Effective range of 10 inch barrel

[tuocs]

Greetings sir/madam:

Can someone please tell me about the effective range of the LWRC 10 inch barrel? I would really appreciate any information. My only experience with rifles are the standard M16A1 and M14 rifles.

Thank you and regards

 

[PTK]

http://www.accuratereloading.com/223sb.html

Note, please - a rifle with a barrel under 16" long is generally an SBR and requires a $200 tax stamp.

 

[CleverNickname]

I'm guessing the effective range for most people is less than 25 yards, depending on how hard they throw the barrel.

 

[GunTech]

If we are talking about range at which the M855 will fragment, it's about 100 feet or so from a 10 inch barrel.

 

[inherentical]

I'm guessing the effective range for most people is less than 25 yards, depending on how hard they throw the barrel.

With the proper follow stance and grip this range can easily be extended upwards of 26 yards.

 

[tuocs]

Thank you gentlemen for your replies, i really appreciate it...

I could assume that 75 feet (25 yards) or 100 feet effective range of a 10 inch barreled SBR could still be good for a running gun battle or E&E on forested area with intervals of open terrains. But please correct me if i get wrong with this assumption.

 

[tuocs]

May i get back for some more queries please.

What would be the effective range of the 10 inch barrel with a silencer? Please include a 14 inch barrel.

Thank you i would appreciate your info.

 

[CYANIDEGENOCIDE]

Um, I think you misunderstood the 25 yards comment. My carbon-15 has a 7.5 inch barrel and with winchester ammo at 100 yards it makes a nasty crater on steel gongs. I submit the .223 could easily be lethal at 100 yards with a 10 inch barrel IF you hit center of mass.

 

[rcmodel]

effective range of a 10 inch barreled SBR could still be good for a running gun battle or E&E on forested area with intervals of open terrains.

If the BG's chasing you have real rifles and know how to use them, you won't get very far I betcha.

rc

 

[444]

What does "effective range" mean ?

What ammo are we talking about ?


I have a couple 11.5" barrels. I can hit you at, at least 300. I am sure it will put a hole in you. If you put that hole in the right place, it will kill you no matter what distance it is.

Ammo makes a big difference. Are we talking about military ball ammo with a steel penetrator or are we talking about soft points/hollow points/varmint bullets.......................

 

[Shung]

Im not sure of the final ballistic, but I can make 5" group out of my 10.5 (mk18mod0 clone) barrel at 300m.... easely (with aimpoint though)

With swiss GP99 (63grain)

 

[Smith357]

My 12" Contender .223 pushes a 55 grain A-max at 2750 fps and shoots sub MOA from a rest. The short barrel does make for an ear splitting muzzle blast.

 

[WC145]

My PLR-16 has a 9.5" barrel and pretty much if I can see you I can land effective hits. Under 200yds, I guarantee I can take you out of the fight.

 

[Recoil1776]

I have a friend who is currently serving in the 5th SF Group. His ODA runs 11" barrels and they regularly train to engage targets to 400 yards with them.

 

[flipajig]

well boys and girls my 15'' contender in 7-30 waters is lethal at 300 providing that i do my part

 

[DoubleTapDrew]

Don't the SF guys using the shorty M16s prefer to use the heavier mk262 mod whatever that is about 77 grains since the fragmentation range with m855 is so short with those barrels?
Every time I fire a PLR16 or think about doing a SBR, a suppressor becomes very high on the "must have" list!

 

[tuocs]

Um, I think you misunderstood the 25 yards comment. My carbon-15 has a 7.5 inch barrel and with winchester ammo at 100 yards it makes a nasty crater on steel gongs. I submit the .223 could easily be lethal at 100 yards with a 10 inch barrel IF you hit center of mass.

Thank you sir... And if you attach a silencer to your 10 inch barrel, how many yards can it be effective?

 

[tuocs]

What does "effective range" mean ?

What ammo are we talking about ?


I have a couple 11.5" barrels. I can hit you at, at least 300. I am sure it will put a hole in you. If you put that hole in the right place, it will kill you no matter what distance it is.

Ammo makes a big difference. Are we talking about military ball ammo with a steel penetrator or are we talking about soft points/hollow points/varmint bullets.......................

Ah yes sir, what i meant to say with "effective range" is the distance where you can put down a human target with the farthest distance that a 10 inch barrel can reach...

We are talking about .223 military hard ball ammunition sir.

 

[tuocs]

If the BG's chasing you have real rifles and know how to use them, you won't get very far I betcha.

rc

yes sir to that real rifles. I am used with M14 too, and i'm fully aware of its capability... And so i'm inquiring on these short barrelled rifles and their capabilities. I never had any experience with SBRs.

