LawBot5000
Member
I know how everyone gets 3.5 and 4" barrels for suppressed use so they can shoot the "1300 fps" bulk ammo as subsonic. There isn't much data available for barrel lengths between 16" and 4." I have long been curious about 5.5" barrel performance because some say it's unsuitable and some say it's fine.
So I got together the following components and ammo to do some testing in the woods behind my house. Data was gathered with an alpha chrony. It was hot out and i was sitting in the sun (as was my ammo). I will probably retest on a cold day 4-5 months from now. I did keep the ammo inside a cloth pouch before performing the tests. It was only after I was done testing and began putting stuff away that I noticed the ammo I had tested was getting warm from sitting in the sun.
Gun:
Ruger MKIII 5.5" target threaded barrel + AAC Element 2.
Ammo:
Aguila Pistol Match (40 grain lead RN, unknown fps but probably subsonic)
Federal Gold Medal Target (40 grain lead RN, advertised 1080 fps)
CCI AR Tactical (40 grain copper jacket RN, advertised 1200 fps)
Remington 22 Target (40 gr lead RN, advertised 1150 fps)
Results: Shot a magazine of each, retested a few of them to confirm results.
CCI AR Tactical
Subjective:
-CCI AR Tactical was subsonic on paper but subjectively felt louder. This ammo is incredibly consistent and definitely very accurate. Extreme spread of 10 fps, SD of 3.
-Aguila was all over the place and it smells awful. Sometimes it sounded loud, sometimes quiet, standard deviation was high.
-Federal is more consistent that the paper results suggest- almost all of them were balls-on at 1000 FPS with some rounds that were low.
-Remington target was not bad but not outstanding either.
So I got together the following components and ammo to do some testing in the woods behind my house. Data was gathered with an alpha chrony. It was hot out and i was sitting in the sun (as was my ammo). I will probably retest on a cold day 4-5 months from now. I did keep the ammo inside a cloth pouch before performing the tests. It was only after I was done testing and began putting stuff away that I noticed the ammo I had tested was getting warm from sitting in the sun.
Gun:
Ruger MKIII 5.5" target threaded barrel + AAC Element 2.
Ammo:
Aguila Pistol Match (40 grain lead RN, unknown fps but probably subsonic)
Federal Gold Medal Target (40 grain lead RN, advertised 1080 fps)
CCI AR Tactical (40 grain copper jacket RN, advertised 1200 fps)
Remington 22 Target (40 gr lead RN, advertised 1150 fps)
Results: Shot a magazine of each, retested a few of them to confirm results.
CCI AR Tactical
1050 +/- 3 FPS
Remington Target 991 +/- 14 FPS
Aguila Pistol Target 958 +/- 20 FPS
Federal Gold Medal 1000 +/- 10 FPS
Subjective:
-CCI AR Tactical was subsonic on paper but subjectively felt louder. This ammo is incredibly consistent and definitely very accurate. Extreme spread of 10 fps, SD of 3.
-Aguila was all over the place and it smells awful. Sometimes it sounded loud, sometimes quiet, standard deviation was high.
-Federal is more consistent that the paper results suggest- almost all of them were balls-on at 1000 FPS with some rounds that were low.
-Remington target was not bad but not outstanding either.
Last edited:
