Here are a couple pics of the loaded ammo. I tried to get a closeup of the tip to help people understand what is being descibed but I'm not very good with a camera.
I fired some of these through an 11.5" and a 16". Here's what I got:
11.5" CL 1:9
2310fps, 139 ES, 44 SD
16" CL 1:9
2706fps, 191 ES, 53 SD
I lost alot of velocity in the 11.5". Enough that I'm not confident these would be very useful for one. They must be using a fairly slow powder that just doesn't build speed well in short barrels.
The 2700fps from the 16" is about what I expected from a .223 pressure load. My 62gr TSX handloads (using TAC and Barnes' 5.56 pressure data) get 2700fps from the 11.5" and 2850fps from the 16".
I was not impressed with the extreme spreads and standard deviations (my handloads give me extreme spreads under 40fps and standard deviations under 15) but I wasn't surprised. I've found the same exact thing with my Federal 55gr TRU duty ammo.
These were 10 shot strings. Also a word on accuracy, I only shot them at 25 yards and not from a bench so this isn't definitive but at 25 yards my groups were just 1.25" (11.5" with Eotech) and .75" (16" with Accupoint at 4x). I'm guessing in more controlled circumstances I might get the groups to 2"-3" at 100 yards using these barrels. Both barrels I was using were light weight chrome lined barrels, not target or high dollar barrels. Not great but not completely unacceptable either given the circumstances.
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I've been doing some water jug penetration testing with TSX's recently and I decided to try one of these. Using 1 gallon milk jugs filled with water I shot a 62gr Federal XM223SP1 round into a row of jugs at 10 yards. This gave an impact velocity of approximately 2670fps.
The bullet passed through 3 jugs and stopped in the 4th. This was midway between the performance of a 50gr TSX (stopped in jug 3) and a 62gr TSX (stopped in jug 5). The bullet expanded to a max diamater of .58" (widest point) and retained 52.4gr (84.5%) of its weight.
Overall, I think that is very good considering the price of this ammo. It is obviously bonded (see photots), expanded well, and penetrated well. I'm not thrilled with the velocity spread, but I think this is definitely a big step up from M193 or M855 with regard to terminal performance.
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