M855: IMI vs Federal LC

AR-15 » Ammunition

AR Sponsor:

Site Notices

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - M855: IMI vs Federal LC

Posted: 12/16/2019 10:15:55 AM EDT

I'm planning to stock up, around 5K rounds, of m855 ammo.

Either IMI or Federal LC, both shoot acceptably from my ARs.

I've been told IMI is better, and Federal is better.

I didn't see much difference myself shooting open sights at 100yds.

Given a choice, would you pick Federal or IMI for possible long term storage and why?

Posted: 12/16/2019 10:27:16 AM EDT

[#1]

At 100 y/m, there is no discernable difference in my opinion. The deciding factor is going to be price.

Store them properly.

Rotate.

Posted: 12/16/2019 11:29:33 AM EDT

[#2]

I'd get the IMI for shorter barrels, based on charts a member did somewhere around here comparing velocities vs barrel lengths. IMI stuff seems to hit advertised velocities around 12.5" while others need longer barrels.

Posted: 12/16/2019 1:12:05 PM EDT

[#3]

IMI used to have a very good reputation. But now days, it's a crap shoot. Both are good and which is better will depend a the LOT etc.

Also, Fed is replaced by Win at Lake City so the question will soon be, which is better WIN or IMI...

Posted: 12/16/2019 1:51:20 PM EDT

[#4]

It’s been a while since I shot IMI, but it seemed more consistent and grouped better than LC. LC can be very accurate but for fliers, IMI had less fliers.

If the price was the same I would get IMI.

Posted: 12/16/2019 2:02:24 PM EDT

[#5]

IMI tends to be loaded fairly warm for whatever that's worth. I've never been able to get M855 to group well but that's fine, I don't consider it a match bullet so it's a nonfactor.

Posted: 12/16/2019 2:33:31 PM EDT

[#6]

Not on your list, but PMC X-Tac is some of the most accurate 855 I've shot, and I have gone though plenty of the stuff.

Posted: 12/16/2019 3:50:08 PM EDT

[#7]

Quote History

Quoted:
Not on your list, but PMC X-Tac is some of the most accurate 855 I've shot, and I have gone though plenty of the stuff.

View Quote

Concur...though having both IMI and LC, I find they're on par w/each other. Though accuracy is somewhat contingent on what platform you're using (20" v 16") as well as quality of barrel.

Posted: 12/16/2019 8:41:27 PM EDT

[#8]

Quote History

Quoted:
Concur...though having both IMI and LC, I find they're on par w/each other. Though accuracy is somewhat contingent on what platform you're using (20" v 16") as well as quality of barrel.

View Quote View All Quotes

View All Quotes

Quote History

Quoted:

Quoted:
Not on your list, but PMC X-Tac is some of the most accurate 855 I've shot, and I have gone though plenty of the stuff.

Concur...though having both IMI and LC, I find they're on par w/each other. Though accuracy is somewhat contingent on what platform you're using (20" v 16") as well as quality of barrel.

Yep, gonna add PMC X-Tac to the list.
Marine buddy of mine said it's been better for him than LC or IMI.

Posted: 12/16/2019 11:28:18 PM EDT

[#9]

I've had numerous blown primers from IMI M855, but none from Federal, LC, and PMC loadings of it.

Posted: 12/16/2019 11:43:55 PM EDT

[#10]

Quote History

Quoted:

Concur...though having both IMI and LC, I find they're on par w/each other. Though accuracy is somewhat contingent on what platform you're using (20" v 16") as well as quality of barrel.

View Quote

Went through a metric ton of the stuff when working for Uncle.
At 300 meters, good luck.
If you hit past 100 meters, it would usually pencil through and wouldn't yaw.
We learned to hate it and were told to under no circumstances express our opinions.

Posted: 12/17/2019 2:34:42 AM EDT

[#11]

Quote History

Quoted:
Not on your list, but PMC X-Tac is some of the most accurate 855 I've shot, and I have gone though plenty of the stuff.

View Quote

Same here for me, followed by IMI

Posted: 12/17/2019 8:46:44 AM EDT

[#12]

Why would anybody stock 5k of M855?

Better accuracy and terminal performance from many other offerings.

Posted: 12/17/2019 4:23:40 PM EDT

[#13]

Quote History

Quoted:
Why would anybody stock 5k of M855?

Better accuracy and terminal performance from many other offerings.

View Quote

So not good to stack a couple thousand rounds if cheap or shoot it and stack 55gr only? I I'm talking just stock ammo as some can't afford to stack really good stuff.

