AR defense ammo?

[RB1235]

Sorry guys, did not know where to put this one. The best I could figure was here since self defense guns match up. I searched and all I could find was deer hunting with a 223. Not really looking for that. But if you butchered your own deer and have a description of wound with particular ammo that would be good. As are pics or whatever hunting experiences on hog and deer.

What has me on this is the current availability of ammo. Before I just got the cheapest thing I could find that was in stock, silver bear 62 hp. I was pretty well set on ordering some remanufactured thicker skinned sp or hp ammo for my 1-9" m-4 style. I read a few books and found that fmj, isn't what fmj used to be. Evidently the green tip m855 will fragment as well as the 55 gr fmj lake city type.

I am not terribly interested in the green tip for two reasons. I have no need to defeat barriers and do not care for the 8" of penetration required before fragmentation starts. If you can change my thinking on this please feel free to enlighten me. On the lake city fmj, what I gather is it will fragment under 200 yards. Actually saw some explicit pics of it's terminal performance that changed my mind about the effectiveness of the 5.56.

What has me perplexed is that I would like a good defensive ammo that will do the best it can to the effective range of the caliber. I have had a .223 for years but the only experience is varmints. And from what I gather those style of bullets aren't very good for this use. Being that I have a slow barrel, neither are the 77gr match bullets they are using today in the middle east. The only reason I have not ordered fmj is it is a flat shooting round. I am wondering if a mushrooming round would be better for the entire effective range, instead of the fmj with the 200 yard limit on fragmentation?
Many thanks for helping.

[mcwoodduck]

This past Feb.
I took my 223 Javilina hunting.
I shot a good sized Boar at about 150 yards.  I was using 50 Grain JHP by remington as it was what I could find in bulk to hunt with as well as sight in.  Wanted heavier but it worked.
My round went in to the boar and broke the far shoulder and exited.
My friend used my rifle to take his and it was at about 200 yards.  .11 Miles by the GPS.
Same 50 grain JHP it entered and broke a rib, traveled across the body through the heart and lungs breaking the far shoulder and we found the round, nicly mushroomed and with the lead core seperated.  Rounds did what they were designed to do.
I have 4, .223 rifles and one handgun chambered in 223.  I have sighted them in based on what I am going to use them for and never really thought about defense as a primary role.  the varmint guns get the 45 JHP Rem Yellow box, the Medium game rilfe gets the 50 grainers, the t/c carbine gets the 55 grain soft points and the AR gets the Fed Am Eagle / Lake City 55grain FMJ BT rounds.  I have recovered some of there rounds after hitting hard objects and that were shot through wood and they tumble and spit the lead out the back more than frag ment.
Personally I think as long as you pick a round 45 grains or more you are going to get the proformance you want.  Pick what you best shoot and shoot it often.  My buddy bought an AR as a SHTF rifle and packed it, Mags, and ammo up and waiting for a disaster.  I have a different approach.  I take my rifle when and where I can and shoot it in matches, I have hunted with it and plink with it.  My thinking is how are you supose to hit anything unless you shoot the gun and often.  Buy what ammo works in your rifle and go out and shoot it.  Do some tests of your own on Mellon, boards, and other objects.
If you have ever seen a deer hit with a 223 or 22 Hornet that hits the ribs.  the bullets turn into lots of projectiles and pupl the lungs and the critter goes right down.

[SHOOTALL]

You want a round that would expand to the useful range of the round ? I suggest you consider your weapon , a M-4 ? 16 inch bbl adj. stock 1-9 twist? not really a 600 yard gun . You might get lucky but maybe not with that platform . I would consider 55 gr. hunting bullets either a quality hunting  HP or exposed lead tip bullet. The hunting HP's are made to upset fast the target no so fast . TAP ammo might work. Thing is with that gun most 55 gr bullets will work at the range the gun would be effective. No cut to the gun . If you use it in town a bullet that upsets fast may be a life saver in the case of a miss .
 The use of hunting bullets is not allowed in war because it creats a badder wound  which would seem to me to recomend it for personal protection .

[Lloyd Smale]

for deer hunting and self defense my ars are loaded with 60 grain nos partition handloads.

[Graybeard]

I've really never used a .223 on anything larger than a jack rabbit and might never. Still I am tempted to try it on deer with either the Barnes 53 TSX or Nosler 60 PT. I also tend to think those two might be the best over all compromise bullet for self defense use of the AR.

Some times you might want varmint bullet type expansion and some times you might want solid FMJ type penetration. Ya can't really have both in the same bullet. Supposedly at least the Barnes comes closest with the Nosler PT right on the heels.

Most of my factory .223 ammo is American made 55 FMJ as that was what was available when I was buying it up. I doubt I'll ever bother loading FMJ bullets and most I load are either Nosler BT or Hornady V-Max. They are reasonably priced and in the heavier weights they come in should be excellent if a lot of penetration isn't what's needed.

I guess if I could afford it I'd use only the Nosler 60 PT or Barnes 53 TSX so long as I had an accurate load for them in a self defense situation. I sure can't afford to play around with them for just plinking tho. I hope I never need to use any of my ARs in self defense but if/when the time comes I need to I think my likely scenario might favor a soft point over a FMJ. I have some of all and guess if/when the time comes I'll decide which mag to insert and fire.

[RB1235]

I picked up an interesting bit that you guys may be interested in. One book talked about a swat team. They had a failure to fire with their hornady tap ammo. Luckily when the rifle went click it scared the bad guy and he threw down his gun. They sent the bullets off to be examined. Previously they had 3 ftf in training. And another few ftf when they emptied their carry rounds after the incident. Conclusion was 2 fold. When the bolt slammed forward it would give a primer strike. It deformed the primer. The ftf rounds were .013" deep at primer strike. Normal was .017" deep. Also the primer compound was dislodged just next to the .013" round. A lot of agencies reuse their duty ammo because of cost or when ammo was hard to order. So qualifiying then putting the same round on top after lead to a problem.

