SNAPSHOTS

Brief, range reports for the following loads.

Hornady 60 grain TAP,
Federal Tactical 62 grain Bonded SP
Prvi Partizan 62 grain FMJ-BT
Federal 62 grain Fusion
Remington 62 grain Core-Lokt Ultra Bonded
CORBON 62 grain DPX
Remington 62 grain HP Premier Match
Fiocchi 77 grain Exacta
COR-BON 69 grain Performance Match HPBT
Prvi Partizan 69 grain Match
American Tactical 5.56 x 45mm 62 grain
Hornady 53 grain Superformance






As the title of this thread suggests, this report is just a quick look at multiple 5.56mm/223 Remington factory loads. The  loads were chronographed from a 20” Colt M16A2 barrel with a 1:7” twist, chrome lining and NATO chamber. A 10-shot string of each load was fired over an Oehler 35-P chronograph with “proof screen” technology. All velocities listed are muzzle velocities as calculated from the instrumental velocities using Oehler’s Ballistic Explorer software program.









100 yard accuracy testing was performed using my 24” Krieger barreled AR-15. This barrel has a 1:7.7” twist. The free-float rail of the rifle rested in a Sinclair Windage Benchrest and the PRS stock was stabilized in a Protektor bunny-ear rear bag. Wind conditions were monitored using a Wind Probe. Two 10-shot groups of each factory load were fired from 100 yards with the smallest group from each pair reported.

Prior to firing the factory loads, I fired a 10-shot control load from 100 yards with the above set-up using hand-loaded 62 grain Berger Match hollow points. That group had an extreme spread of 0.53”.












Hornady 60 grain TAP







This TAP load uses the 60 grain VMAX bullet with a cannelure. The load had a muzzle velocity of 2927 fps from the 20” Colt barrel. The smallest 10-shot group had an extreme spread of 0.88” and a mean radius of 0.27”.






Federal Tactical 62 grain Bonded SP








The Federal Tactical 62 grain load uses a bonded soft point bullet with a cannelure. (All the better to shoot your auto-glass with, my dear!) There is a scant amount of lacquer sealant at the case mouth (mostly in the cannelure.) The primers are also sealed and crimped. As you can see from the picture above, the components come loaded in a shiny nickel plated Lake City case.

This load had a muzzle velocity of 2978 fps. The smallest 10-shot group had an extreme spread of 2.13” and a mean radius of 0.54”.







Prvi Partizan 62 grain FMJ BT







This load is not an M855 clone. The 62 grain bullet used is considerably shorter than an SS109 bullet and it has a lead core and copper jacket construction with no penetrator.




PPU 62 grain FMJ BT




The muzzle velocity for this load was a snappy 3039 fps. The smallest 10-shot group had an extreme spread of 3.18” and a mean radius of 1.06”.








Federal 62 grain FUSION






The Federal 62 grain Fusion bullet appears to have a very similar design to that of the Speer 64 grain Gold Dot.  Both are bonded bullets, have the same advertised muzzle velocity and both have the unique Gold Dot boat-tail shape.  While this load is being marketed as a "deer" load, it has all the makings of a good barrier-blind load.

















It’s difficult to see with the naked eye, but the Fusion bullet has a “skived” tip.




As seen above, the Fusion bullet has a cannelure and the case mouth is crimped.  The lot that I evaluated is loaded in Lake City 09 brass cases. The primer pockets are crimped and sealed and the load is charged with “ball” powder.







The advertised velocity for this load is 3000 fps.  From a 20" Colt barrel with a NATO chamber, chrome lining and a 1:7” twist, the 62 grain Federal Fusion bonded soft-point had a muzzle velocity of 2877 fps.  The claimed ballistic coefficient for this bullet is 0.339.

The accuracy of this load was excellent for a soft-point bullet.  A 10-shot group fired from my Krieger barreled AR-15, at a distance of 100 yards, had an extreme spread of almost exactly 1 MOA.  It will be interesting to see how this load performs after barriers.






*No animals were harmed during the testing of this ammunition.







Remington 62 grain Core-Lokt Ultra Bonded




Here are a few pics comparing the Remington 62 grain Core-Lokt Ultra Bonded bullet to the Speer 64 grain Gold Dot and the 62 grain Trophy Bonded Bear Claw.  As with the TBBC, the Core-Lokt bullet has a greater area of exposed lead at the meplat than the Gold Dot.










The muzzle velocity of the Remington 62 grain Core-Lokt load from a 16" Colt barrel with a NATO chamber, chrome lining and a 1:7" twist was 2776 FPS with a standard deviation of 43 FPS. From a 20" Colt barrel with a NATO chamber, chrome lining and a 1:7" twist the muzzle velocity was 2887 FPS with a standard deviation of 56 FPS.


