Which would you choose given the parameters.....

[okie]

From the angle of my argument it should be pretty clear that Im not talking about the TAP or Federal bonded ammo. And you are right that this is a technical forum so I again ask you where this information that bonded ammo is overwhelmingly preferred by "LE Pros"? Id also like to know what a LE pro is?

From talking with LE across the country, the Federal TRU 223E is a very common round used. It has a reputation of dropping bad guys. It uses a 55 grain Sierra Game King bullet which uses fragmentation as a wounding mechanism. I have described in a previous post what this round does in a shooting. Ive also seen wounds from bonded bullets. Im not seeing an extreme loss of terminal performance.

The experts in terminal ballistics say that fragmenting rounds work. They say if you are worried about shooting through windshields a lot then you should go with a barrier blind round. That being said, more than a couple guys at work have been in gunfights with guys in and around vehicles. They still shot and killed bad guys through windshields and auto body.

That's being a bit hypocritical, don't you think? You demand I cite sources for my claim (which I did, it's the FBI), and then go on to make completely subjective counterpoints.

You're also completely ignoring my point. As I've said repeatedly, I fully recognize that fragmenting bullets do more tissue damage than bullets that icepick. Obviously no one is debating that.

The point I'm making, that you and vicious seem to be intentionally ignoring, is that simply damaging more tissue doesn't stop gunfights. What stops gunfights is direct hits to vital organs.

The other point I made is that expansion is as good or better at damaging tissue, and doesn't sacrifice inertia in the process. Ergo, all else being equal, a bonded soft point is better than a fragmenting bullet. Same terminal effect in terms of tissue damage, without sacrificing inertia. If you're going to sacrifice inertia, it had better be for a good reason.

You really think he going to answer that question? Even in the face of his BS being completely disproven when referencing the works of actual professionals like DocGKR and Fackler who tell us that fragmentation is an effective and proven method of increasing tissue destruction in rifle velocity rounds.

I have no doubt these less than ideal loads using the TRU223E or Hornady V-max bullets will absolutely do the job with hits to the upper thoracic cavity, but if there is even a forearm in the way or worse an actual barrier...things get iffy when it comes to reaching the vitals, thats why I don't recommend the lighter stuff.

Again, I'm not saying they don't. If you go back and read my posts you'll see that I said they did at least several times. Again, you're either too lazy to read to comprehend, or you simply lack the aptitude, or both. It certainly appears though that you haven't actually been reading my entire posts, but rather maybe just the first sentence and then making a drive by comment that's completely out of context.

[C-grunt]

That's being a bit hypocritical, don't you think? You demand I cite sources for my claim (which I did, it's the FBI), and then go on to make completely subjective counterpoints.

You're also completely ignoring my point. As I've said repeatedly, I fully recognize that fragmenting bullets do more tissue damage than bullets that icepick. Obviously no one is debating that.

The point I'm making, that you and vicious seem to be intentionally ignoring, is that simply damaging more tissue doesn't stop gunfights. What stops gunfights is direct hits to vital organs.

The other point I made is that expansion is as good or better at damaging tissue, and doesn't sacrifice inertia in the process. Ergo, all else being equal, a bonded soft point is better than a fragmenting bullet. Same terminal effect in terms of tissue damage, without sacrificing inertia. If you're going to sacrifice inertia, it had better be for a good reason.



Again, I'm not saying they don't. If you go back and read my posts you'll see that I said they did at least several times. Again, you're either too lazy to read to comprehend, or you simply lack the aptitude, or both. It certainly appears though that you haven't actually been reading my entire posts, but rather maybe just the first sentence and then making a drive by comment that's completely out of context.

Not hypocritical at all. Im giving my experience. You are saying there is a quantitative number that prefer a certain thing. You say the FBI prefer it, but I dont know that one LE agency of 7800 agents counts as an "overwhelming" number considering there are over 17k LE agencies and roughly 800k officers nation wide. Also, while the FBI ballistics labs are top notch and produce good information Im not going to treat their tactics info as gospel. Ive been around enough of the FEDs to know they are mostly college grads with little to no actual experience on the street.

What you are failing to understand is that fragments can and do cause damage to organs that are not hit by the core projectile. My story shows a few instances of this.

