Varmint Loads for Home Defense AR15?

Birdshot from shotguns & varmint bullets in .223 are much different Orcon

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Noted. I made the comparison because both are ammunition configurations used outside of their original intended use.

gotta wonder how many people here have ever shot any living creature with a 55 grain ballistic tip??

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Yup they work great on whistle pigs and yotes as far as you care to shoot them. Would you shoot a bear with one? How about a 200 pound cat?

This winter my hunting buddy and I did some load development for coyote pelt loads because we were having problems with over penetration and poking out big holes on the far side of the dogs. What we found was that you had to push lighter bullet faster than the ones we were using but if you go too fast and too light you end up just doing splash damage and the wounded coyote runs away.

So if you can drive a bullet fast enough to fragment upon impact and not kill a coyote in excess of a hundred yards you got to think what happens when that same bullet is impacting at near muzzle velocity.

In closing, can a guy use tool A to do the job of tool B? Yup, though your results may be less than you were hoping for.

Beat me to it RC, I've seen plenty of flesh torn up by those bullets and have no reservations using them for HD.

Sent from my VK410 using Tapatalk

Y'know, a poor ol' .223 cartridge must be schizophrenic.

In one thread, the worry is about over-penetration.

In the next thread, the worry is about inadequate penetration.

Confusing.

Art Eatman said:

Y'know, a poor ol' .223 cartridge must be schizophrenic.

In one thread, the worry is about over-penetration.

In the next thread, the worry is about inadequate penetration.

Confusing.

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Such is the nature of high velocity, low mass projectiles. Fantastic for small game and Ivan though.

Apparently Hornady believes that Varmit ammunition is good enough for defense...considering the V-Max Bullet loaded in 55 grain TAP is the same as they load in their Varmint loads


Second point, the 77 grain HPBT bullets, are not designed to expand...they are the same bullets used in match ammo. If anything, with thin jackets, they will break up like a varmint round. In fact you can go watch ballistic gel test videos of them and see they break up.

BigBore44 said:

rc,
I was actually wondering the same thing. I won't go so far as to they the turn internals into mush. But they are devistating.

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I will go that far, I shot a groundhog under the front leg with a 50 grain Blitzking at about 150 yards with a .22-250 and when I picked him up he felt like he was full of gelatin.

Birdshot consists of 2 grain pellets traveling at less than 1300 FPS. I don't see how you can compare that to a bullet weighing 22 times more and traveling more than twice as fast.


All that said, I would opt for the 75-77 grain bullets myself, but don't fool yourself into thinking that they are going to stay together and expand like you want from a self defense handgun round.

Birdshot consists of 2 grain pellets traveling at less than 1300 FPS. I don't see how you can compare that to a bullet weighing 22 times more and traveling more than twice as fast

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You don't honestly believe I was comparing ballistic characteristics, do you?? You missed the point entirely. The only reason I referenced that story was to underscore the importance of having the right tools and equipment for the task at hand

IMHO, if a guy shows up woefully unprepared to defend himself and not due to a lack of options... maybe he deserves to get beaten to death with is own weapon. If only to serve as a warning to others.

Edit:
I just realized I am supporting one side of an issue I actually have no vested interest in. I wouldn't use a 5.56 for home defense anyway. I guess some arguments are too good to pass up!

rcmodel said:

How many adult males do you know who's chest cavity is more then 9" to 11" thick.

To me, an explosive varmint bullet blowing up halfway through the chest cavity would likely be an unsurvivable wound.

My AR is loaded with 55 grain Hornady V-Max right now.
And has been for 25 years.

Attila the Hun would fall down and die after getting everything in his chest turned into tomato soup by one, or two, or three!!

rc

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It makes a gelatinous mess of a deer's lungs, I can attest. (55 gr, Hornady V-Max) It had that same effect from 10 to 75 yards; my son shot 11 deer with factory Hornady 55 gr. V-Max two years ago out of his Axis, at ranges from 10 to 225 yards. The closer range deer were DRT, the 225 yard one went 50 yards. Granted, this was with excellent shot placement, though the one at ten yards was unaimed; he missed the aorta, but but lungs were pretty much liquified. That one went about five steps and dropped.
Most of the rounds did exit, however. Some hit bone on the way out and stopped.

Walkalong,

Well that was nasty. I have seen someone shot through the foot muzzle contact with GI combat boot with M193 Ball. He did not go anywhere under his own power after that.

Moron had the muzzle on his boot top and "cleared" the rifle.

Blew that tarsal(?) (middle foot bone) into splinters, right out the bottom of the boot, into the glazed concrete floor, blew the bullet to basically nothing.

About deafened me and bruised my arms where he grabbed me and ask for his mommy. My ears rang for hours.

Dropped his rifle on top of everything else and broke a hand guard.

Damn it, there was a clearing barrel right next to us and the moron did not work the action to check the chamber. Weapon was on safe so he just clicked it off and pulled the trigger.

Idiot. He might have hit ME.

Did a lot more damage down close to the pinky toe than a hit through the biceps with no bone contact I saw the following week.

-kBob

In the 1986 FBI-Miami shootout, SA Edmundo Mireles was struck in the forearm by a 5.56 bullet fired by Michael Platt. The bullet was on track to center-punch Mireles' chest but the bullet was stopped by his forearm as he was running across the street while carrying an 870 shotgun at port arms. Mireles stayed in the fight and with his S&W revolver he singlehandedly shot and stopped Platt and William Mattix, ending the gunfight.

