[Jeff Higgins]

That's kind of weird - no reloads at the range? I have never heard of such a thing. My club would lose at least 90% of its membership, and probably go under, if they ever instituted such a rule. Testing reloads is why most of us go there during the "off season", which is any time of year that is not hunting season.

I did try shooting at a local indoor range once (with a bunch of local Pelicans) and was told I could not shoot my cast bullet reloads. "No lead bullets" was the rule, "because we are an indoor range...". So I asked about shooting .22's. No problem, they said. So, ok, I can shoot hundreds of .22's but no centerfire. And lead from impacting bullets is not the problem anyway, it's airborne lead from lead styphanate primers. Anyway, a losing argument with the flunkies behind the counter. HardDrive and I lit off some of my heavy .45 Colt loads anyway - 300 grain bullets from an LBT mold, driven to 1150 fps with 23 grains of W-W #296. Fun stuff...

So what twist is your AR-15? If it's the old 14" twist, it may have trouble with the 60 grain V-Max. It's a pretty long bullet, and generally requires a faster twist to stabilize. Or a lot more velocity. If you have one of the 7", 8", or 9" twist AR-15's you should be fine. My son's .223 (14" twist) does not shoot them well; the slow twist and lower velocity (~ 3000 fps) combine to under-stabilize them. On the other hand, my .220 Swift stabilizes them quite well with its 12" twist and much higher velocity (~3800 fps).