[C-grunt]

I have no doubt these less than ideal loads using the TRU223E or Hornady V-max bullets will absolutely do the job with hits to the upper thoracic cavity, but if there is even a forearm in the way or worse an actual barrier...things get iffy when it comes to reaching the vitals, thats why I don't recommend the lighter stuff.

I agree that the heavier and bonded/mono bullets will do better reaching the vitals through odd angle and barriers. I cant talk to the Hornady bullets as I dont think any agency around here uses them. But multiple use the TRU223E. Look at my story of my shouting above and you can see that one of the bullets did pass through a forearm. I also have friends that have shot and killed badguys through auto body and windshields. It reduces effectiveness for sure, but didnt make it ineffective. But Im not trying to say the light hollowpoints are better than bonded/mono bullets. Im just saying they work better than many give them credit for.

Funny thing is we are soon switching from the TRU223E to a bonded Winchester bullet. Not because the TRU223E has had failures on the street, but because we are switching all ammo (handgun, rifle, shotgun) to Winchester because.... drumroll..... it was cheaper than sticking with Speer/Federal.

[okie]

Not hypocritical at all. Im giving my experience. You are saying there is a quantitative number that prefer a certain thing. You say the FBI prefer it, but I dont know that one LE agency of 7800 agents counts as an "overwhelming" number considering there are over 17k LE agencies and roughly 800k officers nation wide. Also, while the FBI ballistics labs are top notch and produce good information Im not going to treat their tactics info as gospel. Ive been around enough of the FEDs to know they are mostly college grads with little to no actual experience on the street.

What you are failing to understand is that fragments can and do cause damage to organs that are not hit by the core projectile. My story shows a few instances of this.

Okay...big breath...

First of all, I want to start by pointing out that my original comment was in response to someone criticizing the proposed use of M193, and my comments were regarding BALL AMMUNITION as related to fleet yaw and fragmentation. We've gone down a bunch of unrelated rabbit trails, and I've been a good sport about it, but especially the comments I've been getting from Vicious are just intentionally provocative and it's time for this to stop. The dude is now stalking me and apparently rallying his troops via PM to do the same, which I must say is a lot of effort from someone who obviously can't be bothered to even read one of my posts in its entirety. I feel like you and I could have a meaningful discussion, but his presence is making that impossible, so this is going to be my last post on this subject.

As far as the fact that fragments can damage organs, I assure you I'm not failing to understand that. I'm simply saying that it's physically difficult for small fragments to travel from one part of the body into another, and that it's better to rely on good shot placement of expanding bullets, vs. spinning the wheel and seeing if a fragment from a badly placed shot will miraculously destroy something vital and save the day. Cases where fragments from a badly placed shot just so happened to be showstoppers is rare in the literature. Does it happen? Yes. Is it the norm? Absolutely not.

I'm also saying that failures to penetrate are common. The literature is full of cases where a shot for some reason didn't go where it should have, because it either didn't penetrate deep enough, or was diverted from its trajectory. So in light of that, I'm saying it's illogical to sacrifice inertia unless there's a compelling reason to, such as barrier penetration (M855/M855A1), long range accuracy (Mk262), or safety factor for bystanders (TAP/TRU).

Third, I'm saying that there's a professional preference for weight retention when it comes to self defense ammo. Do I have stats? No. But the most highly respected bullets on the market are known for their high weight retention, and the world's foremost authority on ballistics has chosen the industry leader in weight retention as their go to.

I recognize that TAP and TRU might be popular with some respected agencies, but by the same token you have to concede that those rounds aren't marketing their tendency to fragment from a terminal standpoint, but from the standpoint of increasing safety. That's an entirely different discussion in and of itself, and one I'm not opposed to having, but it doesn't negate the professional preference for weight retaining bullets from a standpoint of terminal performance.