[Lloyd Smale]

Bill weve tested alot of the barnes bullets and they for the most part been excellent but the .22s seemed to fail pretty miserably. We just couldnt get them to give reliable expansion in the test media. The partitions would just about allways produce a perfect little mushroom and its knocked to cork out of a couple whitetails and a hog we shot with it.

I've really never used a .223 on anything larger than a jack rabbit and might never. Still I am tempted to try it on deer with either the Barnes 53 TSX or Nosler 60 PT. I also tend to think those two might be the best over all compromise bullet for self defense use of the AR.

Some times you might want varmint bullet type expansion and some times you might want solid FMJ type penetration. Ya can't really have both in the same bullet. Supposedly at least the Barnes comes closest with the Nosler PT right on the heels.

Most of my factory .223 ammo is American made 55 FMJ as that was what was available when I was buying it up. I doubt I'll ever bother loading FMJ bullets and most I load are either Nosler BT or Hornady V-Max. They are reasonably priced and in the heavier weights they come in should be excellent if a lot of penetration isn't what's needed.

I guess if I could afford it I'd use only the Nosler 60 PT or Barnes 53 TSX so long as I had an accurate load for them in a self defense situation. I sure can't afford to play around with them for just plinking tho. I hope I never need to use any of my ARs in self defense but if/when the time comes I need to I think my likely scenario might favor a soft point over a FMJ. I have some of all and guess if/when the time comes I'll decide which mag to insert and fire.

[Graybeard]

Yup Partitions ALWAYS work.

I lack confidence Barnes will as I've heard almost as many reports they didn't as those that did. I'd like to give them a try IF I have a load accurate enough and I think I can do that with the 53 TSX tho I'm not really there yet with my Model Seven Predator .223. My SPS Varmint is accurate enough with them but way too danged heavy for me to take deer hunting.

[SD Handgunner]

You can go to this link http://www.handloads.com/misc/stoppingpower.asp to see what some of the different bullets in different cartridges are capable of in terms of penetration and expansion.

I was quite surprised to see the 55gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips were one of only a few bullets that did not fragment, expanded to .38" and penetrated 11.8".

On a different note I have been shooting 55gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips ever since I bought my first AR-15 a few years back. While I have mainly used this bullet for Varmints and Coyotes (at which it does a great job) I have shot a few Whitetails that had to be dispatched after being hit by vehicles. Granted the Whitetails I have had to dispatch were at close range (25 yards or less) none of the bullets exited on chest shots, but they all did what they were intended to do, put a crippled deer out of its misery.

A couple years ago a friend of mine that is a member of the Wester Central Minnesota SWAT Team asked me to load him up some ammo for testing purposes. I loaded 20 rounds of 40gr., 50gr. & 55gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips for them to test in different test media. After all the smoke cleared my friend told me that all present for the test were actually impressed with the penetration of the 55gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips shooting through several different kinds of barriers.

As for me, I keep 75 rounds in 3 magazines in the glove box of my patrol vehicle, plus 15 rounds in the gun. All of these magazines are loaded with 55gr. Nosler Ballistic Tip Ammo. So far this ammo has done everything I have wanted it to do and I guess until it fails to do that I am going to stick with it.

Larry

[Lloyd Smale]

Ill tell you anohter surpising thing we found. 64 grain winchester a bullet i had high hopes for as a whitetail bullet failed misserably. I came unglued every time we tried it.

[SD Handgunner]

Ill tell you anohter surpising thing we found. 64 grain winchester a bullet i had high hopes for as a whitetail bullet failed misserably. I came unglued every time we tried it.

That too surprised me as I am loading that bullet (64gr. Winchester Power Point) for a buddies Howa .223. It is a 1 in 12" Twist and I am running them at 2900 FPS. He has had excellent results for two years now using that bullet & load on Pronghorns in western South Dakota.

Larry

[Lloyd Smale]

just dont hit bone. By the way another one that did surprisingly well was the 60 grain vmax. Again i wouldnt want to hit bone but it held together better then most.

Ill tell you anohter surpising thing we found. 64 grain winchester a bullet i had high hopes for as a whitetail bullet failed misserably. I came unglued every time we tried it.

That too surprised me as I am loading that bullet (64gr. Winchester Power Point) for a buddies Howa .223. It is a 1 in 12" Twist and I am running them at 2900 FPS. He has had excellent results for two years now using that bullet & load on Pronghorns in western South Dakota.

Larry

[RB1235]

Thanks so far guys. This one is really set up as a 22lr. The wife was wanting an AR for defense. She learned on this one in rimfire so she wanted one just like it. I figured it would be better to keep it set up centerfire and swap to rimfire when needed, instead of the other way around. And of coarse not having to buy another rifle. Yesterday a local shop had a good deal on fed black box 55 gr. fmj so I got some of that. I loaded up some test rounds in 60 partition. No time to bench them yet though.

 I do have 1-7 and 1-8" but they are not ARs. I have 77 gr hp match in them. My AR is not one of the fast barrels that will tolerate heavy bullets (does like up to 69 as it should). I don't want to go with a slower barrel because the 22lr would be a no go and that would really hurt the wallet.
It would be a whole lot easier for her to use one of the other rifles set up with 77gr, but you know how women are??  Another stolen firearm and I can't press charges. 
Again thank you very much. Everyone has helped a great deal. The experiences noted are precisely what I was looking for.