Getting the most out of your 5.56 SBR rifle with pricey .223 "hunting ammo"....

[ALCOAR]

Until I gather enough to organize into a dedicated thread, I'll share a few more results from tests I did today....

The setup stays exactly the same for each of these different types of .223/5.56 ammo......25yds/10.5" 5.56 1/7 barrel/ water as medium


5.56 M855 62gr. FMJ

Penetration: 23.5"

Expansion: None

Fragmentation: None

Late upsetting....2 jug, and then turned into a wad cutter tubbling down and to the left through a complete third jug, where it entered it's fourth jug and remained. Thankfully I never have to rely on that shit above.


Pic of penetration....


Pic of the bullet's path....


Pic of the recovered M855 projectile....



Hornady TAP 60gr. Barrier (Nuclear Power plant carry ammo)....

Penetration: 13.5"

Expansion: roughly double the original

Fragmentation: None

Overall while this round has nowhere near the qualities of the first two rounds tested, or is ideal for my HD/PD needs...I think it pretty much did exactly what it what suppose to do, which is to upset very early with heavy expansion ending in quite shallow overall penetration.

Pic of the penetration....


Pic of the bullet's path....


Pics of recovered 60gr. TAP barrier round....

[Ironman8]

In regards to the TAP Barrier, would you say that this *could* be a good round for HD or a setting such as an apartment where there are no shortage of people around and just on the other side of the wall?

Or would you still use your TSX/Fusion? Which btw, can you load the fusion projectiles? Are they available anywhere?

[Clint]

Those M855 results are eye opening.

From a 16" barrel they do somewhat better, at least breaking in half.

But when launched at the lower velocity from the shorter barrel, they absolutely stink.


Here is another thread on the XM223SP1, which is same/similar to the fusion.

It looks like the projectile still expanded somewhat at 1900 fps, but I'm not sure how much slower it can go.

[jr0xas]

jr0xas....glad I could help out brother, here is a bit of info on just my own personal preferences as I'm certainly no Doc

I remember just a cpl. years ago when myself and the majority of other serious AR shooters I knew pretty much held Hornady's TAP 5.56 75gr. T2 round as the king of PD/HD/Duty type ammo. I still do love T2 because of it's outstanding accuracy in my Rock 5R barrels, but today none of my designated HD/PD mags contain T2 or any other heavy OTM round for that matter like MK262 Mod1.

Now all my HD/PD mags have barrier blind/bonded options in them, and by their nature they all do weigh b/t 50gr.-64gr. depending on which one you go with. This quote from Doc in his 5.56 Duty Loads sticky should shed a bit more light on that question....

" Keep in mind, that with non-fragmenting bullet designs, heavier bullet weights are not necessarily better, especially at closer ranges and from shorter barrels. As long as penetration and upset remain adequate, it is possible to use lighter weight non-fragmenting bullets and still have outstanding terminal performance. With fragmenting designs, a heavier bullet is ideal, as it provides more potential fragments and still allows the central core to have enough mass for adequate penetration. In addition, heavier bullets may have an advantage at longer ranges due to better BC and less wind drift."

So much good info in this thread! Again, many thanks TRIDENT!!!

[Pappabear]

Trident, nice work as usual. What happened to our beloved VMAX?

Why didn't it make the cut to be included in the test.

PB

[jwfuhrman]

Damn I love when you make these threads Alex, its like we are actually on a gun forum again, and a good one to boot.

Back to the subject at hand, I know you were experimenting with the hornady Superformance 53gr ammo for awhile. What do you think of ammo like that out of a SBR for HD/PD? I have 60rds of that stuff that I mainly use out of my 16in RECCE/3gun for varmints but if it would make a good HD/PD round, I'll buy more for that purpose.

[duece71]

Great thread. Thank you for posting.

[technician]

I would be interested to know if the performance goes across the Fusion line. They have 7.62x39 and .308 rounds that would be worth investigating.

[KalashniKEV]

They have 7.62x39 and .308 rounds that would be worth investigating.

I was thinking the same thing...

A consistently loaded, quality round with a high performance bullet from even a lowly AK could be formidable.

[ALCOAR]

Thanks guys for the kind words

ironman....personally I'm an all or nothing guy in regards to your question. Either I'm gonna get a true barrier blind load, or I'm going with a dramatically reduced penetrating load like a 60gr. TAP vmax load. So I really don't see much use for that Hornady Barrier 60gr. rd.

No sure about reloads for the fusion since I'm not a reloader...hopefully somebody else can chime in on that.

pappabear....count on me busting out both the 55gr. vmax and 53gr. superformance vmax for you. I'm interested to see the results as well.

jw....stay tuned as noted above, I'll get some results asap on the ballastic tip stuff. personally I could be ignorant on my non usage of ballastic tip ammo for pd/hd situations, but I just want to give myself the very best option for ending a fight as fast as possible, and the round that I believe best does that for me is one that can defeat barriers in which I'm likely to encounter when faced with a HD/PD situation using my mrp cqb 10.5".

I do love them for accuracy