Welcome to the social regressive! A few days ago Federal announced a new
cartridge: the 224 Valkyrie. There isn't much data out there about it but we are
going to speculate wildly based on some of the info that they have provided. And
I think we're going to get a pretty decent indication of what this cartridge
is going to be designed for and especially how it fits in the market
compared to things like the granddaddy, the 223 Remington and the 22 Nosler,
which is still pretty new. It's going to be a kind of a tricky business figuring
out which one is going to be used for what applications, but I think just based
on what we've seen so far I think that we can kind of figure out where to apply
what cartridge to what purpose. And one of the things that you have to keep
in mind as a baseline is that all these cartridges are designed around this: the
ar 15 not the ar 10. Everything is going to be designed to fit within the
magazine limitations that you get with an ar 15, which usually tops out at about
two and a quarter inches 2.250 or 2.260 on kind of the
the extreme edge. We've had all kinds of cartridges out there designed to fit
within this and to kind of increase that performance over the old 223, so we're
just going to delve into this and we're gonna see: do these differences really
make a difference? And when do you maybe want to pick one cartridge over the
other? While I've got you right here I just wanted to point out that this is
the Bushnell Engage that I've got sitting up on this ar-15. This is a two
and a half to 10 power. I did a review on this recently so make sure you go check
out that review. It's a really neat scope for actually some of the things that
we're going to be talking about. As you start to increase the capabilities of an
ar-15 you really want a scope that's going to be able to handle the new
situations that confront you. Let's take a close look at 223 Remington. This is
the cartridge that defines the limitations of the ar-15 platform. You
get a pretty slim case; it has a three hundred seventy eight thousandths rim on
there, and the head is pretty much the same diameter. Has a decent taper going
up to a rather short neck; this is two hundred thousandths on the length right
here, and the total length of the case itself is one point six seven
zero inches so not all that long, and then total max length is going to be
defined by the magazines. That needs to be about two and a quarter inches and
then on the bleeding edge you can get about two point two six zero inside an
ar-15 magazine. That's going to limit the projectile you can have in this,
because you do have a defined case size, and then you have a defined
magazine length. It's all based around this the fifty five grain Full
Metal Jacket projectile. You can start to get into some other fun types of projectiles
within that weight and that length, so here's a hollow point from mid-south.
These things perform really well on critters. Then you can get into some
heavier projectiles like these seventy-five grain Hornady match projectiles right here.
These do not really expand.
It does have a hollow point, but it doesn't act like
one. You can still get some increased distances with this thing, you can
increase the energy that you provide on its target, and these are going to work
better than either of these in a game animal style of situation. This is just going to
provide more energy, especially as distances increase, and this right here
is kind of the edge of what you can put into a 223 case, just because you know
otherwise you're going to be shoving a lot more projectile down into the
case and you're going to start getting beyond the limitations of what the
magazine can hold. Of course you have the 77 grain Sierra match kings and
really those are kind of the bleeding edge. I don't know of any that start to
get into any heavier weight, so with those limitations in mind, what if we
wanted to take a 223 Remington cartridge and just get more powder into it?
That's where you start to get into the 22 Nosler. You take the case of that - you
take the body and you blow it out make it wider. You keep the rim; it's still a
.378 rim so you don't have to change out your bolt head, which is really nice.
You don't have to go searching for special parts for your rifle.
Everything's kind of standard there and really all you have to do is just swap
out the barrel as well and then you're good to go. But
this one, in addition to just making things bigger, it does make some
improvements in some of the other case dimensions. First off, that neck that I
said was really short on 223 Remington and which isn't going to really lend
itself to extreme precision? The case was kind of based on the 222
Remington that has a very long neck. It's going to help keep that projectile really
stable as it makes the jump to the lands. the 223 Remington is pretty short and
here on the 22 Nosler what we've done is we've increased this to 245 thousandths so
it's over the diameter of the projectile and it starting to get into some of that
that good territory where you're going to get a really even jump into the lands.
