high quality 5.56 ammo choices?

DavinFelth · Jan 10, 2012

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I like the PMC .223 55 gr for my Mini-14, so when I bought my AR I tried using the same ammo, but was getting some failure to extract issues. I gave the PMC X-Tac 5.56 62gr ammo a try and it's worked flawlessly for me.

doubletap007 · Jan 10, 2012

DavinFelth said:
<broken link removed>

I like the PMC .223 55 gr for my Mini-14, so when I bought my AR I tried using the same ammo, but was getting some failure to extract issues. I gave the PMC X-Tac 5.56 62gr ammo a try and it's worked flawlessly for me.

i was on another forum yesterday and they were saying 62gr is the only grain to stay away from,the core is too loosely constructed and it does not frag right.maybe for plunking but not for defense or long range.i will see if i can find the discussion.see below

An example of what happens when uses a longer/heavier bullet in a too slow twist rate is shooting a SS109/M855 62 grain bullet in a 1x12" twist barrel. What will happen is right around 100 meters the bullet has lost too many RPM's and will actually start flying end over end - with horrible accuracy. The bullet may strike "sideways" - which is called "key-holing" - leaving a sideways imprint of the bullet. Hitting a body with a "key-holing" bullet aint bad - the bad part is the bullet won't go where it was aimed - so you only hit with a "fluke". Since our goal is to hit when we are aiming at something - key-holing is BAD. MIssing is WAY TOO easy with bullets that fly true - missing is almost garaunteed with bullets that don't fly true.

As far as ammo choices:
First choice BY A LONG MARGIN would be the 75 or 77 grain ammo it fragments beautifully from point blank out to many hundred meters.

Second choice would be M193 or equivalent 55 grain ammo if fragments reliably from point blank to around 150 +/- meters.

DISTANT third choice would be the SS109/M855 62 grain ammo which is not a reliable fragmenting round at any range

this discussion was about the evolution of the ar barrel starting with a 1:12 twist rate which is no longer a factor with our newer barrels being mostly 1:7~1:9 but explains the construction of the 62gr core.