I just bought a treasure (at least to me). I found a Remington 722 in 244. These rifles had the 1:12 twist barrels. I want to handload for target/varmint shooting and ordered some Hornady and Sierra 70 and 75 grain bullets and Winchester brass. Do any of you guys have favorite loads for this caliber and rifle? I may have powder on hand that will work, but may not be the ideal. I have been handloading a .257 Roberts 28 degree and have powder for that. I will mostly target shoot it at 100 yards with an occasional opportunity to shoot it at 300 - 350 yards. Any advice welcome. Thanks, Peter.

the data for the 6mmRemington isn't any differnt than for the .244Rem., other than avoiding the 100gr. bullets. Some of the shorter 100gr. bullets will work (flat based) but usually it's best to stick with the 90gr. bullets (or the old 95gr. Nosler) as the heavy weight.


I do like the 75gr. Hornady and have had good results in all the 6mm's with that bullet.

It's an easy to please case, using powders from the medium range (3031, 4895, etc.) well but also performing with the slower powders (4350, 4381).

Good rifle...should be a nice rig once you work out the right load.

A 257 Roberts and a 244 Rem only differ slightly in neck diameter- otherwise they are the same. Any data that works in 257 will do well in 244, too.
Like Ribbonstone said, the 244 may stabilize some 100 grain bullets, maybe not. The 95 Nosler partition is a superb deer bullet. The Speer 90 grain is also built for deer, not varmints, and it's a decent deer bullet, too.

I telephoned both Sierra and Hornady bullet technicians. Both said stick with bullets no heavier than 85 or 87 grains. For my target/varmint shooting the 70 or 75's are just fine. As far as powder, one said RE-19, Varget, or 4350 (no lite loads) and the other said 4064, RE-15, 4350 or 4895 powder. Of course I have none of these powders. I have IMR4198, IMR4831, W748, H4831SC, H322, BLC-2. I've been using IMR4831 in the .257, and bought the H4831SC to try in it, but never got that far. Any ideas welcome. Thanks, Peter.

Of the powders you have on hand, I've used only IMR4831 in the 6mm, but that was with 100gr bullets. For 70/75 I would try the W748 and BL-C2 among your collection. My personal picks for those weights are Varget and H4895.

I used to load 52.0 gr of N205 with an 85 gr bullet. That was back before many people had chronographs, so I don't know how fast it was, but it was plenty fast. N205 was replaced by MRP, because it had pressure problems with different lots of powder. MRP is basically the same as RL-22, but Alliant doesn't recommend anything slower than RL-15. The result of that is a 75 gr not going any faster than a 95 gr and that's not too good for a varmint loading even if it is 3400 fps. This (http://www.alliantpowder.com/reloaders/RecipeDetail.aspx?title=Centerfire%20Load&gtypeid=2&weight=80&shellid=1052&bulletid=180) data from Alliant for an 80 gr bullet may give you some ideas.

Speer #7 was using a 722 with 26" barrel as their test gun. The max load listed for a 75 gr bullet was 51.0 gr of H4831 at 3510 fps or 48.0 gr IMR 4350 at 3610 fps. Lee's Modern Reloading 2nd Edition, page 274 says that 40 year old load of H4831 produces 3488 fps and 58,875 psi, but they probably used a shorter barrel.

My M600 6mm always shot better with pretty close to max loads of slow powders even with the short 18.5 inch barrel.

H4831SC is ballistically the same as H4831, Speer #13 lists for 75 grain bullets, 47.0 grains starting, 3045 FPS, 51.0 Max 3310 FPS.

IMR 4831, 70 grain bullets, 48.0 grains, starting 3171 FPS, 52.0 Max, 3485 FPS

Good luck and a great find!