Posted: 12/17/2019 4:48:47 PM EDT

[#14]

Quote History

Quoted:
So not good to stack a couple thousand rounds if cheap or shoot it and stack 55gr only? I I'm talking just stock ammo as some can't afford to stack really good stuff.

View Quote View All Quotes

View All Quotes

Quote History

Quoted:

Quoted:
Why would anybody stock 5k of M855?

Better accuracy and terminal performance from many other offerings.

So not good to stack a couple thousand rounds if cheap or shoot it and stack 55gr only? I I'm talking just stock ammo as some can't afford to stack really good stuff.

I have never gotten any form of accuracy out of M855. I do have ~700 rds of it set back, but not sure I'll buy more, let alone 5k. From everything that I've seen, bullet perfomance is blah out of anything other than a 20" bbl, and tend to yaw and fail to deform unless striking hard targets.

I've also not tried any Xtac, so cannot comment on that.

Personally, M193 is the majority of mine, Federal/IMI/PRVI. For HD/SHTF mindset I have PRVI 62 and 69 gr in .223. I haven't found one of my bbls that don't like it. Lots of good gel test vids out there too.

To each their own as they say.

Posted: 12/17/2019 6:20:25 PM EDT

[#15]

Yeah, for blasting and stacking deep I'd just buy a bunch of M193 or .223 ball. More accurate, better terminal performance, cheaper.

M855 is...not great.

Posted: 12/18/2019 6:08:58 AM EDT

[#16]

More info:

Have three ARs. M4 style (1:9) 14.5",

16" 1:7, and 20" 1:7.

From experience and research, all 3 handle 55gr

and 62gr equally.

Was thinking of stocking M855 because the steel core is supposedly a "better" bullet design.

Posted: 12/18/2019 11:13:38 AM EDT

[#17]

Yeah, its not!

M855 was designed to defeat early 80's style Soviet body armor at longer ranges.

Up close M193 actually penetrates armor better due to higher velocity and also does more soft tissue damage on unarmored targets to boot!

So if you plan on shooting anything except waves of Soviet troops your best bet is M193 in my opinion!

Posted: 12/18/2019 11:39:15 AM EDT

[#18]

M193 will perform better at the range given in the OP for sure.

Posted: 12/18/2019 12:59:05 PM EDT

[#19]

Quote History

Quoted:

Went through a metric ton of the stuff when working for Uncle.
At 300 meters, good luck.
If you hit past 100 meters, it would usually pencil through and wouldn't yaw.
We learned to hate it and were told to under no circumstances express our opinions.

View Quote

I don’t know when you were in, but fortunately the manufacturers got better at making M855. It performs much better than that now.

Posted: 12/18/2019 2:37:24 PM EDT

[#20]

Quote History

Quoted:

I don’t know when you were in, but fortunately the manufacturers got better at making M855. It performs much better than that now.

View Quote

M855 has always been M855'ish....good at penetrating old soviet helmets at 600M and nothing else. Accuracy standards likely got worse since the ammo demands of the GWOT. It may be slightly better against car bodies although pretty much everything, including pistol cal's go through cars pretty well.

I can think of no reason to stock M855, unless you operate an M249 and live near the DMZ in Korea.

Typical XM193 will work better for almost every use.

OP, if you must load up on M855, maybe try some Fed, Win, IMI, PPU, PMC X-Tac etc and see which shoots best. Or just get the cheapest and have low expectations for accuracy and terminal performance.

Posted: 12/18/2019 3:27:15 PM EDT

[#21]

Quote History

Quoted:

I don't know when you were in, but fortunately the manufacturers got better at making M855. It performs much better than that now.

View Quote

Army has replaced M855 with M855A1. M855A1 is a much better design. It has better on target performance with more reliable fragmentation and penetrates better than M193 or M855 ever did.

OP, I would stock up on M193. It's cheaper and has a slightly better frag rate than M855.

Posted: 12/18/2019 7:35:41 PM EDT

[#22]

Quote History

Quoted:
More info:

Have three ARs. M4 style (1:9) 14.5",

16" 1:7, and 20" 1:7.

From experience and research, all 3 handle 55gr

and 62gr equally.

Was thinking of stocking M855 because the steel core is supposedly a "better" bullet design.

View Quote

No it isn't.

Posted: 12/18/2019 7:39:37 PM EDT

[#23]

Quote History

Quoted:

I don’t know when you were in, but fortunately the manufacturers got better at making M855. It performs much better than that now.

