Black Hills .223 68 Grain Heavy Match Red Box Ammo
Lewis Creek Shooting School 07.18.12
Last year, my wife Cherie and I had occasion to visit the Black Hills Ammunition Plant. I’ve been using Black Hills ammunition since a time early in their history and I’ve always had the utmost respect for the company that makes quality ammunition from the best components. Mike Wright took us around the plant from beginning to end and, as one who’s done a lot of reloading in my life, it was a treat. The most impressive part was the quality control.
The machines are checked every five boxes to ensure consistency and each round is individually checked to make sure it’s as perfect as a human can make a round of ammunition. This was really impressive to me since, as a former team coach, I’ve seen a lot of obvious flaws in ammunition get out of factory doors. Most competitive shooters look at their ammunition as they load magazines, but one malformed round can cost a championship. Last year, in a minor match, I had just that happen. A 9mm round that had a split case rolled back to prevent chambering. I missed it when I loaded the magazine and, while it didn’t make much difference in a club match, it could have cost a championship shooter a deserved win.
I recently acquired a heavy barreled AR-15 upper with a 1 in 9″ twist. It’s been my experience that slower twists perform better with lighter bullets and I sent for some Black Hills “red box” 68 grain Heavy Match .223. The red box signifies the best quality, premium ammunition. Blue box rounds may be seconds or remanufactured. There are a lot of 1 in 9” twist .223 barrels around and while they may shoot heavier bullets well at ranges under 400 yards, the bullet may begin to destabilize past that distance. Choosing a bullet weight matched for your barrel twist will increase your chances for dependable accuracy at longer ranges.
Since I had no idea how this upper would perform, I wanted to use the best ammunition I could find and my trust of Black Hills reinforced my choice. I was not disappointed. At 100 yards, on the first group, the rifle printed ten shots into .721, this was not an expensive tuned upper on a reworked lower. It was an unknown upper, bought cheap at a gun show and mounted on a lower I had lying around. Consistently, the Black Hills 68s printed less than 3/4 minute groups.
What’s so great about this load is the versatility. It will shoot in any barrel twist available, it’s favored by competitive tactical shooters as well as a defensive round and, when I searched the web for impressions of shooters, I discovered it has a large following as a hunting bullet for game up to deer size.
Dick Jones is an award winning outdoor writer and a member of the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association Board of Directors. He writes for four North Carolina Newspapers as well as regional and national magazines. He’s hunted and fished most of his life but shooting has been his passion. He’s a former High Master, Distinguished Rifleman, and AAA class pistol shooter. He holds four Dogs of War Medals for Team Marksmanship as shooter, captain and coach. He ran the North Carolina High Power Rifle Team for six years and the junior team two years after that. Within the last year, he’s competed in shotgun, rifle and pistol events including the National Defense Match and the Bianchi Cup. He’ll be shooting the Bianchi, the NDM, the National High Power Rifle Championship, The Rock Castle AR15.com Three Gun Championship and an undetermined sniper match this shooting season.
He lives in High Point, North Carolina with his wife Cherie who’s also an outdoor writer and the 2006 and 2011 Northeast Side by Side Women’s Shotgun Champion. Both Dick and Cherie are NRA pistol, rifle, and shotgun instructors and own Lewis Creek Shooting School.
