Our military has been using the 5.56 on bad guys for a long time now. There are many and varied reports about the inadequacy of the round for putting terrorists down for the count. This has apparently lead to the creation of at least one new caliber over the course of the last two wars...the 6.8mm SPC.
I'm currently buying some extra AR's and I got to wondering if it's appropriate for me to use the military's experience to steer my choice in caliber. The military is limited to using full metal jacket ammo...I am not. And if I'm not...then can I realistically extrapolate the lessons of FMJ to my use of hollow point or soft-point ammo? I do a lot of deer hunting and I've seen plenty of first hand evidence of terminal performance of expanding bullets. I'm not sure that the old argument that the 5.56 isn't an effective combat round really apply to the potential civilian use of the round as a home/self defense caliber.
This is just an initial thought and i wanted to get some feedback from others who may have a lot more experience with this than me.
I'm currently buying some extra AR's and I got to wondering if it's appropriate for me to use the military's experience to steer my choice in caliber. The military is limited to using full metal jacket ammo...I am not. And if I'm not...then can I realistically extrapolate the lessons of FMJ to my use of hollow point or soft-point ammo? I do a lot of deer hunting and I've seen plenty of first hand evidence of terminal performance of expanding bullets. I'm not sure that the old argument that the 5.56 isn't an effective combat round really apply to the potential civilian use of the round as a home/self defense caliber.
This is just an initial thought and i wanted to get some feedback from others who may have a lot more experience with this than me.