View Quote

It was the 80's. From the accounts I've read it hasn't improved a bit in terminal performance, and marginally in accuracy. That is M855 US issue. The SS109 is supposed to be better accuracy and the X-Tac seems to be on par with that .

Posted: 12/19/2019 11:31:37 PM EDT

[#24]

Quote History

Quoted:
Why would anybody stock 5k of M855?

Better accuracy and terminal performance from many other offerings.

View Quote

Because it will go through car doors when m193 and most other duty (bonded) ammo won’t. If the Big Igloo kicks off people will hide behind shit when being shot at.

Posted: 12/20/2019 1:24:45 AM EDT

[#25]

Quote History

Quoted:
M855 has always been M855'ish....good at penetrating old soviet helmets at 600M and nothing else.
I can think of no reason to stock M855, unless you operate an M249 and live near the DMZ in Korea.

View Quote

I spent a fair amount of time trying to get a good 20" Gov Prof barrel that would group acceptably well with M855.
Never did, if acceptable is under 3 MOA. Had a lot# of IMI that was just below 2 MOA, and no, I didn't believe it either.
Unfortunately, I only had 1K of those. My favorite 855 was the Winchester, not particularly accurate @ 200+ meters,
around 3.5 MOA, but shot like a dream, pretty hot load too. It's "fliers" weren't so far off, like the others.
Still got about 1K of it around here somewhere.

Forget the 855, I know a guy with a couple hundred thousand rounds of mostly 70s and 80s vintage.
He should move to Korea.

Posted: 12/20/2019 7:40:53 AM EDT

[#26]

Quote History

Quoted:

Because it will go through car doors when m193 and most other duty (bonded) ammo won’t. If the Big Igloo kicks off people will hide behind shit when being shot at.

View Quote

5k would indicate a shit ton of barrier scenarios.

Posted: 12/21/2019 6:34:01 PM EDT

[#27]

Federal M855 gets my vote.

Posted: 12/22/2019 11:36:50 PM EDT

[#28]

Quote History

Quoted:
5k would indicate a shit ton of barrier scenarios.

View Quote View All Quotes

View All Quotes

Quote History

Quoted:

Quoted:

Because it will go through car doors when m193 and most other duty (bonded) ammo won’t. If the Big Igloo kicks off people will hide behind shit when being shot at.

5k would indicate a shit ton of barrier scenarios.

And what would 5k of m193 be? A shit ton of people assaulting you? That’s not the point....

Posted: 12/23/2019 12:29:16 AM EDT

[#29]

Quote History

Quoted:
And what would 5k of m193 be?

View Quote View All Quotes

View All Quotes

Quote History

Quoted:

Quoted:

Because it will go through car doors when m193 and most other duty (bonded) ammo won’t. If the Big Igloo kicks off people will hide behind shit when being shot at.

5k would indicate a shit ton of barrier scenarios.

And what would 5k of m193 be?

A more logical approach, IMO. But like I said, to each their own.

I'll take a higher frag rate/more accurate round in quantity over lower terminal ballistics/less accuracy 8 days a week.

Posted: 12/26/2019 1:46:28 AM EDT

[#30]

From what I have read, poly Level III plates are vulnerable to M855 and steel Level III plates are vulnerable to M193 (see here and here, for example). So M855 may have some utility over M193 in certain situations. But generally M193 will fragment at longer ranges and fragment somewhat more reliably.

Molon's accuracy testing of M855 clones found that IMI > X-Tac > Federal (see here and here).

Posted: 12/26/2019 8:55:05 PM EDT

[#31]

Maybe like me, he has a sizable amount MK318 and wants something to match trajectory.....

Posted: 12/28/2019 6:55:15 AM EDT

[#32]

Quote History

Quoted:
Maybe like me, he has a sizable amount MK318 and wants something to match trajectory.....

View Quote

I am running 62gr Gold Dots in my 20" AR, and M855 has a fairly close point of impact, so M855 makes for a better "practice" ammo than M193.

I haven't seen much IMI M855 around; SGA had a temporary sale on it a few months ago, but at that point I didn't have the 20" gun zeroed for Gold Dots and therefore I didn't realize I would need M855.

Now its out of stock most places.

Posted: 1/1/2020 11:49:22 AM EDT

[#33]

i bought some IMI 855 for blasting because it was on sale cheap and it ended up being about 1.25MOA stuff in a noveske CL barrel.

i think the lot was head stamped 2017.

