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I am no stranger to Raven Rocks Precision. Regular readers may recall my earlier, overall review of some of their products… you can refresh your memory about that here. The company has some interesting offerings for reloaders and shooters, and I am a fan.

I recently contacted the company’s owner, Bill, about an idea I had for a reloading article that would incorporate another item that I had reviewed herein, an HM Defense Stealth suppressed AR. I am truly impressed with that rifle’s build quality, plus the built-in suppressor makes it very enjoyable to shoot. It has become my favorite 5.56 AR. I highly recommend HM Defense if you are looking for an AR that’s well-built, and made in America… Ohio, to be exact. 

Why A Suppressed AR?

Why would I devote a reloading project to produce loads for a short-barreled, suppressed AR? We all know that velocities out of this rifle’s barrel won’t match what comes out of a full-length AR barrel. They had to make the overall barrel length 16 inches (actually 16.25 in this case), including the long suppressor. So why devote time to doing this?

Because, as I just said, this has become my favorite AR. Not only do you get typical HM Defense quality, but you also get a decibel reduction from about 165 from an unsuppressed AR to 118… that’s a lot. That makes this rifle a lot more fun to shoot, and the lack of noise helps new shooters not be intimidated when they pick it up. It’s about as loud as a .22 magnum out of a rifle. 

This rifle is a great way to introduce new shooters to the AR platform. This is nothing new… suppressed guns are just more fun to shoot. I have a Hi-Point 1095 10mm carbine (another gun made in Ohio) and a Ruger Scout .308, each with a suppressor, that are always in demand when I get them out for my sons and their friends to shoot. Muzzle blast can cause flinch, so the lack of it is a good thing. Plus, to partially answer the lack of velocity, you don’t really lose that much. It’s still a viable gun for whatever you need a 5.56mm AR for, especially at closer ranges. 

Back to Raven Rocks Precision (RRP)… One thing is certain… you’re never really sure what they’re going to have in stock from one day to the next, as they jump on items to sell as they are available. New bullets, factory seconds, oddball calibers… a quick look at their website will reveal what they currently have in brass, bullets, ammo, and firearms. Bill sent me four different bullet weights in .224, including 55-, 70-, 76-, and 77-grain weights. Some of these are factory seconds, but I don’t care – they are all quality bullets. I’ve never had an issue with “reject” bullets… for my purposes, they work fine and are significantly cheaper. Plus, in terms of brands, 

Here’s a more precise listing:

• LTS 55-grain FMJ
• Nosler 70-grain HPBT
• Match Training, Seconds, 75-grain (brand unknown)
• Barnes 77-grain HPBT

These weights pretty much run the gamut of .223/5.56 bullet weights, minus the 68-grain varieties. I was looking for not necessarily guilt-edge accuracy – it is technically an AR pistol, after all – but I was more curious about the velocities that these loads would generate.

Loading These Bullets

I jumped onto the Hornady Reloading Data Center and checked loads shown for similar bullet weights. Even though these specific bullets weren’t mentioned, I have found that, if you stay under the maximum charges, you should be good to go with data for the same bullet weight. 

Thanks to Hodgdon, I had three powders to try:

1. H4895
2. Varget
3. Winchester Sta-Ball Match

Another powder I did a quick, one-bullet sample load with is CFE223. This copper-fouling eraser powder showed decent promise with the 77-grain bullet… the average velocity was 2090, and the standard deviation was only 9. It bears further exploration.

I’ve used these powders in other loads ranging from .223 to .277 Fury. They also all shine in .308, especially. So, I knew I should have success with these new bullets in .223.

How does loading for a suppressed rifle differ from loading for a “normal” one? To be honest, not much. I will say that we did try loading a small charge of Titegroup under a 55-grain bullet in order to craft a subsonic load,  but the way the rifle was sprung – standard factory spring – it didn’t work. We basically had a single-shot rifle. 

So, I decided to load from the middle of the load data – between minimum and maximum –  as I mentioned above, and gave up trying to achieve top velocities. It’s been my experience that the super-blaster loads are not very comfortable to shoot suppressed… although there does seem to be a difference between shooting a rifle with a screw-on suppressor versus one where the suppressor is machined as part of the barrel. You don’t seem to get as much gas blowback with an all-in-one unit, but that may just be me.

How Did They Shoot?

