quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:


The DMR guys with their fancy Larue's use the Hornady 5.56 75gr BTHP TAP.

This was my premium "go to" load before picking up the Fusion MSR this week. While I think it will work fine for most instances, after reading this thread it seemed there was an alternative load that might be better suited so some scenarios while still maintaining the requirements I had wanted out of the TAP load. Guess I'll be making use of the random colored Pmags Ive been collecting.

Para, to me the TAP ammo in 55, 62, and 75 has proven to be extremely accurate in both JHP and FMJ. I cannot attest to penetration but, I can tell you that the accuracy is very close on both my 14.5" and 16" BCM uppers.

Also, I have a 1000 rds of 5.56 soft point that I got when you were talking about SP for home defense.

Good luck with your decision.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Well, like more than a few members here, I keep a substantial supply of M193 on hand; roughly 1.5 metric shit-tons, commonly referred to as an ass-load.

Without any doubt, though, there are many choices that would be potentially more effective than M193 as a close-range antipersonnel round.

I will continue to rely on M193, but heavier slugs of different composition/construction will, in my opinion, do a better job in this role.

This is the way I look at it.

I will continue to stock pile the 855/193 for SHTF and plinking. But I have 20 mags loaded up in a backpack with hornady TAP in case of an emergency.

quote:

Originally posted by walker77:

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Well, like more than a few members here, I keep a substantial supply of M193 on hand; roughly 1.5 metric shit-tons, commonly referred to as an ass-load.

Without any doubt, though, there are many choices that would be potentially more effective than M193 as a close-range antipersonnel round.

I will continue to rely on M193, but heavier slugs of different composition/construction will, in my opinion, do a better job in this role.

This is the way I look at it.

I will continue to stock pile the 855/193 for SHTF and plinking. But I have 20 mags loaded up in a backpack with hornady TAP in case of an emergency.

Damn, I keep 14 Pmags and 5 Glock mags in a Tuff Products pouch inside my pack and found the weight to be less than ideal, especially with the other gear in there. Caused me to re evaluate how many loaded mags I needed. Maybe I just need to put some big boy pants on.

quote:

Originally posted by WARPIG602:

quote:

Originally posted by walker77:

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Well, like more than a few members here, I keep a substantial supply of M193 on hand; roughly 1.5 metric shit-tons, commonly referred to as an ass-load.

Without any doubt, though, there are many choices that would be potentially more effective than M193 as a close-range antipersonnel round.

I will continue to rely on M193, but heavier slugs of different composition/construction will, in my opinion, do a better job in this role.

This is the way I look at it.

I will continue to stock pile the 855/193 for SHTF and plinking. But I have 20 mags loaded up in a backpack with hornady TAP in case of an emergency.

Damn, I keep 14 Pmags and 5 Glock mags in a Tuff Products pouch inside my pack and found the weight to be less than ideal, especially with the other gear in there. Caused me to re evaluate how many loaded mags I needed. Maybe I just need to put some big boy pants on.

I dont plan on carrying it daily. If things turn bad, I plan on grabbing it and as much as I can and throwing it in the truck and head south. The backpack and SBR will be in the cab with me.

Just an fyi but PSA has Fed tac bonded 62gr for 11.99 a box, pretty good deal.

quote:

Originally posted by dewhorse:
Just an fyi but PSA has Fed tac bonded 62gr for 11.99 a box, pretty good deal.

Dewhorse, you've got mail.

Blackhills 50 grain TSX
Blackhills 62 grain TSX
Federal 62 grain MSR
Speer 55 grain
Speer 64 grain

I know you said you're not into the heavy weight 5.56 loadings. However MK262 MOD1 has more pros to it than cons. It isn't the best at punching through glass but it still works.

The above listed ammunition is all 5.56mm, meets your required specifications and has great ballistics; internal and external.

I've used all of the above and have never been disappointed with any of them. Very accurate, backyard testing is within listed specifications.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
I've long been a proponent of M193 for 16" carbines. I have some ARs which have never seen anything but Federal M193.
After many years of feeling comfortable with the wounding mechanism of the cannelured 55 grain fmj projectile, I have begun to wonder if I would be better off with some of the newer generation "tactical" projectiles, such as the Hornady TAP.

The 62 grain version of the TAP looks great, and I found some chrono results online for this round out of a 16" barrel. They clocked right at 2700 fps, which is fine, although I wonder how much more velocity I'll lose out of my pet 14.5" AR. I wouldn't mind staying with the 55 grain slugs, although a slightly heavier softpoint in the 60 to 62 grain range is appealing to me. I won't be shooting any of the very heavy stuff, which I know has its fans.

