. This can cause bullets to create runout and negatively influence groups. I use a drop funnel when charging Valkyrie casings and load with less bulky powders. Shooters and loaders should always employ a concentricity gauge like the stellar Hornady Concentricity Tool which corrects runout.

In addition to using these tips for load workups, I use quality Bartlein gain twist barrels on Valkyrie builds. While I am getting true sub-minute ten-shot machine rest groups using 90 grain bullets in my Valkyrie builds, groups from .223 and are tighter. I blame the slightly fatter groups from the Valkyries on the excessively deep bullet seating. The only disadvantage .223 and .22 Nosler has is needing to seat bullets longer than magazine length.

If a customer truly believes he will be shooting to 1,300 yards, the Nosler achieves more bullet speed over the Valkyrie. What’s not to like about tighter groups and increased velocity? Unfortunately, the only brass that I have been able to find for the 22 Nosler is made by Nosler and they are soft. The rebated rims tear and deform very early in life even with modest loads. So brass life is just as limited as with the Valkyrie but for a different reason. See ".22 Nosler" in the March 2019 issue.

Bullet Seating Length I admit initially avoiding building any Valkyries but felt it would be an interesting challenge to get them shooting tighter groups. When I finally agreed to start build Valkyrie uppers my first customer started out wanting to magazine feed 90 grain SMKs. By the time all his parts had arrived he had discovered his range’s rules now prohibited selfloading firearms from being maga-

zine fed. Had I known he’d have to hand load single rounds, I would have tried talking him into a .223 or .22 Nosler build instead. I felt that seating bullets out longer than magazine length would help groups a lot and would be in compliance with the rules of my customer’s range. The Valkyrie chamber that I had designed, however, limited seating of 90 grain SMKs to magazine length. For my customer’s gun I substituted 90 grain Berger Boat Tail bullets.

Due to their different ogive, Bergers seat about 0.041" longer than magazine length without making hard contact with the throat in my chamber. This also has the additional benefit of moving some of that excess bottom section of the bullet up out of the powder column of the casing a little. Groups were really impressive and much tighter than the Sierra 90s seated to magazine length.

If you have a Valkyrie that is shooting fat groups with 90s seated at magazine length you might find your groups tightening significantly by taking readings with a Length To Land gauge and establishing ammo with bullets seated longer than magazine length and closer to the throat. My average 90 grain sweet spot with either the Sierra Match King or Berger is when my ammo is just 0.004" short of touching the throat with .223, .22 Nosler, or .224 Valkyrie.

Each gun is different, however, and each person has a little measuring difference. I fully realize that Stoner designed this platform to feed from a magazine and self load, however, if firing 90s seated to magazine length is resulting in fat groups you now have a potential accuracy solution. I have also done some testing of the new SMK 95 grain bullets seated long in the Valkyrie. Some guns are showing promise.

Since the 95 is even longer than the 90 I am reluctant to seat 95s to magazine length in fear that doing so will only exacerbate the grouping problems previously described with the 90. That said, the 95 is a very fussy bullet that a lot of handloaders (including me) are experiencing fat groups and bad fliers with in the .223.

Trying to get such a fussy bullet to shoot tight groups in the Valkyrie, which by itself is "challenged" with precision, may be an example of biting off more than researchers can successfully chew. Bullet Seating Sweet Spot If the very thought of single feeding ammo into an AR-15 by hand causes you ulcers, the following technique will work with magazine-fed ammo and will likely shrink your groups by about 20%.

Each firearm/ammo combination will have a sweet spot when the bullet is seated to a specific depth in the casing. This is firearm specific and what works well in one gun may not be sweet in another gun. Finding that specific bullet seating sweet spot requires actual range firing. I do it on a machine rest and it takes about a half day. Seat ten rounds to magazine length of 2.250" and shoot the best group possible.

A lot of shooters attempting to perform this from a bench rest settle for five shot groups to save time. I take a Lee Hand Press with a micrometer-adjustable match seating die to the range to perform the bullet seating. By the time you have walked downrange and swapped out targets and seated the next ten rounds, the barrel will have cooled enough for the next group.

The second ten rounds of ammo are seated 0.002" deeper by coming down two tick marks on the micrometer adjustment, going to a cartridge overall length of 2.248". Fire that second group and then adjust again to 2.246" and fire again. As you shorten the seating length you may see groups initially getting either larger or smaller. Continue to shorten seating length as long as groups are getting tighter. When groups reverse and start getting larger, stop!

