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Black Hills 5.56 50gr. TSX Vs 77gr TMK
- Thread starter AlphaDog504
- Start date
At least half of the information in your “technical posts” are not actual technical data. And the majority of the technical data isn’t often relevant to the question you’re answering. As you mention, they’re articles. Forum thread replies aren’t the right venue for full copy and pasted articles. But, you’re not going to accept this feedback and will instead insult me and throw a tantrum.
Now that’s a quality technical post with to-the-point information relevant to the quoted post.All depends on what your objective is. As noted before, the legacy 77 grain MathKings tend to be a hair more accurate at medium distances, but as others have mentioned, the 77 grain Tipped MatchKing has better terminal ballistic properties than the legacy 77 grain MatchKing.
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The 77 TMK terminal ballistic performance in tissue, and especially its consistency, are a big factor for me using it.
You have ZERO license to be accusing others about having delicate little feelings in the technical threads. I had you turnt into a raving lunatic just because I posted positive results of a barrel brand you don't like.
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Just challenge him to a shoot contest and he'll shut right the fuck up.
Myself and several other members here that offered to purchase one of your 0.25 MOA Faxon government profile barreled uppers are still waiting for you to tell us the name of your "business" and post a link to where we can buy one of your 0.25 MOA Faxon government profile barreled uppers so we can post the results of testing here. I've never seen a "business" that refuses to sell there "products" to so many people with cash in hand.
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It took me 20 seconds to scroll past Molons posts.
Sure sounds easy to do.
I'd bet it took longer for you to post your needless comments.
No business. I challenged you to a shoot off with me & this Faxon and you went crickets. Non response is still a loud response.
ETA: I'm back to rolling my own. My loads are looking really promising with 77SMK. The Bergers will arrive shortly. If you don't like me now, you are gonna hate me here real soon.
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Yes he does. I've seen them since 2004 or so. What he don't need to do is call others liars and frauds for posting good results too.
Never thought I'd see arfcom like responses to technical data on this site. Technical data in a technical forum seems appropriate
Yep arfcom sucks let's not be like arfcom
Molon's home base is AR15.com. Since 2002. So that explains things.
Molon has provided more technical data to support his claims in one post than every other single person in this thread combined. If you believe something in opposition of his data, then post actual evidence in support of your claims.
That is your opinion. Your opinion does not make facts.
Molon regurgitates open source information provided by the internet, adds his pictures, and claims supreme authority of the subject. You want to kool-aid that shit, go ahead.
Do try to keep up though. I did not refute a single data point. I just called out Molon for being a hypocrite in his forum. If you pay attention, look how he treats others who disagree with him.
Did I not say 55gr Vmax for the OP's inquiry? Then wasn't there just posted an independent source video where the 55gr VMAX had the least over penetration of the rounds tested? Now, how do you think I knew that prior to the video posted? Life experience is how I knew.
Posting clear data points makes it impossible for it to be opinion. So you must be a troll. Got it.
Again, your opinion. Zero facts. Research my posts, and then if you have the same conclusion, feel free to give me that "informed opinion".
@ Op this is a prime example of poor information. Do not listen to this guy on anything HD related
Well, your research was concluded in record time.
What exactly is my poor information? What are you bringing to the table to help the OP? Just here for your hero?
Guys, let's keep this thread on track and lose the personal attacks. Otherwise this thread will get locked and people will start getting vacations.
Trigger Warning: The following article contains pictures.
Light-Weight Varmint Bullets As Self-Defense Loads
A light-weight polymer tipped varmint bullet (the clue is in the name) is a poor choice for a self-defensive load. The 55 grain V-MAX doesn’t even make the minimum penetration depth in bare gel, let alone after any type of intervening barrier, which can include the radius or humerus in the upper extremity of an armed attacker intent on killing you.
The Hornady 40 grain TAP ammunition that uses the 40 grain V-MAX bullet is such a poor performing load that Hornady stopped manufacturing it years ago and turned to developing loads such as their 5.56mm 75 grain TAP SBR ammunition (see my article in the following post).
An armed attacker intent on causing you death or grave bodily harm isn’t going to just stand out in the open in the middle of a room, squarely facing you and hold perfectly still with his arms at his side and allow you to put shot after shot into him, all the while not shooting back at you.
