Sighting in the 450 bushmaster.
Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2025 9:45 am
I've had a 450bm from bear creek armory for a few years. I've never attempted to load for it and ammo was stupid expensive. Midway ran a sale on 450bm starline brass about a year ago...
I got around to doing some load work.
Hornady 225 FTX, 250FTX, 240 XTPMag, 250 XTP, 300 XTP, 300 XTPMag
Blue bullets 250grn RNFP
Blue bullets 320grn RNFP
Matts 285Grn TCGC
Norma 250grn JHP
norma 300grn JFP
Sierra 300grn JHP
I rolled in a few others that I can't remember off the top of my head.
The two stand-out loads and bullets were the Hornady 225 FTX and Matt's 285TCGC. This is the first gun that has ever shot any Hornady FTX bullets worth a snot. It did a 1.5 with the 250, but a ragged one-hole group with the 225s.
The average for the rest of the five shot groups was about 1.25 to 1.5. I think I could have done better. The group shown was the second group after a 3-shot factory ammo sight-in.
Right after shooting that one ragged hole group, I shot back-to-back 300, 300, 320-grain full-power loads. The 320s were 1600+ fps, and one of the 300s was in the 1900fps range.
According to GRT, I was 15% under the PSI warning, but... It fookin didn't feel like it. The brass, gun, and round handled it. But dropping 40, 320, and 300 grain loads made me a little recoil shy when it came to the rest of the groups.
Factory sighters, 3 shot group. 260 grn. All three ended up in a 1" group. so, not bad for a factory load.
Here is the loaded 225's I put together.
Data
It's a five-shot group at 76 yds.
Data
A few of the groups for the day
285 TCGC
250 FTX
Full power 320 grain plonkers. These hurt.
full power 1900fps 300grn JFP
Lessons learned, the rifle seems to like power levels just a tad more than the minimum load data. Full power loads are about useless. They hurt my delicate sensibilities. That being said, Ramshot Enforcer was a joy to load, and it does quite well in 450bm.
I got around to doing some load work.
Hornady 225 FTX, 250FTX, 240 XTPMag, 250 XTP, 300 XTP, 300 XTPMag
Blue bullets 250grn RNFP
Blue bullets 320grn RNFP
Matts 285Grn TCGC
Norma 250grn JHP
norma 300grn JFP
Sierra 300grn JHP
I rolled in a few others that I can't remember off the top of my head.
The two stand-out loads and bullets were the Hornady 225 FTX and Matt's 285TCGC. This is the first gun that has ever shot any Hornady FTX bullets worth a snot. It did a 1.5 with the 250, but a ragged one-hole group with the 225s.
The average for the rest of the five shot groups was about 1.25 to 1.5. I think I could have done better. The group shown was the second group after a 3-shot factory ammo sight-in.
Right after shooting that one ragged hole group, I shot back-to-back 300, 300, 320-grain full-power loads. The 320s were 1600+ fps, and one of the 300s was in the 1900fps range.
According to GRT, I was 15% under the PSI warning, but... It fookin didn't feel like it. The brass, gun, and round handled it. But dropping 40, 320, and 300 grain loads made me a little recoil shy when it came to the rest of the groups.
Factory sighters, 3 shot group. 260 grn. All three ended up in a 1" group. so, not bad for a factory load.
Here is the loaded 225's I put together.
Data
It's a five-shot group at 76 yds.
Data
A few of the groups for the day
285 TCGC
250 FTX
Full power 320 grain plonkers. These hurt.
full power 1900fps 300grn JFP
Lessons learned, the rifle seems to like power levels just a tad more than the minimum load data. Full power loads are about useless. They hurt my delicate sensibilities. That being said, Ramshot Enforcer was a joy to load, and it does quite well in 450bm.