I fired a 10-shot group of the Remington 62 grain Core-Lokt load from my 20" Noveske HBAR from a distance of 100 yards. The accuracy left a lot to be desired; the extreme spread was greater than 3 inches.








CORBON 62 grain DPX (Barnes TSX)




This COR-BON load uses the Barnes 62 grain TSX bullet which has an all-copper construction. The bullet is much longer than a typical lead core/copper jacketed bullet of the same weight. This load had a muzzle velocity of 2963 fps from the 20" Colt barrel. The 10-shot group of record had an extreme spread of 1.75" and a mean radius of 0.61".












With 62 grain TSX hand-loads, I’ve been able to achieve sub-MOA accuracy for 10-shot groups at 100 yards.









Remington 62 grain HP Premier Match




This Remington load is topped with a flat-base, cannelured, 62 grain HP projectile and uses Remington–Peters brass.  





The muzzle velocity of this load was 2897 fps with a standard deviation of 14 fps.  A 10-shot group fired from my Krieger barreled AR-15 had an extreme spread of 1.3” and a mean radius of 0.52”.








continued . . .

Fiocchi 77 grain Exacta



This Fiocchi load uses the 77 grain Sierra MatchKing (without a cannelure.)  The load is charged with ball powder.  From the 20” Colt barrel, this load had a muzzle velocity of 2549 fps with a standard deviation of 16 fps.  This is a little on the slow side for this particular category of ammunition, however since this is intended to be a “target load”, velocity is not a crucial factor at shorter distances.

A 10-shot group fired from 100 yards from a Krieger barreled AR-15 with a 1:7.7” twist, had an extreme spread of 0.995”.









COR-BON 69 grain Performance Match HPBT




COR-BON’s 69 grain Performance Match ammunition is loaded with Sierra’s 69 grain MatchKing.  An added bonus with this ammunition is that is uses Lapua Match brass, arguably the finest brass available for reloading for AR-15s.  

COR-BON’s website claims that the velocity of this load is 3000 fps from a 20" barrel. From the 20” Colt barrel this load had a muzzle velocity of 2854 fps with a standard deviation of 25 fps.  From a distance of 100 yards, a 10-shot group fired from a Krieger barreled AR-15 with .223 Remington chamber and a 1:9” had an extreme spread of 0.88”.









Prvi Partizan 69 grain Match





The advertised velocity of Prvi Partizan’s 69 grain OTM load is 2855 FPS. The muzzle velocity of this load from the 20” Colt barrel was 2755 fps with a standard deviation of 14 FPS.

The 69 grain Prvi bullet is slightly longer than a 69 grain Sierra MatchKing; 0.930” versus 0.890”.






A 10-shot group fired from a distance of 100 yards from a semi-automatic AR-15 with a Krieger barrel that has a .223 Remington chamber and 1:9” twist had an extreme spread of 2.26”.









American Tactical 5.56 x 45mm 62 grain




This M855 “clone” is charged with ball powder, has crimped and sealed primers, asphalt sealant at the case-mouth and utilizes a 62 grain SS109-type projectile.  This bullet is a full-metal jacket, boat-tailed, cannelured projectile with a steel penetrator insert.





The muzzle velocity of this load was 3077 fps with a standard deviation of 21 fps.  America Tactical claims that this ammunition “is lot tested to assure less than one minute of angle” accuracy at 100 meters.





A 10-shot group of this load fired from an AR-15 with a free-floated, 20” Colt HBAR had an extreme spread of 4.49” and a mean radius of 1.33”.









Hornady 53 grain Superformance




This load uses a brand new bullet from Hornady, the 53 grain V-MAX.  The ogive of the bullet is tailored for .223 Remington chambers.  This load produced a sizzling muzzle velocity of 3285 fps when chronographed from a 20” Colt M16A2 barrel.


he 53 grain V-MAX is shown on the left compared to a 52 grain A-MAX on the right.





From Hornady’s website.

As previously mentioned, the 53 grain Superformance load uses a brand new bullet from Hornady, the 53 grain V-MAX.


From Hornady’s website.  


According to Hornady, this bullet has been “optimized for the .223 Remington chamber.” It seemed only fitting to test this new load from a .223 Remington chambered AR-15.  The test vehicle was my 24” Krieger barreled AR-15 with a 1:9” twist and naturally, a .223 Remington chamber.






The 10-shot group of the 53 grain Superfromance load had an extreme spread of 0.70”!






….

Awesome post! Thanks for the info!

Dude, you ROCK!

Nice to see some 62-grain options.

Outstanding. Great info, especially on the Fusion, which may be readily available to many folks in sporting goods stores.

Excellent report! Thank you for the time and energy!