While the average anteroposterior diameter of the upper thorax of an adult American male is approximately 9.5”, gun fights tend to be rather unpredictable by nature so they’re not always going to occur under the circumstances that Internet Commandos seem to assume that they will and armed attackers do sometimes bring additional armed attackers with them.
If a bullet has to penetrate the aggressor’s right arm before continuing to travel into the thorax of the aggressor, (say from a right lateral shot while the bad guy is trying to exit a vehicle in order to kill you) you’re going to need, on average, 12” of penetration to perforate the heart; more penetration if you want the bullet to pass through the left ventricle. This is why the FBI’s penetration requirement is 12” to 18”.
During the infamous 1986 FBI Miami Shootout, one of the opening shots in the gunfight fired by FBI Special Agent Dove hit the murderer Michael Platt in the right arm, continued into his thorax, but stopped just short of Platt’s heart due to the inadequate penetration of the 9mm 115 grain Winchester SilverTip ammunition that was issued at the time. A deeper penetrating round would have ruptured Platt’s heart.
This one shot ruptured the brachial blood vessels of Platt’s right arm and collapsed Platt’s right lung causing a hemopneumothorax with 1300 ml of blood loss into the right lung cavity. Even with these wounds, Platt was able to continue shooting at, hitting and causing severe wounds to additional FBI agents; all because of a bullet that failed to penetrate a minimum of 12”.
Here's what an actual expert in the field of terminal ballistics has to say on the subject matter.
From Dr G.K. Roberts . . .
“Based on the LE agency and correctional facility shootings I have reviewed over the years, most lightweight 40-60 gr JHP and PT loads would not be ones I would willingly want to rely on to defend myself, my family, or innocent bystanders in a lethal force encounter.
Most 40-60 gr PT loads were designed for varmints and offer very shallow penetration depth—surface damage can be quite impressive. Many LE agencies and correctional systems mistakenly adopted such lightweight varmint loads thinking they would reduce "over-penetration” and ricochet risks; in fact, what has been documented in numerous shootings against human adversaries is that these lightweight, high velocity loads are quite adequate for unobstructed frontal shots and most CNS shots, however it is not uncommon for them to lack sufficient penetration to reach the vital organs and vasculature in a adult male aggressor on oblique shots or if intermediate objects (including an outstretched arm) are present. As such, they are not an ideal load for personal defense.”
…
Light-Weight Varmint Bullets As Self-Defense Loads
A light-weight polymer tipped varmint bullet (the clue is in the name) is a poor choice for a self-defensive load. The 55 grain V-MAX doesn’t even make the minimum penetration depth in bare gel, let alone after any type of intervening barrier, which can include the radius or humerus in the upper extremity of an armed attacker intent on killing you.
The Hornady 40 grain TAP ammunition that uses the 40 grain V-MAX bullet is such a poor performing load that Hornady stopped manufacturing it years ago and turned to developing loads such as their 5.56mm 75 grain TAP SBR ammunition (see my article in the following post).
An armed attacker intent on causing you death or grave bodily harm isn’t going to just stand out in the open in the middle of a room, squarely facing you and hold perfectly still with his arms at his side and allow you to put shot after shot into him, all the while not shooting back at you.
While the average anteroposterior diameter of the upper thorax of an adult American male is approximately 9.5”, gun fights tend to be rather unpredictable by nature so they’re not always going to occur under the circumstances that Internet Commandos seem to assume that they will and armed attackers do sometimes bring additional armed attackers with them.
If a bullet has to penetrate the aggressor’s right arm before continuing to travel into the thorax of the aggressor, (say from a right lateral shot while the bad guy is trying to exit a vehicle in order to kill you) you’re going to need, on average, 12” of penetration to perforate the heart; more penetration if you want the bullet to pass through the left ventricle. This is why the FBI’s penetration requirement is 12” to 18”.
During the infamous 1986 FBI Miami Shootout, one of the opening shots in the gunfight fired by FBI Special Agent Dove hit the murderer Michael Platt in the right arm, continued into his thorax, but stopped just short of Platt’s heart due to the inadequate penetration of the 9mm 115 grain Winchester SilverTip ammunition that was issued at the time. A deeper penetrating round would have ruptured Platt’s heart.
This one shot ruptured the brachial blood vessels of Platt’s right arm and collapsed Platt’s right lung causing a hemopneumothorax with 1300 ml of blood loss into the right lung cavity. Even with these wounds, Platt was able to continue shooting at, hitting and causing severe wounds to additional FBI agents; all because of a bullet that failed to penetrate a minimum of 12”.