Posted: 1/3/2020 4:25:47 PM EDT

[#34]

Quote History

Quoted:

M855 has always been M855'ish....good at penetrating old soviet helmets at 600M and nothing else. Accuracy standards likely got worse since the ammo demands of the GWOT. It may be slightly better against car bodies although pretty much everything, including pistol cal's go through cars pretty well.

I can think of no reason to stock M855, unless you operate an M249 and live near the DMZ in Korea.

Typical XM193 will work better for almost every use.

OP, if you must load up on M855, maybe try some Fed, Win, IMI, PPU, PMC X-Tac etc and see which shoots best. Or just get the cheapest and have low expectations for accuracy and terminal performance.

View Quote

Actually the opposite happened due to the gwot. The military generates an amazing amount of research on combat and shooting . The post combat interviews with troops forced them to tighten the accuracy standard for both the rifle and the ammunition. Granted neither are match level but the standard of a center mass target at 600 meters or the original Russian helmet. You are not hitting the helmet with a 4moa rifle and 5 moa ammo. What they started doing with ammo was ending the mixing of lot numbers of brass , bullets and powder. They found by keeping the components together as a lot the accuracy improved over mixed lots.

Posted: 1/5/2020 9:58:42 PM EDT

[#35]

Out of all my LWRC guns, 62gr IMI will shoot consistent sub one inch groups at 100 yards. X-Tac is close to the same.
LC opens up to 2 inches with occasional fliers out to 2.5 plus.
LC is crap.
Many better options.

Posted: 2/1/2020 12:27:42 AM EDT

[#36]

Stock up on IMI 77 gr.

Posted: 2/1/2020 9:39:37 PM EDT

[#37]

I have to agree with the gentlemen who recommended M193 instead.

Someone mentioned blown primers with IMI. I remember SGAmmo talking about that, and according to him, IMI cooled the load a bit to prevent that.

Posted: 2/2/2020 9:48:00 PM EDT

[#38]

I agree that M193 is preferable to M855.

If you’re set on a 62 grain loading, MagTech has one without the steel penetrator (MagTech Tactical) and I’ve gotten very good results with it.

It’s not always available; I bought mine from SG.

Posted: 2/4/2020 8:30:57 PM EDT

[#39]

Quote History

Quoted:

Actually the opposite happened due to the gwot. The military generates an amazing amount of research on combat and shooting . The post combat interviews with troops forced them to tighten the accuracy standard for both the rifle and the ammunition. Granted neither are match level but the standard of a center mass target at 600 meters or the original Russian helmet. You are not hitting the helmet with a 4moa rifle and 5 moa ammo. What they started doing with ammo was ending the mixing of lot numbers of brass , bullets and powder. They found by keeping the components together as a lot the accuracy improved over mixed lots.

View Quote

MILSPEC for the M16\M4 is 6" at 100 yards. MILSPEC M855 is usually good for half that, but there were ammo lots at the height of the GWAT that were throwing out 6" groups. That being said the penetration standard being set at 600 meters puts it squarely in the realm of an area effect weapon like the M249. The maximum point effect range of the M16 is 550 meters and that drops to 500 meters with the M4. This was never a called head shot drill.

Posted: 2/4/2020 9:31:57 PM EDT

[#40]

If you have a 1/7” mil spec bbl like I do in a Colt LE6940
It definitely will shoot 62 GR. IMI better than 55 grain
I have shot 10 shot groups under 1.5” with a 6x scope
The 55 grain spreads way more from 50-100 yards
And I have shot a lot of it
I will also concur the PMC is good ammo I only shot a small sample but it was as accurate as the IMI

Posted: 2/4/2020 10:15:57 PM EDT

[#41]

If I had $2,500 or more to spend on ammo, I would buy 100 rounds of M855 just to have.

Instead of 5000 rounds of M855, I would buy a mix of Geco 5.56x45mm NATO Ammo and Fusion MSR.

While I'm here, I shot M855 out to 500 yards in the wind, heat, rain, snow, with an accuracy of 3-4 MOA all day long, with a beat up government issued, 10 year old, iron sighted rifle.

I once had multiple failures to eject on some range one time and an armorer came over. Said my extractor claw was worn out. I ask him how many rounds does that take, he said about 10,000. I laughed, got a new claw, and went back out.

M855 is a dog, but it's not an ugly dog.

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - M855: IMI vs Federal LC

AR-15 » Ammunition

AR Sponsor:

Warning

Confirm Action

About AR15.COM

Stay Connected

Newsletter

Contact Us