In terms of the reloads, we set some targets up at 25 yards in order to check zero. I wish I could say we then moved back to 100 yards and shot, but that was not to be. As I said above, we have had some very nasty storms blow through that took multiple trees down on our property, dropped a huge limb on our roof, and even totalled one of our vehicles, so 25 yards was as much as I could get without hiring a tree removal service. At least you can get an idea of accuracy potential, but I was as interested in velocity as accuracy since we were shooting that short-barreled rifle.

Let’s get to the numbers… I will list each load, its average velocity, the standard deviation, and the accuracy level. Again, I’m not looking for MOA here… my range has been shortened, as I stated, so I was lucky to get 25 yards. At least we can get an idea of accuracy.

This table shows each bullet’s average velocity, standard deviation, and overall accuracy level: good/average.

The next table shows each bullet and the charge weight of each propellant I used. These were pulled from the Hornady Reloading Data Center and are simply weights between the minimum and maximum values shown.

After crunching the numbers, we can take away a couple of facts. First, don’t expect carbine-length velocities out of a short barrel, suppressor notwithstanding. I had an idea before I started shooting about what kind of velocities I might get, and I was pretty close in my estimation. 

Second, several of these loads exhibited really decent accuracy and would bear further experimentation in a longer barrel.

Other Helpful Equipment

I am always receiving reloading equipment to use in reviews and loading sessions. I am grateful for it, because it has opened up worlds of reloading that were closed to me before. When I started serious reloading in 1978, I graduated from the Lee Loader, where you used a hammer to drive the case into the sizing die. I called it the “Whack-A-Mole” system. As soon as I could, I bought an RCBS Jr. single-stage press, a Uniflow powder measure, and a 5-0-5 balance beam scale. I was in reloading heaven. Fast forward over the decades… now I have multiple progressive presses, turrets, single-stage, and tons of ancillary equipment. It’s about some of that add-on equipment I want to mention now.

First, there’s the RCBS Case Activated Linkage Kit. 

Advanced reloaders out there might be thinking something along the lines of “this is an article about loading for rifles, not pistols” or some such thought. Because, typically, you will use a case-activated powder measure with pistol charges, where you are not dumping lots of powder at critical weights. I justify using this $130 kit on my RCBS turret press for not only pistol loads, but also some rifle uses, as well. If I am loading non-maximum, practice loads for an AR, I will go ahead and hook this thing up. It does speed things up a lot. It’s not quite “progressive-press-fast”, but it’s quicker than weighing every load. 

However, when I am loading for accuracy, such as I am doing now, I will use something like the RCBS Matchmaster powder dispenser or the Hornady Auto Charge Pro. If I need to move powder from a pan to the case, I’ll grab my RCBS Matchmaster Powder Funnel Kit. This gizmo is great – you have adapters for several calibers, and everything is aluminum so that powder won’t stick. I have reviewed all of these items on this site before… if you are interested in more info about them, you can do a quick search.

Speaking of RCBS equipment, I received something from them that really helps when I load .223 or 5.56mm. It’s their $120 Matchmaster .223 Micrometer Seater Die.

Image: rcbs.com

Here it is in the $165 set, with the resizing die. Also shown is another indispensable tool, the RCBS digital micrometer. This $150 measuring tool is (according to the expert, my engineer son, who uses these things every day) for my purposes as accurate as a “normal” mic but is much easier for this non-engineer to read. The counter reads to .00005-inch, and it is accurate to within .0001-inch/.0025mm. This will do nicely for my under-one-inch reloading measuring needs.

Back to the seating die… I understand that micrometer seater dies are not uncommon, but they are a bit rare at this price point. Remember that RCBS has a long history in measurement and weight equipment, with its DNA tracing back to Ohaus, so they are no stranger to making high-quality, reliable measuring equipment at a decent price point. I first used this die at my son’s house and was taken by how easy it was to set it. This die will allow precise seating, and once set, won’t move unless you move it. This die allows you to keep the maximum overall cartridge length of 2.250″ easily. It’s very important not to go past that length, as the cartridge won’t fit in the magazine. Ask me how I know…

Speaking of RCBS equipment, I just received a primer pocket swage tool. 

This $120 bench-mounted (shown here before I screwed it down) swager includes large and small adapters and makes quick work of military or other crimps. It creates a uniform pocket that allows easy seating of the primer. I find that some brands of ammo have very tight pockets and can deform primers when seated, but this gizmo will fix that.  

