justin22885
member
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2009
- Messages
- 2,102
just for a stockpile for any situation, defense, civil war, natural disaster, whateverWhat are you shooting at? That makes quite a bit of difference.
You say you want to shoot at 18" targets at a middling range. For target shooting the flatter, faster 5.56 is undeniably a better load.
You say you don't hunt, but you are worried about bullet effectiveness in tissue and barrier penetration. At 600yds.
That sounds a lot like you are trying to build up a combat against people setup. Which lots of people do. I'm not trying to call you out but it colors differently what you are weighing. Frankly, against people behind barriers, or moving, or in combat both your rounds are 300-400ish yd rounds max. That's what 60 or so years of intermediate caliber combat have taught us. For the use you describe (Barrier penetration, terminal effectiveness in flesh, 18" target accuracy and 600yd effective range) you want a rifle caliber. I use .308 for that role, but there are plenty out there.
For non fleshy targets at 600yds, the 5.56 load you describe is superior to the 7.62x39.
For fleshy targets with the calibers you mentioned you need to dial the range in a bit.
also im not saying the 5.56 is bad or that my handloads came up short, im mostly impressed with how close the inexpensive golden tiger ammo was able to get to the performance i was getting from the 5.56 and doing so at a much lower cost with zero labor involved
ive been looking into some of the more heavy hitting calibers, i have some 8mm mauser rifles, but ive also been considering magnums for other reasons, so the .308 basically just covers a middle ground already covered by one thing or another for my needs
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