Here's what an actual expert in the field of terminal ballistics has to say on the subject matter.
From Dr G.K. Roberts . . .
“Based on the LE agency and correctional facility shootings I have reviewed over the years, most lightweight 40-60 gr JHP and PT loads would not be ones I would willingly want to rely on to defend myself, my family, or innocent bystanders in a lethal force encounter.
Most 40-60 gr PT loads were designed for varmints and offer very shallow penetration depth—surface damage can be quite impressive. Many LE agencies and correctional systems mistakenly adopted such lightweight varmint loads thinking they would reduce "over-penetration” and ricochet risks; in fact, what has been documented in numerous shootings against human adversaries is that these lightweight, high velocity loads are quite adequate for unobstructed frontal shots and most CNS shots, however it is not uncommon for them to lack sufficient penetration to reach the vital organs and vasculature in a adult male aggressor on oblique shots or if intermediate objects (including an outstretched arm) are present. As such, they are not an ideal load for personal defense.”
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An excellent post explaining the FBI’s requirement for penetration.
As for the fear of over-penetration, which was the impetus for Hornady to use light varmint bullets in some TAP loads, this is my thought.
Actual documented cases with over-penetration causing injuries are very rare. But cases with failure from under-penetration are much more common, like the FBI experience Molon mentions above. So, I would much rather have an adequately penetrating bullet to use against a known threat, and not be handicapped with an under-penetrating bullet due to the concern about the rare phenomenom of over-penetration.
Another thought has been to use lighter TAP bullets in urban areas and allow the better penetrating rounds in rural areas. I am not a fan. In each case, the bad guys are the same, so why should we not use the most effective bullet everywhere.
As for the fear of over-penetration, which was the impetus for Hornady to use light varmint bullets in some TAP loads, this is my thought.
Actual documented cases with over-penetration causing injuries are very rare. But cases with failure from under-penetration are much more common, like the FBI experience Molon mentions above. So, I would much rather have an adequately penetrating bullet to use against a known threat, and not be handicapped with an under-penetrating bullet due to the concern about the rare phenomenom of over-penetration.
Another thought has been to use lighter TAP bullets in urban areas and allow the better penetrating rounds in rural areas. I am not a fan. In each case, the bad guys are the same, so why should we not use the most effective bullet everywhere.
You have to decide if you want a fragmenting round or a blind to barriers round (or get both!). The Sierra 77 grain Tipped MatchKing has one of the best ballistic coefficients of any 0.224" projectiles loadable to magazine length in an AR-15 and it's also extremely accurate, though often it's a tad less accurate than the the legacy Sierra 77 grain MatchKing.
The 10-shot group pictured below was fired prone off a bipod from one of my AR-15s that has a well used (but not abused) Lothar Walther barrel with a 223 Wylde chamber and a 1:8" twist using a hand-load topped with the legacy 77 grain MatchKing. The group has an extreme spread of 0.54 MOA.
The next 10-shot group was fired using a handload topped with the 77 grain Tipped MatchKing. The group was fired off the bench from the same Lothar Walther barreled AR-15. The group has an extreme spread of 0.68".
The 2023 production lots of the factory loaded Black Hills 5.56mm 77 grain Tipped MatchKing ammunition are the most accurate lots of this ammunition that I've tested.
Black Hills 5.56mm 77 Grain Tipped MatchKing Accuracy Evaluation Update
In 2016 I posted an in-depth review of the Black Hills 5.56 77 grain Tipped MatchKing ammunition. Three 10-shot groups of that 2016 lot had an average extreme spread of 1.26”. The smallest of those groups had an extreme spread of 1.14” with a mean radius of 0.39”.
The cartridge overall length for the 2016 lot of the Black Hills 77 grain Tipped MatchKing averaged 2.246”, while a 2023 lot averaged 2.243”. The length of the bullet itself is basically the same for both lots. The 2016 lot was loaded in Winchester brass and the 2023 lot is loaded in Lake City brass with stab primer crimps. Both lots have sealant in the primer pockets and neither lot has sealant at the case mouth.
In my 2016 review, I noted that the 77 grain Tipped MatchKing was one of the longest bullets being commercially loaded to magazine length in the 5.56mm cartridge and that it had such a long ogive that the cannelure extended past the bearing surface of the bullet and onto the ogive, giving the grooves of the cannelure a rather unique “arrowhead” appearance.
