I know this has been discussed exhaustively, so sorry for the repetition…my search engine sucks!
What I have: BCM 16" upper 1/7 twist
What I’ve been shooting: PMC Bronze
Federal Lake City XM 193
I’m looking for the most versatile ammo that won’t break the bank and will be easy on my rifle (wear and clean) for range use, but also serve well for self defense at 100 yds. and closer. I appreciate the feedback.
“In 1980, I treated a soldier shot accidentally with an M16 M193 bullet from a distance of about ten feet. The bullet entered his left thigh and traveled obliquely upward. It exited after passing through about 11 inches of muscle. The man walked in to my clinic with no limp whatsoever: the entrance and exit holes were about 4 mm across, and punctate. X-ray films showed intact bones, no bullet fragments, and no evidence of significant tissue disruption caused by the bullet’s temporary cavity. The bullet path passed well lateral to the femoral vessels. He was back on duty in a few days. Devastating? Hardly. The wound profile of the M193 bullet (page 29 of the Emergency War Surgery—NATO Handbook, GPO, Washington, D.C., 1988) shows that most often the bullet travels about five inches through flesh before beginning significant yaw. But about 15% of the time, it travels much farther than that before yawing—in which case it causes even milder wounds, if it missed bones, guts, lung, and major blood vessels. In my experience and research, at least as many M16 users in Vietnam concluded that it produced unacceptably minimal, rather than “massive”, wounds. After viewing the wound profile, recall that the Vietnamese were small people, and generally very slim. Many M16 bullets passed through their torsos traveling mostly point forward, and caused minimal damage. Most shots piercing an extremity, even in the heavier-built Americans, unless they hit bone, caused no more damage than a 22 caliber rimfire bullet.”
Fackler, ML: “Literature Review”. Wound Ballistics Review; 5(2):40, Fall 2001
It all depends on the bullet design. FMJ loads like the XM193 may, or may not fragment when you need it. If you use an OTM bullet where the jacket has been rolled from the rear(not from the front like FMJ), then the bullet more reliably breaks apart and fragments easier. Soft points are also a better, more reliable option than FMJ.
The downside is that OTM and SP cost more money, making them not very ideal for practice time. In my opinion, you’d be better off stocking some better defense ammo, and then just buy the cheapest stuff you can get for practicing. Or, you can buy a load that has a quality bullet, primer, and powder, but uses a cheaper case solution such as Hornady’s steel cased ammo. Hornady loads the proven 75gr TAP bullet onto this load, and if you don’t mind cleaning the rifle chamber a little more often, it is literally half the price of regular TAP.
Bullet frag is a bonus, but not an absolute necessity. You will drop any man with a COM shot from M193 inside of 100.
The question is… What is a good M193 that’s affordable???
XM193 is mediocre at best. It’s pretty sloppy ammo, and the closer I’ve looked at my XM193 the less impressed I’ve become.
I’d rather try some of that Israeli made M193 from Wideners. Q3131A1 for Korea has looked really good to me, but it’s not affordable anywhere that I’ve found.
You could use Hornady training ammo for the range and have a stash of the 5.56 TAP on-hand…
I use the cheapest stuff I can find for normal range and self defense use. Normally that is Silver Bear or Privi 75gr. If you think you need the highest quality ammo for self defense your wrong.
I definetely don’t desire the highest quality ammo…not in my budget. At the same time, I don’t want to fire the cheapest ammo. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a bit lazy in regards to cleaning my firearms after each range use so lacquer coated steel doesn’t agree with my habits. Yes, I suppose I could change those habits, but as of now…I am what I am. 
As far as a defense ammo, hit the bad guy in the right spot, bad no more. Let’s be honest, how many bad guys have I hit compared to targets, cans, buckets, tv’s, etc? I believe the ratio is 0/5,000. I’m probably never going to need defense ammo for it’s intended purpose, but if SHTF, I don’t want to remember which mags have which ammo, which markings on which mag…etc. Does this make sense? I want to grab and go.