Lastly, I want to reemphasize my main point in this thread, which is that all of these minutia are almost entirely irrelevant. All respectable options are highly likely to work equally well if shot placement is good, and by the same token they're all equally likely to fail if shot placement is poor. M193, M855, M855A1, Mk262, Gold Dots, 556FBI, and even TAP and TRU for that matter. Pretty much everything mentioned in this thread is perfectly viable and 100% acceptable. At the end of the day, there simply isn't a significantly better mousetrap to be had. I like nerding out about this stuff as much as anyone here, but that's the unvarnished truth. It's all good, and by the same token it's all bad. As long as you stay away from gimmicky stuff you'll be fine, as long as you practice. There's nothing drastically wrong with any of it, just like there's nothing gaemchangingly spectacular about any of it. Honestly, the only thing spectacular is how much some of it costs.

[vicious_cb]

Okay...big breath...

First of all, I want to start by pointing out that my original comment was in response to someone criticizing the proposed use of M193, and my comments were regarding BALL AMMUNITION as related to fleet yaw and fragmentation.

Yes take a breath and show everyone just how ignorant you are about the subject you claim to know so much about. First of all, why do you think fleet yaw and fragmentation are both mechanisms of tissue damage? One is and one is an artifact of the bullet design. This is how I know you are full of it, throwing terms like fleet yaw that Todd mention earlier to make yourself sound knowledgeable. Except you are misusing the term repeatedly.

Ok smartest man in the room who claims to know all about the literature. What do fleet yaw and AOA have to do with one another and how do they effect the terminal ballistics of Ball rounds?

Sorry but you can't fool people to actually study a subject with your BS and I will keep calling you out on it.

Don't take it personally when I rip your arguments apart. Its just when someone like you with incredibly bad advice AKA: Fragmenting rounds are bad, it actually puts people at risk when they choose bad ammo/gear or do stupid shit with guns because they read about it here, and Im not letting that happen and Ill go off on anyone spreading garbage advice like yours especially its a about a subject Ive studied for quite some time.

[okie]

Yes take a breath and show everyone just how ignorant you are about the subject you claim to know so much about. First of all, why do you think fleet yaw and fragmentation are both mechanisms of tissue damage? One is and one is an artifact of the bullet design. This is how I know you are full of it, throwing terms like fleet yaw that Todd mention earlier to make yourself sound knowledgeable. Except you are misusing the term repeatedly.

Ok smartest man in the room who claims to know all about the literature. What do fleet yaw and AOA have to do with one another and how do they effect the terminal ballistics of Ball rounds?

Sorry but you can't fool people to actually study a subject with your BS and I will keep calling you out on it.

Don't take it personally when I rip your arguments apart. Its just when someone like you with incredibly bad advice AKA: Fragmenting rounds are bad, it actually puts people at risk when they choose bad ammo/gear or do stupid shit with guns because they read about it here, and Im not letting that happen and Ill go off on anyone spreading garbage advice like yours especially its a about a subject Ive studied for quite some time.

Once again, you've entirely missed the point. The point I was making in that post is that even if a ball round fails to tumble and or fragment it's not as big of a deal as people make it out to be.

If the placement is good and the round fails to tumble, the chances are extremely high that the target is going lights out post haste, regardless. Just like in the case of an HP that fails to expand (which is more common in the real world than gel tests would have you believe).

Alternately, if the shot placement is poor and the bullet does in fact tumble and or fragment in grand fashion, it's likewise highly unlikely that that shot will effectively neutralize the threat in any timely manner whatsoever.

But please, show me where I've given anyone bad advice. My advice was to hit the easy button and go with 75gr Speer Gold Dot. If that's what you characterize as bad advice, I would sure hate to see what you think amounts to good advice. I'm envisioning your safe being full of RIP...

[Alpha-17]

Did you read any post prior to the one you replied to? I said it like 10 times. I'm not trying to be rude, but there's a little blue button on every quoted post that you can click and read the context of a conversation if you don't want to take the time to read an entire thread.

Yes, I did. I actually went back several pages and tried to follow your arguments/evidence about M855A1, and while I can find YOUR statement/standard that weight retention is super important (the only performance factor you seem to take fault with M855A1 on), there was no real evidence backing that claim up. And at least one person pointed out that both Mk318 and M855A1 achieve the penetration that traditional design bullets need weight to pull off, which you ignored, and then made a comparison to pistol bullets.