Great writeup and interesting results!

Have you done any testing with the Nosler 60 gr ballistic tip boat tail?

On the federal fusion, remington core-lokt, and speer gold dot loads, are any of those short enough that I could expect them to stabilize in my 1-12" twist .223?

I might try those for deer if they'd stabilize in the slow twist, because that would give me 10" extra barrel length (over a 5.56 carbine) and a boost in velocity.

Only in hand-loads.

Most likely, no.  For example, the 64 grain Gold Dot fired from a 1:12" barrel will have a gyroscopic stability factor of approximately 0.91.

Thanks.

That's what I'm interested in, as I've got a lot of stuff loaded with that round and am interested to know more.  I already get amazing accuracy with them, so how well do they penetrate and whatnot?

love it... awesome post

Affirmative.

Crimson Trace on a Spaniel. Looks deadly.

Weather's starting to warm up. Whatcha got lined up for this spring?

Great info , you rock bro

Excellent as usual.  Thanks much!

Great work as usual.

-Cody

I thought maybe I'd work on my tan this year.

Great report. Nice rifle.

great info !

I should have some data on the 5.56mm version of the 64 grain Gold Dots in the near future.

It’s too bad that there are no commercial manufacturers offering a factory load using the 62 grain Berger HP.  It’s one of the most universally accurate bullets for AR-15s that I’ve tested.  The groups pictured below were fired from my Krieger barreled AR-15s.

Awesome, Molon.  You don't do .308, do you?

I am glad I bought a few cases of the IMI M855, have had consistent accuracy in everything from a 10.5" LMT SBR to a 18" Krieger SPR.
I've only had one lot of LC that seemed measureably better, and the Win M855 I have on hand, well it's plinking ammo now!

Negative.  However, the LT OBR has me rethinking that position.

Coming soon to a thread near you.

Can't wait you slways provide such good info. Thanks and keep it coming.

Awesome, I know a lot of us are looking forward to that.  Now if I can only find it for sale some damn place.

......

Fiocchi 77 grain Exacta added to the first post of the thread.

 Molon very informative and I mean "very informative" reading.

Remington 62 grain HP Premier Match added to the first post.

On The List.







.....

Do it...

Molon I was just looking into going a quick comparison of every M855 availible. It would have cost me way over $150 to buy 40rds of each. I can only imagine how much money you spend on each of these reviews, and for that I thank you.

Da nada.

Do you think the extra 5.56 mm pressure/FPS is even needed when using the Gold Dots or Bonded SP in 223rem

It seems to me the 223rem pressure loads do pretty well?

Maybe the extra FPS will cause less penetration?


BTW

AWESOME JOB

Yup.  Dr Roberts has stated that the 64 grain Gold Dots "are still working darn well at 2100 fps..."  The .223 version fired from a 20" in Colt barrel would reach 2100 fps at approximately 220 yards.

COR-BON 69 grain Performance Match HPBT added to the top of the thread.

Prvi Partizan 69 grain Match added.

American Tactical 5.56 x 45mm 62 grain added.

53 grain Superformance added.

Thanks a bunch these test are so important as while they may vary in gun to gun there is certainly going to be similar scales.

If I may add something to the Privi-Partisan 62 gr ammo without the steel core: I, having bought a Les Baer M4 with a 1/8 barrel, wanted to load so my elevation would equal factory using the 62gr non steel core bullet for blasting and the SS109 for other uses.
The reason I mention this? My LBC with a 1X EOTech 512 shot the factory at about 4MOA but my reloads were under 3MOA

Now, I do nothing close to special to justify better groups (And this is based on many sessions not just one group).
I do not trim the cases and after insuring my load is 24gr TAC I do not check them only throw them one after another.
I do use a small base sizer and a good seating die (Forster Bench rest) and I crimp but these loads are blasters.
So, I am wondering WTH Privi is doing to get consistently bad spreads.

NOTE: I am not trying to start a reloading subtopic only mention this because it seems blasting reloads should be less accurate than a factory load and therefore suggest the bullet is likely not the culprit for inferior groups being they are the only known common denominator!

I have since got rid of the factory Privi and bought a case of IMI M855 as my back up for real ammo

Wulfmann

Molon, is there any way you could perform a test with some brand new blue-box PRVI 75gr Match?
I'm curious to see if the many production changes this ammo has undergone over the past year or so have affected it, good or bad.
Seems I get fairly different results batch to batch...

I'll try to pick some up for the spring session.

Fusion came today from midwayusa Lot #047T416
Brass FC 223REM  11  with blue sealant on crimp primmer
The 62gr Bullet  almost looks like a HP. compared to exposed lead tips on other bullets like the win 64PP
shouldnt have any build up on feed ramps