The base to ogive measurement of the bullets in the 2023 lot is approximately 0.017” longer than the 2016 lot and the configuration of the bullet at the junction of the bearing surface and the ogive now allows for a full-fledged cannelure that does not appear to extend into the ogive, or it was just a matter of pressing the cannelure deeper that makes it appear so.
A 10-shot group of the 2023 lot of the Black Hills 5.56mm 77 grain Tipped MatchKing ammunition fired from the same Lothar Walther barreled AR-15 used to test the 2016 lot, fired under the same conditions from a distance of 100 yards had an extreme spread of 0.86” and a mean radius of 0.24”.
I chronographed two different lots of the 2023 Black Hills 5.56mm 77 grain Tipped MatchKing ammunition from an AR-15 with a chrome-lined, NATO chambered, 20” Colt barrel with a 1:7” twist.
The muzzle velocity that I obtained from the 2016 lot of this ammunition is shown in the table below. Black Hills now advertises that this load has a velocity of 2750 FPS from a 20” test barrel.
Chronographing was conducted using an Oehler 35-P chronograph with “proof screen” technology. The Oehler 35P chronograph is actually two chronographs in one package that takes two separate chronograph readings for each shot (primary velocity and proof velocity) and then compares those readings to a statistical table to determine if there is any significant difference between the two readings to determine if the primary velocity is a valid reading or likely to be an erroneous reading. If there is an erroneous reading, the chronograph “flags” the shot to let you know that shot is invalid. There were no invalid shots flagged during this testing.
The velocity stated below is the muzzle velocity as calculated from the instrumental velocity using Oehler’s Ballistic Explorer software program. The string of fire consisted of 10 rounds over the chronograph.
Each round was single-loaded and cycled into the chamber from a magazine fitted with a single-load follower. The bolt locked-back after each shot allowing the chamber to cool in between each shot. This technique was used to mitigate the possible influence of “chamber-soak” on velocity data. Each new shot was fired in a consistent manner after hitting the bolt release. Atmospheric conditions were monitored and recorded using a Kestrel 4000 Pocket Weather Tracker.
Atmospheric conditions
Temperature: 71 degrees F
Humidity: 42.5%
Barometric pressure: 30.05 inches of Hg
Elevation: 950 feet above sea level
The muzzle velocity for lot #703 was 2779 FPS with a standard deviation of 16 FPS. This lot had a coefficient of variation of 0.58%.
The muzzle velocity for lot #723 was 2762 FPS with a standard deviation of 21 FPS and a coefficient of variation of 0.76%.
For those of you who might not be familiar with the coefficient of variation (CV), it is the standard deviation, divided by the mean (average) muzzle velocity and then multiplied by 100 and expressed as a percentage. It allows for the comparison of the uniformity of velocity between loads with different muzzle velocities.
For comparison, the mil-spec for M193 allows for a coefficient of variation of approximately 1.2%, while one of my best 77 grain OTM hand-loads, with a muzzle velocity of 2639 PFS and a standard deviation of 4 FPS, has a coefficient of variation of 0.15%.
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I cannot even begin to tell you how obnoxious it is when you spam these massive posts with the temperature, what you ate afterwards everything else nobody cares about to answer a basic question within a thread.
I mean, it's good data to have in its own thread, but holy Jesus you gotta stop CTRL+V'ing it whenever someone asks a simple question about a bullet.
There's that, but what I get a kick out of is his pejorative use of "internet commando" and that is all he has ever been for the past 20yrs with these "Articles"...
Personally, I’m a big fan of Molon’s articles. I’ve read them all and refer to them from time to time, but I agree that after their initial posting/publication, the community would be better served with a link and a brief synopsis. Something like:
Black Hills 77 grain TMK produced x.xx MOA 30 round composite groups out of my barrel.
(insert composite pic)
Click HERE for the full write up!
Nobody would ever get annoyed or complain (one of you degenerates would now that I said that), and all of the information would be available each and every time.
Just a thought.
Black Hills 77 grain TMK produced x.xx MOA 30 round composite groups out of my barrel.
(insert composite pic)
Click HERE for the full write up!
Nobody would ever get annoyed or complain (one of you degenerates would now that I said that), and all of the information would be available each and every time.