Case length is still limited at one point six seven zero so it isn't any
different than 223, but the shoulder is a vast improvement, taking that 23 degree
angle that you get on 223 Remington and turning it into 30 degrees and with this
you're just going to get a more consistent burn and you're going to get
more burn happening inside the case as a lot of people say, so that you just get
more consistency and you're going to get probably less throat erosion which is
kind of a big deal, because the two cases that we're really looking at today - the
224 Valkyrie and this 22 Nosler - since they're both increasing the amount of
powder that you're putting behind that you know that little tube that you're
shoving this projectile down, these are going to increase the rate of your barrel
degradation. That's one thing to keep in mind.
223 isn't necessarily all that great on barrels. It does kind of burn
through them, but compared to these other two it's it's a lot nicer. In addition to
the case dimensions you also have the chamber dimensions. 223 Remington is one
that's known for having a very short leade before that projectile hits the lands
so you can't really seat your projectiles out all that far. They started to
make some changes as time went on. you have the 5.56 millimeter chamber which
pushes the leade back just a little bit, and then you get the 223 Wylde or 223
"Wild." That one makes kind of a conical
leade going into the lands, and it gets you a little bit longer access for, you
know, some of the longer projectiles like the 75 to 77s, and it tends to handle your
heavier projectiles better. The 22 Nosler kind of expands on that. You get a nice
long leade so you can handle your heavier projectiles. This is the kind of cartridge
that I think is going to work really well with both your lighter projectiles like
55s and be able to flex all the way up to your 75s. Like I was saying you
kind of top out because you are limited by the length of the magazine and in an
ar-15 you're kind of stuck with your 75 grain projectiles. You can't get into
anything bigger. There will be people that will chamber this in bolt-action
rifles, but since this is really designed as an AR platform round you're probably
not going to find any ammunition for that. everything is going to be kind of
limited to that that AR style. so yeah you're gonna top out at 77 grains. so
what about this mystery round, 224 Valkyrie? there really isn't any hard
data out there, but there is a little bit of pirate info out there, and then they
have released some imagery. I think from that we can kind of extrapolate
what this case is going to be like, and how this thing is going to run. first off,
there was a guy out on a forum that managed to find one of the cases
out at his range and it was stamped 224 Valkyrie.
he said the the base of this thing - the rim - measured out at 419 thousandths, so
around 420 thousands. That kind of indicates that perhaps this round is
based on 6.8 spc, and what they've done is they've shoved the shoulder back and
then they have necked down to that 224 projectile to hold that the case length
overall. If we extrapolate from there just kind of based on the imagery that
federal has released, it looks like it's going to be about 1.620 inches in
length; somewhere in that ballpark. so it is definitely shorter than 223 and 22
Nosler and you kind of have to do this because some of the info that
federal has officially officially released is that they're going to be
dealing with a 90 grain smk projectile which is just gigantic. if you're going to
be able to run one those projectiles without having to shove it
way back into the case you're going to need a much shorter case in that ar-15
if you want everything to come out to be able to fit in its magazine. so yeah I
think we're looking at about 1.620 inches on case length. The
shoulder looks like it's about 30 degrees, much like that 22 Nosler. The
neck length looks like it's also been increased just looking at the images and
then just kind of extrapolating some of the lengths that I was able to measure
on the base. you know I'm just looking at the images that they have it looks like
it's going to be about 0.27 inches of length on that neck, which is
considerably longer than even you get on the 22 Nosler. II think this is going
to be a really good one for stabilizing those projectiles, making sure everything
lines up nicely into the lands on the barrel. I think that this will be
a very precise rifle, especially coupled with that 30 degree shoulder. you should
get a good precise burns and probably the one thing that I can guess at is
that you also get a pretty good leade until you actually do hit the lands, just
because people are gonna be messing with some bigger projectiles. I think there's
gonna be a pretty big jump and that may make this not an optimal cartridge for
some of the lighter projectiles - we'll see how this goes, and of course there will
be actual hard data later to see how this will go.