Federal Tactical Bonded looks great, too, although there is no way I'm paying 2 bucks a round for .223 ammo. The TRU stuff- I'm avoiding it, based upon comments I found online about it.

Primarily, my use would be home defense, but there is a possibility I may have to use this ammo to punch through auto glass. A crimped/staked primer is a must. Just one less thing to worry about.

Your thoughts/experience/ammo recommendation are welcome.

For the proponents of m193, how close do you think the xm193 stuff is to real m193?
Real m193 has pretty stringent standards on velocity and jacket thickness at the cannelure. If that's not within spec, fragmentation will not occur properly.

How do you know the 193 clones will work? Or will it just be a 55 gr fmj?
There is not a spec on xm193.

You can find testing of commercially available M193 online. Here's an example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZPGSiDs5_k

If you're thinking that the 193 Federal offers to civilians is substantially different than whatever is offered to military/law enforcement, you're mistaken.

quote:

Originally posted by smithnsig:
For the proponents of m193, how close do you think the xm193 stuff is to real m193?

How do you know there is a difference?

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by smithnsig:
For the proponents of m193, how close do you think the xm193 stuff is to real m193?

How do you know there is a difference?

I don't. I just didn't know if there was. Wasn't trying to imply anything. I have about 500 rounds of it. PPU.

As to concerns about differences in point of impact between 55 and 62 grain slugs, I'm not concerned about this.

I'm not that great of a shot with a rifle and I doubt I could tell the difference:

AR-15 Zeros and Trajectories

Scroll down a bit and look for the graph for 'M855 and M193 50 yard zero from 16” barrel'.

Would all these loads we're talking about have trajectories identical to M855? No, but I'd wager the 62 grain stuff at least mimics the trajectory of M855- and from a 16" barrel and with a 50 yard zero, I'm just not good enough of a shot to notice the difference, at least not at the moderate distances in which I might have to take a shot.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
As to concerns about differences in point of impact between 55 and 62 grain slugs, I'm not concerned about this.

...from a 16" barrel and with a 50 yard zero, I'm just not good enough of a shot to notice the difference, at least not at the moderate distances in which I might have to take a shot.

+1, join the club

Given a 50 yard zero and moderate target distances, the trajectory differences between the two rounds are almost certainly less than the accuracy limits of the ammo/gun/sights system. From a point of impact basis on self-defensive-sized targets, the two rounds may be considered interchangeable.

quote:

Originally posted by smithnsig:
Wasn't trying to imply anything.

Ah. I misinterpreted.

Yours is an interesting question, but I haven’t seen any discussion of it. There are Internet references to military specifications for M193 ammunition, but the ones I found referred to chamber pressure and velocity under different environmental conditions. A discussion of the M855 round on the Ammo-Oracle site mentions that bullet jackets can vary significantly among different manufacturers, so I’m not sure what that means for things like thickness of the jacket at the cannelure of the M193 bullet.

I’ve fired over 13,000 rounds with my most-used AR-15, and the vast majority of that has been some sort of Lake City/Federal XM ammunition. Not that it’s definitive, but I’ve never noticed anything odd about either variety, including accuracy or measured velocity.

I also believe that fragmentation of a 0.224 caliber bullet fired from the 5.56mm NATO cartridge is not necessary to produce severe wounding effects, at least not at close ranges. The test parabellum linked above seems to demonstrate that pretty well. When close to 1200 foot-pounds of energy is transferred to a person’s body, fragmentation may make that process somewhat more efficient and complete, but it’s hardly critical, IMO. So, if the bullet is launched with adequate velocity and doesn’t just drill straight through as is reputed to happen with some M855 bullets under some conditions, I believe it will perform adequately.

Yes, as long as there is some type of upset of the bullet, be it expansion, fragmentation, tumbling, or some combination of the three, there is going to be pretty significant wounding.

I guess the only real issue would be a straight through ice pick wound not near a critical area.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:



When close to 1200 foot-pounds of energy is transferred to a person’s body . . .

The relevant scientific literature over the last twenty years from actual experts in the field of terminal ballistics has shown that "energy transfer" is not a wounding mechanism for small arms fire.




WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WOUND BALLISTICS LITERATURE, AND WHY
by M.L. Fackler, M.D.
Letterman Army Institute of Research
Division of Military Trauma Research
Presidio of San Francisco, California 94219
Institute Report No. 239



The “Shock Wave” Myth
By Dr. Martin Fackler
Wound Ballistics Review, Winter 1991 and the Journal of Trauma, (29[10]: 1455, 1989).