Just a thought.
Honestly, if Molon’s posts were compiled into a book, I would pay for it.
Technical discussions deserve technical answers with supporting merits based on test and evaluation, vs twitter-like short attention span snippets. The younger guys need to adjust to the technical side, not be spoon-fed because every other interest of theirs provides easy chicken for them.
Time to level-up. If you guys want dumbed-down answers, the Hide has never been the place for that.
Technical discussions deserve technical answers with supporting merits based on test and evaluation, vs twitter-like short attention span snippets. The younger guys need to adjust to the technical side, not be spoon-fed because every other interest of theirs provides easy chicken for them.
Time to level-up. If you guys want dumbed-down answers, the Hide has never been the place for that.
Ok boomer tell us more about how we shouldn't condense information because, "That's the way we did it".
Maybe he can burn a CD-ROM with all of it on there for you as well.
It's to the point now where if someone asks, "Hey does anyone use TSX on hogs?", Molon will immediately CTRL+V a 5,000 word essay on the bullet with zero information relative to the question at hand. It's retarded, annoying, and tired.
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I haven’t seen anyone discussing this ask for dumbed down answers. They simply don’t want or need the whole enchilada each and every time. I’ve read his full posts several times, but since I know his process by heart, I don’t need to scroll like the price is right to get to what we all really want to know… how did it shoot???
Yeah, I’m not a boomer. The baby boomers are either all dead or retiring, and taking a generation of know-how with them.
I knew when I was growing up, I didn’t listen to my peers because they didn’t know anything about the world, applied sciences, skills, history, or much of anything. I picked the brains of people who had been there and accomplished a lot of things who were highly-competent.
Sure there were plenty of older idiots too, waiting for the nightly news to misinform them, but they stuck out.
Some of you need to expand your attention span and learn how to read and interpret technical data. It’s you who has the problem, not those who are trying to help you for opportunity costs to them (misperceived as free).
If you want full-retard erroneous information from your peers, go on over to twitter, barf, or whatever social media platform there is run by people who don’t give a rip about solid data.
Ballistics gel is not a representation of human/animal anatomy in relation to real world performance. It makes bullets expand/fragment well before they do in living tissue. Kill enough shit and one will know. It acts slightly like water. We all know water blooms them bullets.
With that said, here is how VMAX acts in living tissue:
How the fuck did I kill wild boar with a 55gr VMAX at 15yds let alone feet? That home invading fucker is going to drop like a sack of shit with nothing but that slosh sound with his thoracic cavity full of mush & blood. Heard it many times.
I’ll Internet commando a different story than posted. Armed fucker in my house attacking me. Well, the attack is on his ass. I’m not firing a single round, there’s a hammer string 6-8 rounds across my house/hallway that are fucking this hypothetical attacker all to shit. Go ahead and have an arm crossing over to add to this penetration distance, cool. That arm is Gaige Grosskreutz with 5 more slushing the vitals. This is how you fight with a gun. It’s not shot for shot like a stupid 50s era Western show.
In theory there is no difference between practice & theory, but in practice there is. -Not me, but makes perfect sense.
With that said, here is how VMAX acts in living tissue:
How the fuck did I kill wild boar with a 55gr VMAX at 15yds let alone feet? That home invading fucker is going to drop like a sack of shit with nothing but that slosh sound with his thoracic cavity full of mush & blood. Heard it many times.
I’ll Internet commando a different story than posted. Armed fucker in my house attacking me. Well, the attack is on his ass. I’m not firing a single round, there’s a hammer string 6-8 rounds across my house/hallway that are fucking this hypothetical attacker all to shit. Go ahead and have an arm crossing over to add to this penetration distance, cool. That arm is Gaige Grosskreutz with 5 more slushing the vitals. This is how you fight with a gun. It’s not shot for shot like a stupid 50s era Western show.
In theory there is no difference between practice & theory, but in practice there is. -Not me, but makes perfect sense.
Threads like this are why I come to the Hide less and less.
It’s a forum. On the internet. If someone wants to post a concise simple answer then great. If someone wants to post something detailed and technical then great.
These are both good bullets. On Yotes I prefer the results I’ve got with anything in the 77gr bandwidth.
It’s a forum. On the internet. If someone wants to post a concise simple answer then great. If someone wants to post something detailed and technical then great.