 

[Recoil1776]

Originally Posted by DoubleTapDrew
Don't the SF guys using the shorty M16s prefer to use the heavier mk262 mod whatever that is about 77 grains since the fragmentation range with m855 is so short with those barrels?

Yes. Regardless of fragmentation range, it's just better ammo.

Originally Posted by tuocs
And if you attach a silencer to your 10 inch barrel, how many yards can it be effective?

A good suppressor will affect velocity very little, if at all. The bullet has exited the barrel and is at cruising speed by the time it hits the can. All the suppressor does is provide an expansion chamber for the gas escaping behind the bullet to cool down in, which lowers the pressure, which in turn reduces that gas' velocity, which results in less "pop" when it finally escapes the can. By that time, the bullet is long gone.

Originally Posted by tuocs
...what i meant to say with "effective range" is the distance where you can put down a human target with the farthest distance that a 10 inch barrel can reach...

That's subjective. Terminal ballistics cannot 100% accurately be predicted with any cartridge, at any range, on any target. There are too many variables that aren't the same between person to person and shot to shot. One guy can be killed instantly by a single 5.56 shot to the chest, where another guy can be shot half a dozen times in his COM with a .30-06 and walk away.

I personally know a guy who was shot three times--once through the neck even!--by an AK-47 and survived with nothing more than some cool scars. I also know a WW2 vet who took a long burst of 8mm at close range from a Panzer mounted MG-42, many of which went into his COM, and the rest amputated one of his arms. He crawled a few miles to an aid station (he was a sniper, and alone) and survived to tell the tale. My own grandfather has mentioned occasional Germans and Chinese/Koreans not going down after being shot a few times by an M1. It happens, and it happens a lot.

Everybody is different and every situation is different. Whether or not you kill a guy 300 yards away with a 10" AR-15 is mostly up to how good of a shot you are, and the other guy's physiology. One you have control over, the other you don't, so it's a crap shoot. You just gotta take aim and let 'er fly...Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. As I said, my buddy's ODA is perfectly comfortable rolling out every day with 11" barrels on their M4s, so...

If you want a 10" barreled SBR, then by all means get one, and have fun with it. If you're a civilian, the likelihood of you needing to shoot at anyone more than a few yards away is very, very remote. But in the event that you have to shoot farther, you wont exactly be under gunned and wont have any trouble reaching out and touching someone. If it bugs you though, just grab that M14 you said you're familiar with and shoot 'em with that instead. Even if I had a 20" AR, past 200 yards that'd be my choice.

 

[444]

I have no idea on these discussions about "effective range" people limit themselves to military ball ammo.

If we were talking about defensive pistol effectiveness virtually nobody would talk about using military FMJ ball ammo. If you posted a poll on this or any other gun board about what bullet would be the best for anti-personel use, not one person would argue that military ball is the bullet to go with.
But with rifles, people endlessly discuss military ball ammo. We worry about the velocity that military ball ammo fragments, tumbles or whatever instead of just using soft points or whatever. Does anybody other than the military really use military ball ammo ? Law enforcement for example ? I know they don't here.

 

[Recoil1776]

Originally Posted by 444
But with rifles, people endlessly discuss military ball ammo. We worry about the velocity that military ball ammo fragments, tumbles or whatever instead of just using soft points or whatever.

The problem with alternative bullets for use in an AR-15 in an anti-personnel role, is that the 5.56 bullet lacks the mass to impart most of it's energy on the target the "good, ol' fashioned way" so to speak. It's a tiny bullet. Without fragmentation, it'll just cruise on through the target. And even if it expands, it wont expand enough to create a lethal wound channel very reliably.

However with fragmentation, 5.56 FMJ wound cavities over a foot in diameter have been witnessed--far in excess of anything even the venerable .30 cal can do, and superior to the 7.62x39 our soldiers typically face today. In fact, during the initial field testing of the M16 in Vietnam, veteran combat soldiers (read: WW2 and Korean War guys, MACV-SOG types) were reporting that the early 1:18, 1:14 and 1:12 twist M16s were literally blasting and tearing chunks of flesh off the Vietnamese and Chinese enemy. Many were reporting that the wounds caused by the then-new M16 were the most disgusting they'd ever seen.

Now, not every report from soldiers can be relied upon because they often lack quintessential knowledge to understand what they're seeing, but this is one case where the field reports were fairly consistent. There's even pictures to support the anecdotal evidence, and Martin Fackler's research supports it as well. The reason for the supposed "ice picking" that so many soldiers seem to complain about today is due, in part, to either a misunderstanding of terminal ballistics (ie: everyone is different and will react differently to being shot) or Ordnance's "cult of accuracy" winning over common sense and field experience, and demanding more accurate rifles and tighter twist barrels.

