I was searching the forums today and found an old post from several years ago where the
OP had asked something about dpms barrels. The thread morphed into a big argument about
barrel twist rates and whether 55 gr bullets could be shot accurately from a 1:7 and so on.
I noticed that more than one person on here said they used 75 gr and up bullets for self defense
purposes. Well a couple of things I’m confused about:
Most if not all of the heavier .223 rounds that I know of are “match” bullets, designed for
long range target shooting. Are those the same type of rounds you use for defense or are there
heavy rounds that are actually made for defense, because they must be rare. At least the reloading
manuals I have all have 69 gr and up listed as match bullets and that they are only good for
target shooting.
I thought 75 gr cartridges were too long to be fed from a magazine and thus need to be loaded
individually. That would kind of suck for defense purposes.
It’s that bullets longer than the 80gr units require atypically magazine setups - 75gr and 77gr OTM loads from Sierra, Berger, Nosler, Hornady and PRVI all fit just fine. Reread that thread, you’ll see where that distinction occurs.
Match doesn’t mean ineffective terminally - SMK’s are really impressive unless the round has to penetrate a barrier of some kind first (in which case 5.56 projectiles in general just suck).
Out of 16" and shorter barrels, the heavier rounds often retain adequate terminal effectiveness farther than most 55gr FMJ loads - there are some intermediate distance barrier blind type loads (50gr TTSX from Barnes are a good example) that do both really well; but the heavier loads especially from 10"-12.5" stuff really do outperform other stuff, with the side benefit of really good accuracy possible too.
Start using the Site Search (Google Custom Search) on this site, you’ll discover that there’s tone of great information here, and the SNR compared to other venues is really quite good - to be happy with your understanding, it’ll take at least half an hour of searching and reading, and that assumes you’re good at using follow-on searches to answer questions for yourself (longer if your google-fu is just ok).
Yes, most match bullets make good self defense bullets. FMJs require fragmentation to be effective. Match bullets are constructed with thinner more uniform jackets resulting in them requiring less velocity to fragment and have more consistent fragmentation thus making them superior self defense rounds than FMJs. Of course because they are made more fragile they do not do so well against barriers.
The only 75gr bullets that Im aware of that cannot be loaded to magazine length are the 75gr Amax and 75gr scirocco 2. Everything else can be loaded to mag length.
I’ve been reading quite a bit of threads both on this site, as well as others to figure what a good SD round would be out of an 11.5" barrel.
From what I gathered the general rule was light bullets perform better out of 10.5" - 12.5" barrels due to higher velocity giving the bullet better chances to expand or fragment.
Is it really just a case by case basis of whether to use lighter bullets vs 75 gr - 77 gr depending on the manufacture?
For example the 50 gr TSX was mentioned at being a really good SBR round, but that’s pretty light.
Sorry to side track the thread, I can take a PM if necessary.
I would suggest expanding ammo such as bonded soft points or all copper solids like TSX or GMX when using SBRs as they are not as velocity dependent as heavy OTMs.
According to aysm ammo their 77gr round is ideally suited for sbr’s and longer barrels with great effect. I would take their advice, they make some killer ammo. Pun was intended.