These are both good bullets. On Yotes I prefer the results I’ve got with anything in the 77gr bandwidth.
Honestly... if light weight Varmint bullets worked so well for SD... everyone would be using them in .223 and 5.56.
But they don't.
Quote from Dr. Roberts concerning over penetration.
"
But they don't.
Quote from Dr. Roberts concerning over penetration.
"
The Presumptive Hazards of Over-Penetration
Those two boomers have shared more meaningful and useful knowledge then you can even imagine. You might learn something if you could move your ego out of the way.
Care to share all your thorough technical helpful data ?
Or would you rather slam other members hard work ?
I'll wait.
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Are you autistic? We've established that the info is relative to certain people's needs. We've also established that reposting the entire thread of these tests is obnoxious, unnecessary and overall pointless to most people's questions about a bullet. It's AI bot behavior and it's beyond stale.
Let me know if you need this broken down further from a 6th grade level to a 3rd grade level.
I am not autistic.... ( Lol, and it that the best you got ? .. name calling )
And please, Break it down more for me.... we all want you to do exactly what you are complaining about... IE what Molon is doing to you.
And all you have done in this thread, is complain about other people.... you haven't posted anything in context to the Op's question... Atta Boy !!
Show me all your thorough technical helpful data.. simple enough for you ?
And who is "we" ? You don't like Molon's posts, so the rest of us should rally around your choice ?
Go back to the Bear Pit....and stay out of any meaningful learning arena, your high school mentality is showing.
BTW, blocking Molon would solve your having to scroll past his threads.
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Honestly, I don’t think there’s enough evidence that varmint bullets are poor stoppers of human threats. I think the reason why they’re not used is because of theory rather than field evidence that they weren’t effective. I say theory specifically, because it is based on lab evidence and expert assessment. It’s more than a hypothesis, but I still think there hasn’t been enough field testing done to try and disprove the theory.
There’s a lot of data showing they have poor performance in penetration as a metric. But I haven’t seen any data on their effectiveness of stopping the threat. Measures of Performance vs Measures of Effectiveness. Two distinct things.
That said, I use 77 TMK because it causes massive permanent wound cavities while also penetrating well. I can have my cake and eat it too as long as I’m not shooting into a car.
But, I’m not sold on light VMAX type bullets being worthless because they penetrate less than 10” in gel. If a VMAX hit someone’s arm and failed to reach a vita organ, that’s most likely still going to stop the threat as half their arm starts dangling on a tendon.
I fully agree.
In respect to your comments, many people have fallen from a far lesser round.
And while I don't "prefer" light weight varmint bullets performance, I wouldn't feel poop out of luck with them.
Thank you for adding some logic to the thread.
Everyone knows you and Molon don't get along.
I know you can shoot long distances.
Watching 2 good shooters argue is crazy. I don't think this needs to be a grudge match.
I would rather learn something on this forum, including opposing view points on technical threads.
I also believe others come here for the same reason. We all have to start learning this pursuit some how.
How did you learn ?
I started with a Colt HBar, after the USMC. Everything from then on was from trial and error. And then more from forums like this.
Start another thread, or introduce yourself.
It's not name calling, it's an observation on your lack of comprehending basic social graces and etiquette which glows with autism.
Myself and others have explained why Molon's posts are equal to obnoxious spamming several times now, and how hes always the first to start name calling and degrading others character the moment anyone brings it up. It's not only here, he does it on every forum. In fact he has to be muted and banned from threads due to his complete lack of decorum when this happens over, and over.
It's like an unruly kid in class who can't take no for an answer, throwing a fit whenever confronted with anything slightly contradictory to his own view. Except he's a grown adult still acting like a 9 year old projecting his own delicate feelings onto others.
That's fine if you want to defend him acting like a dick in every single thread he's in, constantly sewing discourse and getting irate when told to cool it with the AI bot spamming of irrelevant information, just be ready to be called out on it.
And to the OP:
Don't overthink it, they'll both eviscerate a humans intermals with all but guaranteed expansion/frag within CQB range.
TMK will have less penetration after shooting a bad guy. TSX will help you shoot through doors and walls. Both will explode the inside of a person.
Ultimately up to the area you love in.
Like I said before... block him. ( Seems like an "adult" Boomer way of handling it.... you know the whole.... )
That way you could finally have it your own way.