The tighter twist of these barrels creates what some call "over stabilization" (technically there's no such thing). What's really happening is that the tighter twists reduce precession. Precession is that "wobble" that bullets do as they fly through the air. Every bullet wobbles at little, but the degree at which it does it is affected intimately by the barrel's twist. Now, common sense tells you that if you want more accuracy, you reduce precession and keep the bullet stable longer, and to do this, you usually tighten the barrel twist up.

However the problem is, is that precession is actually a good thing for terminal ballistics with respect to Spitzer type bullets. As we know, fragmentation of the 5.56 bullet is accomplished by violent yaw at impact. The centrifugal forces the bullet undergoes when it begins to spin end over end overcomes the structural integrity of the bullet, and it comes apart. To the crux: the faster the bullet yaws, the more violent and "explosive" the fragmentation. This is the velocity component, and precisely why the 5.56 needs to be going a certain speed for fragmentation. Below that threshold, the physical forces on the bullet in yaw wont be high enough to cause explosion inside the target. But also and just as importantly, the more the bullet wobbles through the air, the sooner and more violently the bullet yaws. This is the precession component, as the bullet will hit the target at a greater angle than it would from higher stabilization.

Long story short: somewhat less stabilization is beneficial to Spitzer bullets, especially with a long ogive and accentuated rearward centers of gravity (this exacerbates the bullet's desire to reverse itself and yaw hard). Eugene Stoner understood this, which is why he designed the AR-15 with a looser twist, and designed the rifle to be a 3-4 MOA gun (looser twists are less accurate with the 55-77 grain bullet weights). Stoner understood that modern engagements would be close up, so the focus was on a lightweight, high capacity bullet hose that would blast the enemy to bloody pieces.

But unfortunately for Stoner and generations of future soldiers fielding the M16 and M4, America is a nation of riflemen and there was pressure to accurize the rifle immediately at the start. Over the years, the mil spec has called for increasingly tighter twist rates...And the bullet weights given to line troops have not changed at all, thereby reducing the 5.56's combat effectiveness.

Fragmentation is key for lethality in the 5.56 round. It's too fast and lacks the mass to dump energy through expansion and the traditional methods we rely on with larger, heavier bullets. So the problem isn't FMJ bullets, but rather a relationship between velocity and twist rate. Tweak those and you'll see a return of those disgusting and highly lethal wounds that SOG guys were seeing in Vietnam in the early 1960s, and the whole argument about finding alternative rounds to the 5.56 FMJ will cease to be relevant.

 

[444]

I realize that topics like bullet fragmentation get beat to death on these forums and I usually don't read them: so, I don't by any means consider myself informed on the subject. However, when I look at military ball ammo it seems to me that they are trying to do as much as possible with one bullet type. The primary purpose of course is anti-personel. However they also need penetration on lightly armored things like vehicles or people behind cover etc.
As a civilian, the need for maximum penetration isn't as important as it is for military applications IN GENERAL. I think there are plenty of good bullets out there that serve my purposes far better than military ball ammo. And, I think a lot of other people agree with me. For example, I frequently work side by side with our local police department who carry AR15s. I have asked them what ammo they use. I don't remember exactly what it was now but it was not military ball ammo. It was some type of softpoint ammo. And I know that it works well for them. I have taken two carbine classes at Gunsite and taken the Frontsight rifle class a bunch of times. In all these classes, defensive ammo is discussed both by the instructors as well as the students some of whom carry their rifles as police officers. None of them that I have ever talked to recommend carrying military ball ammuntion.
I have also talked to a number of hunters who use the .223 on game animals up to deer and antelope. They have had good luck with the cartridge and had no complaints. None used military ball ammo.

Again, this topic gets beaten to death on internet forums and everybody has their own opinion. For me, I don't own a single round of military ball ammo in .223 and have never fired a round of military ball ammo outside of my time in the military. It would be one of the last choices I would make for defensive or hunting purposes.

 

[tuocs]

Thank you all gentlemen for responding to my query. I really appreciate all your sharing. Its always best to learn from information of people who has experience on the product, rather than just really on product advertisement...

Peace on earth and to men of goodwill.

 

[TexasRifleman]

Or you could use ammo that doesn't depend on fragmentation for it's wound potential.

Look into the Hornady TAP in 75gr. That's what many LE folks are using in their short barreled rifles. Seems to me that the best route for most of us that are not professional operators is to simply use what those guys use rather than try to reinvent the wheel.

Like 444, the last thing I would choose in a rifle like this would be ball ammo.