Ballistic Injury
By Dr. Martin Fackler
Annals of Emergency Medicine, December 1986




Bullet Penetration
By Duncan MacPherson




Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness
By Special Agent Urey W. Patrick
Firearms Training Unit
FBI Academy



....

quote:

Originally posted by PapaSIG:
The relevant scientific literature over the last twenty years from actual experts in the field of terminal ballistics has shown that "energy transfer" is not a wounding mechanism for small arms fire.

You’re confused.

I won’t bother to try to find those articles again, but as I recall them, the theory they espoused was that temporary cavitation caused by energy transfer resulting from handgun bullet velocities doesn’t cause permanent wounding effects. In fact, the last article you cite is obviously about handgun bullets. The articles I’ve read by some of those same authors make it clear that when velocities and energies are high enough, the secondary effects do cause permanent wounding effects.

More to the point, however, if it’s not energy that causes wounding, just what is it? Energy (or power to use the terminology of my high school physics classes) is the ability to do work, and the terminal effects of a projectile—including wounding—are the work that it does. The more energy a projectile has, the more work it can do. It’s energy that permits a bullet to perforate glass or metal and penetrate someone’s body, it’s energy that breaks bones and tears flesh, and it’s energy that produces those wounding effects by secondary means. It’s not only the direct impact of a projectile with high enough energy and velocity that can break bones and destroy tissue.

Consider this: If a projectile passed through a person’s body without transferring any energy to the tissues, what would it do? Answer: Nothing. It would be like the effects of the trillions of neutrinos that pass through our bodies without transferring any energy to us; we would be completely unaware of the projectile’s passage.

None of this is new. The book Wound Ballistics that was published by the Office of the Surgeon General of the Department of the Army in 1962 has photographs of experiments conducted on live animals shortly after World War II that demonstrate how high speed projectiles can cause significant damage to tissues that the projectiles don’t contact directly.

If a boxer like Mike Tyson punches someone in the body, what effect does that have? Whatever it is, it’s due to “energy transfer”—nothing more, nothing less. If I’m hit in the head with a golf ball that weighs 1.6 ounces traveling at 150 miles per hour, the ball will transfer a maximum of 75 foot-pounds of energy to my body. Will that energy transfer have an effect? And whatever effect it has, it will be entirely due to the ball’s energy and the fact that part of that energy is transferred to my head.

I’ve read many reports about wound ballistics, starting with the book I referenced above when I found it in an Army library nearly 50 years ago. I won’t attempt to change the mind of anyone who’s convinced he knows the truth of the matter beyond pointing out these obvious facts because it’s not worth my time, and—frankly—not in my best interest. The misconceptions that people get from not understanding the subject, including misunderstanding what the authors referenced above said, actually might be beneficial to me if I am ever on the receiving end of a gunshot. I hope that if I am ever shot, it’s by someone who believes that bullet energy makes no difference in causing wounding effects.

Bring back the 32 S&W!

http://www.outdoorhub.com/revi...-otm-5-56x45mm-ammo/

I have the IMI 77 Gr stuff in my HD Mags. I've got two 30's snapped together Israeli style for my Tavor. I've got a 40 rounder in a belt clip next to it.

This stuff shoots well and is reliable in my Tavor and anything else I've shot. I'd use M193 in a second if I couldn't find the 77gr stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by smithnsig:
For the proponents of m193, how close do you think the xm193 stuff is to real m193?
Real m193 has pretty stringent standards on velocity and jacket thickness at the cannelure. If that's not within spec, fragmentation will not occur properly.

How do you know the 193 clones will work? Or will it just be a 55 gr fmj?
There is not a spec on xm193.

Everything you wanted to know about Mil Spec M193 but were afraid to ask.

In reality most correctly manufactured small arms ammunition would pass most of the Mil Spec standard I referenced. Most lots get rejected for velocity, pressure, accuracy, or waterproofing issues. A Mil Spec ammo manufacturer spends a great deal of time inspecting their product because if it's rejected it's on their dime. They will sell the 'rejected' ammo on the commercial market, but they also have to meet their contractual obligation or risk losing their contract.

The military actually has a use for rejected ammo as long as it's safe to fire. I've qualified numerous times with ammo marked 'for training use only'. Even with all the QA/QC the military finds soft spots in already delivered lots of ammo. Once sub standard ammo is discovered, the entire lot is pulled from use. If the flaw isn't enough to totally DQ the ammo, it gets used for training.

As to the use of M193 as a defensive round, it's actually pretty good. There are more modern hollow point rounds, but as long as you stay in the fragmentation range M193 does some damage. The only down side that I'm aware of is it's not a good barrier round. If that's what you need there are plenty of good bonded and barrier blind rounds out there.