Another piece of equipment that has proved helpful is a tumbler. 

Here we have a spinning Frankford Arsenal Rotary Tumbler Essentials Kit. This one is a true, roll-over-and-over tumbler, not a vibratory one. This $197 combo includes the smaller of the two rotary tumblers that FA offers and a wet/dry media separator, and is perfect for my needs. It comes with dry media and stainless steel pins. Its 3.3L capacity is enough for 300 .223 cases. 

Here we see it in action…

I think I’m going to like this thing… It’s easier to use than the two vibratory tumblers I own. To get the brass out of them, you must either dig the cases out with a scoop of some kind or remove the tub and dump them out. With this rotary tumbler, simply grab the handle and lift it off the rollers. Then you can either scoop or dump, but dumping is way faster and easier to do. Put everything in the media separator, put the lid on, and turn the handle a few times. It gets the media out of .223 cases, for the most part. That is a hard job, as anyone knows who has done it. The dry media packs inside the cases and is hard to remove. Plus, there is always that one piece of media in the spent primer… The separator does a good job of emptying bottleneck rifle cases.

Alternative media that can be used are the included stainless steel pins… I’m anxious to try them… or a wet solution. You can get wet media cleaner concentrate… RCBS sells it, as does Frankford Arsenal. The RCBS solution is labeled for ultrasonic cleaners – we have an RCBS one – but it will work with rotary tumblers. FA’s is called brass cleaning solution. We had put some wet solution in the tumbler previously, and I ran it and emptied it out using the same separator. It was very handy. One caution if you use the wet media is not to leave it going too long… a couple of hours should do it. I inadvertently left mine going for about 5 hours (I got busy and forgot it was going), and some of the cases were discolored. They are still usable, just not very pretty. One disadvantage of using wet media is that the brass must be dried, which adds what can be a messy extra step. 

Another vital link in the chain is ammo boxes. I have received boxes from RCBS, Frankford Arsenal, and MTM CaseGard. Those I grabbed to store these reloads in happen to be from RCBS, but rest assured, the other companies have you covered, as well. Whether you need to carry 20 rounds or 100 or more (MTM even has crate systems that hold multiple boxes), they have solutions. You can label them however you want, stack them, and store them long-term… they are worth their cost. 

Here are some links to ammo boxes, if you’re interested… they sure beat trying to reuse factory ammo boxes! 

One last piece of equipment that I need to mention is the MTM CaseGard Handloader’s Log.

This large, $40 three-ring binder is organized in such a way that it will help keep you organized in terms of handloads and record keeping. I, for years, had run a spreadsheet with reloading info, or I just wrote things down. This dedicated notebook will help keep you organized… It’s a worthwhile investment.

One last piece of equipment that is indispensable is a range bag. Here is one from Otis Technology that happens to be on closeout, at the time of writing, for only $30. It’s a great investment!

Along with the bag, they also sell lots of cleaning equipment… here is a small example…

I also got an $11 cleaning mat that comes in handy to provide a non-slip surface for cleaning. 

Image: otistec.com

The equipment listed above is not necessary, but it sure helps. 

In Conclusion

There are two types of ammunition you can shoot through your integrally suppressed AR. The first type is subsonic ammo. This is specialty stuff that costs between 1.10 and 1.40 per round, according to a quick search. 

The other type of ammo is standard-pressure ammo, whether you buy it or load it yourself. Reloading is a fulfilling way to produce custom ammo for your particular rifle.

Reloading for an integrally suppressed rifle is not much different than loading for a non-suppressed one. Two points we found that you might want to consider were: 

(1) Stick to below-max powder charges in order to keep the pressures in a good range; 

(2) Remember that most integrally suppressed-ARs use a shorter barrel in order to have the overall barrel length (including suppressor) at 16 inches. 

If you can find a bullet bargain like what RRP offers, you have a recipe for success when loading your suppressed (or unsuppressed, for that matter) AR. Plus, they have dozens of different calibers and styles in addition to .224 bullets, so you’re pretty much covered.

Don’t expect velocities to be in the longer-barreled rifle range. I will gladly give up a few hundred feet per second in order to shoot suppressed. Putting together custom loads for a specific gun is a satisfying pursuit. And that, my friends, is what it’s all about… having fun at the range with ammo you crafted yourself. What’s not to like?