I found the following experience interesting/informative, and feel that the additional information of the performance of .223 Federal Fusion/Speer Gold Dot in living tissue might be beneficial to anyone considering the load. Some might find the images graphic.
I shot a 160 pound sow with a 62 gr. Federal Fusion JSP from a 20" AR-15 at a distance of roughly 120 yards.The round entered in the upper right leg muscle just behind the bone, entered the chest, passed through both lungs, struck the left leg just above the elbow shattering the bone, and exited the animal. She dropped where she was shot and did not go anywhere.
There was very little damage to the right leg, the entry wound wasn’t really visible until the skin was removed. The round expanded in the chest somewhere and the lungs tuned were pretty well destroyed. The left side of the chest has a large exit and the left leg/shoulder shattered completely. There was a rather small exit in the left shoulder and very little of the damage was visible before the skin was removed. I was unable to recover the bullet.
The bone in the left leg bone fragmented badly. We were unable to find any evidence of the bullet anywhere in the animal, so as far as I can tell it held together and is on the road somewhere. Fusion uses a well constructed bullet.
My co-worker shot three pigs with the same round through a 7.5" barrel. Ranges were between 50 and 120 yards. I believe the longer range was not a DRT shot but it was also a much bigger pig than the others. No more than 10 yards after first shot.
Very nice! A gentleman shot a deer for me a while back with 64gr Gold Dot fro ma 16" M700, suppressed. Impact at 100 yards, deer was 120#. Penetration was 18", recovered projectile weighed 59.2gr and measured a maximum of 0.46" diameter.
What is the chronographed velocity (and the bbl length) of the 62 gr Fusion? Just curious as I have a decent supply of the similar XM223SP1 .223 loading. The XM load is fairly slow (2,469 FPS out of my 14.5" DD at 56* F).
We had feral hogs at my last duty station and they became a great portable test medium. I shot one in a very similar fashion to you - just behind the front leg, through lungs, into opposite shoulder. In this instance, the round used was the 55gr Federal Bonded Tactical. The bullet broke the opposite shoulder but did not exit. It was recovered in a perfect mushroom with 100% weight retention. Hog couldn’t fall over fast enough.