Are there any others you want to call out ? IE, all the rest of us Boomers , Someone like LRRFP52, and all his useful knowledge ?
And Thanks for finally adding a comment about the OP's original question.
Guess you don't get to have it all your way.
So I’ve actually taken this shot 7 times with 62 grain gold dots from a 10.5” AR. None of them “worked” as advertised, and the suspect’s arm was far more forward (closer to front of pectoral) which might actually help. Only 3 of the 7 made it into the close side lung. If it weren’t for the 8th shot (which didn’t have to get through the arm first), the suspect could have walked to the ER with some breathing difficulties after taking 7 rounds of highly rated bonded bullets from an AR at close range.
I’m familiar with another incident with almost identical shots with 77 grain (Hornady T2 if I recall). Same deal. In that case the suspect’s arm saved his life from multiple 5.56 rounds.
Gel shots are cool. FBI minimums are cool. They shouldn’t be discounted. But they don’t capture the realities of conflict.
Pick a good round based on the studies available and then train to fight till the threat is eliminated, not expecting that to happen at any specific point… just drive on till it happens.
Yikes. I've seen real world accounts of their 9mm JHP working great, too bad to hear their rifle round is lackluster.
They load their .223 to anemic levels as well, maybe they'd do well to make a hot 5.56 load with that same bullet?
I’m not sure it is lackluster.
My point isn’t that there’s a problem with the ammo. My point is all the studies in the world and overthinking ammo selection (which I’m guilty of) are overrated.
Your ammo may not perform the way it does in gel or other tests. That doesn’t mean it’s lacking. It means the real world isn a lab.
Except that it clearly was lackluster. It wasn’t a one off instance, but all 7 shots performed poorly. Both in actual performance and in effectiveness.
What did the guy’s arm look like? Where did those bullets go? Terminal ballistics can get pretty weird, did they deflect and shoot off into other directions? Or did they actually stop in the arm? Did they all expand?
62gr Speer Gold Dots are loaded to .223 pressures, and seemingly low even there. From a 10.5”, they’re probably going 2250 fps, which is pretty pathetic for a 62gr. For a reference, my 9” SP5 shoots 68gr 9mm at 2130 fps. And Black Hills 77gr TMK does ~2400+ from a 10.5”. 200fps faster than Speer… and with a significantly heavier bullet.
With the design of the gold dot, it is purely doing crush damage to tissue from the 10.5”. It will not be surpassing the elastic limit of the tissue because it is not enough energy transfer and no fragmentation to reduce the elastic limit.
Relying on crush damage is generally why I avoid barrier blind rifle ammo for defensive purposes. Fragmentation is much more effective. But, I get that LE needs are different.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
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The 77 grain Hornady T2 5.56 pressure rounds used in the second shooting I referred to are fragmenting rounds (excellent ones). They didn’t do the trick either.
The 77 grain Hornady T2 5.56 pressure rounds used in the second shooting I referred to are fragmenting rounds (excellent ones). They didn’t do the trick either.
In that case it sounds like you need to shoot smaller people
Did your department/agency perform any analysis of the shooting? Look at trajectories once they entered the terminal stage, or looked at recovered bullets?The 77 grain Hornady T2 5.56 pressure rounds used in the second shooting I referred to are fragmenting rounds (excellent ones). They didn’t do the trick either.
I’m genuinely very curious because your experience (and the second hand one) seems to be pretty far off from the norm, especially in the much more readily available field reports from medium sized game.
I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two of the shots deflected and didn’t penetrate deeply. Terminal ballistics are unpredictable. But I am very surprised about the quantity and percentage you observed (100% under-penetrated)
All that said, 100% agree that you just have to keep going until the threat is stopped. Real life isn’t like the movies.
I can’t speak to the specifics of either shooting (even the guy involved doesn’t get all the info afterwards).
I do know that deflection from intended trajectory wasn’t significant in either case.
I know that many rounds in both cases struck upper arm bone (I’m sure there’s a medical term there). I’m not sure if they all did.
The two bullets are so extremely different in construction, and so similar in result, that my conclusion is that tenacity is more important than bullet selection.
I do know that deflection from intended trajectory wasn’t significant in either case.
I know that many rounds in both cases struck upper arm bone (I’m sure there’s a medical term there). I’m not sure if they all did.
The two bullets are so extremely different in construction, and so similar in result, that my conclusion is that tenacity is more important than bullet selection.