Then your only solution in order to keep the cost down is to go with a simple and cheap bullet design like XM193 which will run you between $.30-$.40 a shot. Dr. Fackler studied the effects of the M193 extensively in Vietnam and his opinion is that it will work well at ranges of less than 50yrds only about 70-75% of the time. The rest of the time it will poke clean .22 caliber holes with little observed stopping effect. This is something that has been observed in Iraq and Afghanistan…the effects of the 5.56 FMJ loadings vary between rifle to rifle and one soldier will say it works great, and another will say it was like shooting a .22lr at the enemy. The 5.56 needs either expansion or fragmentation to work really well. Getting fragmentation out of a FMJ bullet is a roll of the dice and you may only have one good shot.
OTM is significantly more reliable. The MK262 77gr OTM used in Afghanistan has been very impressive and it is loads like these that have reduced interest in the 6.8 SPC.
Look at it this way, if you just keep your rifle oiled, and run a bore and chamber brush through your rifle after you’re done shooting, you will significantly improve on its longevity and reliability. You shouldn’t have any problems shooting “quality” steel cased ammo like Hornady if you follow a simple cleaning routine. You can get the Hornady 75gr TAP bullet(which is considered to be probably the best OTM on the market) in the Hornady steel cased loading for only $.40-$.45 a shot. That is pretty much in the same ballpark as factory second XM193, and the quality controls of the Hornady load is observed to be better. Regular brass cased 75gr TAP runs for about $.90-$1.00 a shot. There is a number of threads on this forum that discuss how superior the Hornady steel cased ammo is compared to the cheap Russian stuff like Wolf. It is cleaner, MUCH more accurate, and doesn’t stick in the chamber like the Russian stuff does. In some of these carbine classes, users have gone through thousands of rounds of the stuff with no more problems that would be experienced with the users running LC XM193.
Perhaps this is why “failure” drills are “2 to the chest + 1 to the head”
I’m strangely comfortable with XM193 or Prvi M193 disabling bad guys when applied in this manner.
I believe I may shed a little light on this with one simple question…
Would you want to be shot with it?
I would hope the answer would be NO. Therefor what ever you have should work fine. Ballistic effects are going to be the last thing you or the bad guy think about when the SHTF. Plus if the first shot is not enough, you have 27 more tries to get it right!
Would you want to be shot with a .22lr? I suspect your answer would be NO. However, I doubt you or many other people would choose .22lr for self-defense purposes.
As for me, I would not want to be shot with .22lr, .17 pellets, or even poked with a sharp stick. I’m not one of those sick-minded people who enjoys pain, and I see no advantage in being shot or poked with any of those things. I also see no advantage in choosing any of those things as my first line of self-defense.
So the logic of your simple question does not work. This is particularly true when you consider that many bad guys are on drugs or alcohol when committing crimes. Unlike you and I, they might not care about or even feel pain the way we do. They might not care whether they are shot with .22lr, .17 pellets, or even poked with a sharp stick.
What they DO care about, and what most of us also care about, is being shot by something that stops them from doing harm. And that “something” is wholly independent from whether someone wants or does not want to be shot with it. Bullets don’t care about such things.
It might be the last thing on your mind as you are being choked to death by the guy you shot but didn’t stop.
However, if you think about this matter BEFORE the SHTF, ballistic effects should not enter your mind at all if the time of need occurs.
Now this, I can agree with.
like the above poster said, nobody wants to be shot with anything, because no matter how small the round is, if it hits something vital, you’re dead. there’s always that chance, even with .17s and 5.7s .22lrs.
and the only things that increase that chance are fragmentation, penetration, and shot placement… the round size isn’t going to matter, but the load might. the same principles of handgun term ballistics applies to rifle term ballistics- you either hit something vital or you dont.
it’s too bad there’s not more consistent information on what does and doesn’t fragment or yaw under given circumstances. there’s some, and for every conclusion there’s a contradicting conclusion.
based on all this, i pretty much carry whatever is close at hand in both my carbine and sidearm, and carry high capacities of ammunition for multiple shots (multiple chances to hit those vital areas). so long as it’ll penetrate deep enough, the rest is up to me. i just dont think the bullet’s gonna make a huge difference.