Go back to the tightest group and that is your seating sweet spot. Normally, this spot is between 2.250" and 2.238". I did this on every Valkyrie I built and all of them responded favorably. Shortening the ammo lengths by these tiny increments does not cause any feeding malfunctions and this sweet spot works on both factory and handloaded ammo. Note, Federal loads its 90 grain SMK bullets to 2.242" for some reason; a bit shorter. No worries! Start your first group at that length, your second at 2.240", etc.

By the time you reach 2.230" you should have found your bullet seating sweet spot. See "Bullet Seating Sweet Spot" in the June 2016 issue. The June 2018 American Rifleman reported on group size and consistency in velocity of four Federal factory loads that were available at the time of their testing. As near as I can tell their testing was done in just one gun. I performed my load work ups in a wide selection of uppers but, like the Rifleman, I only tested factory ammo in one of

them. Combining their test results with mine yields factory ammo data with two guns, not enough to satisfy any statistician. Despite that, both the Rifleman and I got our best factory ammo groups using the Federal Gold Medal 90 SMK load. We also found our velocity readings were most uniform with the same load. My handloads ended up about 25% tighter in group size than the factory Federal and my average velocity was about 50 fps faster.

I made one very interesting discovery when working with the Federal 90 grain ammo: Federal is not crowding the front of the magazine by trying to seat their bullets too far out. Their overall cartridge length with the 90 SMK bullets measures about 2.242". I did not know this seating length while I was performing my load workups with the 90. As mentioned previously, my load development includes finding the bullet seating sweet spot for each of the uppers I work on.

What is pretty staggering is that my average seating sweet spot ends up with a cartridge length exactly the same as Federal’s ammo. I don’t know how Federal arrived at their seating depth but when the two smartest folks we know come up with the same conclusions I would say that a cartridge overall length for you handloaders of 2.242" might at the very least be a good starting point in finding the sweet spot for your gun!

The next factory ammo I can report on is from Dynamic Research Technologies (DRTammo.com, It appears they are using the same 90 grain SMK as Federal and loading in Federal brass. DRT groups were a little larger than the Federal ammo and the velocity average was about 50 fps slower with a greater velocity spread. I also tested the Hornady factory ammo which is loaded in Hornady brass with a Hornady 88 grain ELD which has a lower ballistic coefficient than the 90 grain SMK.

This ammo jumps its bullet the farthest of the all the factory ammo I tested and also had the highest amount of runout. The combination of the high runout and excessive bullet jump made for fatter groups. The Hornady ammo chronographed about 40 fps slower than the Federal Gold Medal and the velocity spread was the highest of all the factory loads I tested. The Federal American Eagle 75 grain full metal jacket ammo was the last tested and my results pretty much mirrored the American Rifleman.

The most important conclusion from this ammo had to be combined in the other Federal 90 grain Gold Medal load. I was performing my tests in a 24" Bartlein gain twist barrel whereas the Rifleman test used a 18". Based on barrel length, I would have expected my velocities to be about 150 fps higher but my chronograph readings were running a significantly faster 250 to 300 more. Even more staggering was my greater consistency in velocity.

Where the Rifleman reported standard deviations of 15 for the Gold Medal and 37 for the 75 grain American Eagle, I got 9 and 15 respectively. How do we explain the differences in velocity figures? We could say that the greater speed of my ammo might be due to the outside temperature but I was testing in February Pennsylvania winter with temperatures in the 20s. Differences between ammo lots could be a factor but I suspect my gain twist versus their uniform twist is the likely difference.

Some makers of gain twist barrels claim progressive rifling results in more uniform pressures and this leads to more consistent velocity. Conclusions The Valkyrie is mostly a novelty caliber. Unless you are one of the very few AR gunners who have a real need to shoot 90s out of a magazine, the Valkyrie is really an ideal solution to a non-existent problem. Discussions by gun makers of shooting this firearm to 1,300 yards are mostly examples of clever marketing.

When first brought out, the .224 Valkyrie had design problems making a lot of guns shoot fat groups with ammo loaded with 90 grain bullets seated to magazine length.

This author’s research revealed some potential solutions to improve precision: Build with quality barrels using a proper 1:6.5 twist, consider a chamber reamer addressing excessive freebore, use Hornady brass, use a drop funnel and cartridge straightening tool when loading, find your rifle’s bullet seating sweet spot, and consider seating heavy bullets out longer than magazine length and single feeding them. Guns are individuals.

There will be exceptions to the above suggestions and you may luck out with a straight 1:7 twist and long SAAMI freebore that shoots magazine-length 90s to your satisfaction. However, I suspect most buyers getting a low bid 1:7 button-rifled barrel with SAAMI spec chamber won’t be this lucky. If you area gunsmith contemplating building Valkyries, consider a better chamber reamer option and address load development with your customer. Shrinking groups further may well end up in your wheelhouse.

As always, I invite questions and discussion via my email, G