But it may not handle 55 grain projectiles and some of the lighter varmint style
stuff quite as well. That's kind of to be expected since you know if the
first round that's being developed for this thing uses a 90 grain projectile; if
you're cutting things back to about 60% of that mass, then yeah it's probably not
designed for your varmint weight projectiles. now bear in mind that a lot of this
discussion is still speculative. SAAMI and Federal have not released true stats
on the 224 Valkyrie yet, but I think based on some of the things that we've
seen I think we can still get a pretty decent idea of when to choose one
cartridge over the other. If there is some kind of revelatory information that
comes later I'll make a new video and I'll link to it somewhere here. But I
think we still have a pretty good idea of when to pick one over the other. 223
Remington not going away anytime soon. it's the one that the ar-15 was built
around in the first place, so every one of its parts and you know all the
magazines and stuff. this is one that's going to be economical.
there's tons of ammunition out there and actually the ammunition and all those
parts they're all very effective. the total system is very effective. I use
this for taking prairie dogs. this is a great one for coyotes, and you can
start to, you know, bump this up into larger game like deer and hogs and that
sort of thing based on what kind of projectile you choose and that sort of thing.
How you load these, maybe. I have no trouble hitting a prairie
dog out to about 350 yards. it does start to get played with by the wind just
because those projectiles they aren't moving all that fast and they they don't weigh
all that much, so this is where you start to get into the the 22 Nosler, and
where this one is going to be really special.
first off, 22 Nosler is going to use a lot of the same parts as 223 Remington
including that bolt. you don't have to swap out the bolt face or anything like
that. you don't need special parts. basically, all you have to do is just
swap the magazine over to a 6.8 spc style magazine, and you need to swap the
barrel, and then you're good to go for 22 Nosler. but what are you gonna get in
return? okay you're gonna get fewer rounds in your magazine, but you are
going to get a much flatter trajectory for varmints and because that case is
the exact same length as 223 Remington. you're going to get the benefits and the
distractions of that of projectile selection basically you know if you want to run 55
grain projectiles in 22 Nosler it's gonna run great and it's gonna go very fast.
you're gonna get a great flat trajectory there. if you want to get into some of
these heavier 75s and 77s? excellent, excellent performance. this would be a
great one for deer, for you know for folks they don't want a whole lot of
recoil or they just want to run an ar-15 platform=, and it's going to be a great
predator harvester. you're definitely going to be able to increase those distances
where you can make hits on things and it's going to buck the wind a lot better
just because it is moving faster. 224 Valkyrie: that's where things
start to change quite a bit, and I think we're going to kind of get out of varminting
for a lot of things just because there is going to be probably a
longer lead in that chamber. We're going to see over time how this goes.
This might not be a cartridge to choose if you want to be firing your 55 grain
projectiles. so you know we'll see over time how people do with that if it does
indeed handle those lighter projectiles really well. but since it is designed for
a 90 grain projectile you know that's kind of the first loading that we're seeing
out there and that that's one of the real telling things about a cartridge:
what is its first projectile? what's it designed for? the 223 Remington
was designed for that 55 grain projectile, and so everything else is just
kind of messing around to see if they can increase performance there,
but it's still based on 55. 22 Nosler: it kind of takes that same formula so it's
still kind of based around 55, but they've done some things to make it
handle the bigger stuff a lot better. and then this one it's designed around a 90
grain projectile so if you start to deviate from that very much you're starting to
get off kind of in the weeds. the 90s? they're going to be just
excellent for things like like the predator work that I mentioned
earlier, they're going to be great against deer, and I think a lot of the
match competitors especially are just going to love this thing. it's going to be very
capable in your PRS style of matches just because there's not going to be
that much recoil compared to a lot of others, but it's gonna stay supersonic a
long time. those 90 grain projectiles are heavy. they're gonna make havoc
with the wind. the wind is not going to be able to blow them around all that
much. so yeah they're just gonna keep on trucking and they're going to deliver a
lot more energy downrange than some of these others that are you know even a 75
green pill. you're gonna see just a big increase in how much energy you can put
on, especially a target like a deer or a hog. great choice for that .and
then of course they're going to be the tactical applications. this is one that I
can't really comment on because I'm just a hobbyist, but I can really see how if
you wanted to be able to take an AR 15 platform and be able to increase
the amount of I guess you know your your hit ratio out at longer ranges and be
able to deliver a lot of energy, it makes a ton of sense to me. I think that really
all three of those cartridges are you know are gonna... 223 is gonna remain as
popular as ever. 22 Nosler I think is going to grab you
know a good chunk of the market, and 224 Valkyrie as well. and for each of them I
really see kind of unique functions for all of them and I think it just depends
on what you want to do. thanks for watching if you like this video be sure
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