Hands and arms are common obstacles and this is the primary reason why 12" of penetration is recommended so the bullet has the potential to penetrate deeply enough to reliably reach and damage tissues critical to immediate survival.

well if it is CQB then one does not need a pointed boattail. About 30 years ago searching for a .22 bullet for a mini 14 for deer hunting the coastal blacktail of up to 150 pounds and up to 200 yards away I came across the old blunt Speer 70 grain bullet. It really worked well driven to about 2700 fps actual muzzle velocity from an 18" barrel. It upset losing about 20% of it's mass and opening to 1/2" with a 12" wound channel. The 64 grain Winchester Super X power point was similar when it came out so I stopped loading it for deer hunting.

69 Gr Sierra Matchking

Ill be taking a box of this next trip to range:

BARNES 5.56 NATO 85g, an open-tip match boat tail round that is loaded to standard mag OAL...don't ask me how.

Advertised speed at muzzle from 20" bbl. is 2600fps. BC is .410!

I'd rather take my chances with a wounded bad guy (even if it means I get hurt) than over-penetrate a neighbor's home and hurt said neighbor, especially a child. Am I making any sense?

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There is your answer, would be even safer if you got rid of the rifle altogether and the rest of your firearms too.

I don't have any statistics on folks shooting at a bad guy in there home with an AR firing .223 ammunition and hurting anyone outside their home but it must be very very small likelihood.

Only thing I could find in a search was a man killing his neighbors, burglars.
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5278638

And that doesn't count.

And this one where a man killed his neighbor after he broke into his home.

http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2016/01/22-year-old_neighbor_idd_as_bu.html

Blade First said:

Ill be taking a box of this next trip to range:



BARNES 5.56 NATO 85g, an open-tip match boat tail round that is loaded to standard mag OAL...don't ask me how.



Advertised speed at muzzle from 20" bbl. is 2600fps. BC is .410!

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I'm interested to hear about this round? Sounds like a thumper for 556 if it can fit in a mag.

HGM22 said:

In other words, I'd rather take my chances with a wounded bad guy (even if it means I get hurt) than over-penetrate a neighbor's home and hurt said neighbor, especially a child. Am I making any sense?

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From an objective analysis of relative risk (interplay of probability and severity), no, this does not makes sense.

If there is an armed intruder who wants to kill you in your home, the severity is as high as it gets (lethal) and the probability of that outcome if nothing is done to mitigate the risk is very high.

OTOH, the severity of a bullet that hits a bystander is also high (potentially lethal, but less likely to be so than if they were shot intentionally w/o intermediate barriers), but the probability of occurrence is extremely low. In the Army risk management worksheet, I'd place it in the lowest category where it is not expected ever to occur (yet is still possible). I have never heard of a bullet fired inside a home, exiting and hitting a neighbor inside theirs...maybe it has happened?

Anyway, that is before risk mitigation strategies are employed...just raw risk. Mitigate it with proper training and a suitable weapon (like a handgun, shotgun (not slugs) or AR vs. a 30.06 hunting rifle and we have lowered the probability further.

I'll take a round that has a high probability of stopping the guy trying to kill me (and a slightly higher penetration in structure) over a less suited round to stopping the known threat in exchange for an incremental decrease in risk of the already extremely unlikely occurrance.

"Sounds like a thumper for 556 if it can fit in a mag."

That much is established.

Jackal said:

Federal American Eagle 50gr HP's dont penetrate a 1 gallon water jug.

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betchya a six pack they'll penetrate a torso

I'd be more concerned with using ammo that worked 100% feed and extraction wise in my AR.

I would think that at 12'-20' a couple of .223s to the center of mass is going to make a Christian out of even the worst bad guys. HP or FMJ.

Orcon said:

You don't honestly believe I was comparing ballistic characteristics, do you??

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MTMMilitiaman did

The 5.56x45 was selected by the military following a lengthy development process as the optimal cartridge to engage an enemy at ranges between 25 and 300 yards and produce a casualty. In that respect, it is a perfectly adequate round with which to engage a home invader.

A load with a light, thin-jacket bullet is a better choice for use by untrained (or minimally trained) people in close quarters since it has a greater chance of remaining in the target (thus depositing ALL of its energy in the target, which is what you want). Should the target be missed or the bullet pass through, a lighter bullet with a thin jacket will retain less energy after passing through a wall and thus have less chance of mortally wounding a neighbor or loved-one on the other side (which you don't want).

Hornady TAP has been in use by several police departments and used with good results. There was a shooting here in Ohio last month in which the officer fired a single round to the suspects chest. It did not exit and the suspect expired at the scene of the shooting.

M193 fragments very well at close range. At in-home distances, I have little fear of it leaving my walls if it contacts anything but window glass. I have a big house, but not 50 yards of shooting big. M195 will fragment inside that distance.

This does not include use in AR type pistols. They do not have enough barrel length to achieve velocity needed for fragmentation. 14.4" minimum barrel length or use different ammo.

Varmint rounds might not be ideal, but are entirely serviceable. If I put three or four rounds into your arms, legs and torso (assuming I am aiming for torso and you're moving around and I'm a mediocre shot), you might indeed survive. But you are also going to stop whatever it was that made me shoot you. That is my goal.