The only evidence I've seen you provide is the two pictures linked from this post, in which you compared two different tests, likely from different people at different times from different weapons into different mediums to provide "proof" that Gold Dot was "obviously" better.

Obviously we don't have to debate which of the two has the better chance of success, barriers notwithstanding.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/d8IvDPuVuho/sddefault.jpg
https://le.vistaoutdoor.com/wound_ba..._w43.6gr_e.jpg

Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of expansion over fragmentation on a lot of bullet designs. If your intention was to point out that going with M193 or other ball rounds and relying on pure fragmentation is misguide, I agree with that point, but lumping Mk 318 and M855A1 into the same category as RIP is either disingenuous at best, or just plain ignorant.

[okie]

Yes, I did. I actually went back several pages and tried to follow your arguments/evidence about M855A1, and while I can find YOUR statement/standard that weight retention is super important (the only performance factor you seem to take fault with M855A1 on), there was no real evidence backing that claim up. And at least one person pointed out that both Mk318 and M855A1 achieve the penetration that traditional design bullets need weight to pull off, which you ignored, and then made a comparison to pistol bullets.

The only evidence I've seen you provide is the two pictures linked from this post, in which you compared two different tests, likely from different people at different times from different weapons into different mediums to provide "proof" that Gold Dot was "obviously" better.





Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of expansion over fragmentation on a lot of bullet designs. If your intention was to point out that going with M193 or other ball rounds and relying on pure fragmentation is misguide, I agree with that point, but lumping Mk 318 and M855A1 into the same category as RIP is either disingenuous at best, or just plain ignorant.

Like I said, my original comment was in response to someone who was essentially saying don't use M193 because it might not tumble enough to fragment. I'm paraphrasing, but that's pretty much the gist of his comment.

Then somehow the peanut gallery interprets that to mean fragmentation is 100% bad 100% of the time, and then they proceed to combine things I said responding to someone else who vaguely referenced hydrostatic shock, further muddying the waters.

I assure you I'm not attacking M855A1. I've extolled its virtues in other threads and I would buy the shit out of it if it were available. Hypothetically, though, let's say there was a bonded soft point that could somehow do all the things M855A1 could do in terms of penetrating armor and yet somehow didn't fragment, but rather expanded and retained most or all of its weight in the target. Obviously that would make M855A1 obsolete.

I also never compared rifle and pistol calibers. I don't know where he got that from. I went back and reread my posts and I'm not sure what he was referring to. He didn't quote a particular post so I don't know. I'm assuming he was referencing where I mentioned that you can't get rifle like wounds from pistol caliber energy levels irrespective of velocity, and that was in response to where he said he thought the guy talking about hydrostatic shock was actually referring to something else. I've known many people to use the term hydrostatic shock to describe like a "shockwave" caused by high velocity rounds that presumably tears flesh. My point wasn't to compare rifle and pistol calibers but just to illustrate that regardless of what the guy actually meant hydrostatic shock isn't really a demonstrably tangible thing that you can use to evaluate bullets.

[davidjinks]

SD/HD gun , but live out in the country and might have to bang it at a decent distance. Could be meth-heads with body armor, who knows. I'm not going to Ukraine or to Taiwan, but some of those "battlefield" issued ammo specs would come in handy. Which one be bestest for all-'round use?

MK 318

MK262

M855A1

The vaunted "FBI" load M556FBIT3

MK318 has been pretty much unobtanium lately. When it comes in to stock it’s more the MK262. I won’t touch M855A1 because I like my rifles. The FBI load is ok but if you go that route, look at the Nosler offering in either .223 or 5.56 which is a lot easier to get (Currently have a few mags loaded with that in the HD rifle).

Speer GDHP is another good round. I like the 55 and 75 grain rounds. The 55 matches my M193 when shooting at the range and the 75 is very close to my MK262 zero.

All in all, I will take the 262 all day. Blackhills makes a fine round, it can be sourced relatively easily, not very cost prohibitive, and I get great accuracy and precision out of my barrels using it. My current mix of ammo is 2k of MK262, 5k of M193, and a few mags of Nosler and GDHP.

[1168]

Directed at no one in particular: M855a1 isn’t disintegrating M4s. This concern has come up a few times in this thread, and I believe it to be a non-issue.