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5.56 ammo penetration capabilities


JF89

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I know...I know... I said "penetration"? 

 

Moving past that, I was thinking of adding a mag of something with better penetration capabilities than standard 5.56 to my emergency/shtf/mall ninja kit. I was thinking maybe some 50 gr TSX but not quite sure yet.

I am going to set up my own barrier penetration tests this summer to get more of a feel for the 5.56s capabilities but I am not too optimistic so far. What kind of ammo do you guys recommend for this task? I am a civie , so it has to be legal for a civie to buy/own.

 

I think my test will probably be on Car doors and winshield. (Assuming my buddies wife oks our shenanigans on their property)

Depending on laws maybe some small to medium sized trees/stumps.

Some sheetrock, 2x4s and maybe a few bricks (not cinder blocks)

Not sure what to expect here or if its even worth messing with but it sounds fun and gives me a reason to buy more poop.

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Best bet is to trade in that 5.56 for a 7.62x51. Failing that, there is a thread around here with a film link that looked at some of the new hot 5.56 stuff, and its failure to penetrate current issue Russian body armor.

here it is.

 

 

Edited by Sisco
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3 minutes ago, Sisco said:

Best bet is to trade in that 5.56 for a 7.62x51. Failing that, there is a thread around here with a film link that looked at some of the new hot 5.56 stuff, and its failure to penetrate current issue Russian body armor.

here it is.

 

 

Fair enough, im wanting to mess with 5.56 for right now though. I kind of figured that alot/most of it would be crap at penetration. Do you have any experience with the TSX 50 gr monolithic copper stuff?

https://www.lightfighter.net/topic/range-report-black-hills-5-56mm-50-grain-tsx

 

I figured since it was designed for LE use maybe someone around here might have some experience with it.

 

 

 

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so first of all, you have to look at bullet construction. Full metal jackets and some other types of bullets penetrate very well because they don't really expand as quickly. ballistic tip, lead tipped, hollow points, and other such bullets are made to expand and don't penetrate as well. 

the other thing you have to look at is the speed of the round. I have seen many YouTube tests where people compare penetration capabilities of similar grain/construction bullets fired out of 30-30, 308, 30-06, and 300 win mag (usually on milk jugs). now one would think that the 300 win mag would penetrate farther. but what really happens in these tests is the 30-30 penetrates farthest. Now someone can correct me if I am wrong in any of this, but from my understanding, the quicker bullets expand more widely and more rapidly. This causes the bullet to dump its energy more quickly, while the slower bullets coming from the 30-30 would take longer to dump their energy, allowing them to go farther. 

now these tests I always saw done with lead tipped, hunting style bullets, beats me how a full metal jacket would do when comparing the calibers. 

now specifically to 5.56 though. the military basically designed their bullets to tumble on impact. the thought behind this is it would cause more damage as it tumbled through the body. However this was very inconsistent. often times bullets would pass right through with little wound channel if it didn't hit anything hard on the target, and it wouldn't expand much on impact and dump that energy into the target. other negatives about tumbling bullets is if you have a target behind any obstruction, the bullet would tumble off its trajectory after hitting whatever it was before your target. I saw this in my training where we would setup mock buildings with 3/8" plywood. as soon as the bullet entered the plywood, it would start to tumble well off coarse in an unpredictable direction while dumping its energy against any and all resistance, including air. Special Operations started to use a 77gr cartridge that wouldn't tumble, which among other things, gave them better penetration with their rifles.

SECTIONAL DENSITY... this is the need to know term for penetration If you ignore everything else I have said, use this when looking into penetration. Read the link below to have it explained better than I ever could.

https://www.chuckhawks.com/sd.htm

so basically your lighter 5.56 cartridges are going to have worse sectional density than the heavier ones. so 50gr being rather light is going to have poor penetration compared to say a 70gr. 

 

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So, tax will expand and not have great penetration. That said, car doors yes, windshield yes, drywall yes.... after that more solid targets will get mixed results unless your using m855A1 (better than standard). Solid copper will do better than jacketed and ballistic better than hollow point

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Scap the 50gr TSX.  Use the 70gr TSX.  Thank me later.  :thumbup:

Here's the vaulted Sierra 77 SMK compared to a Barnes 70 TSX.

m6fiuzhwkc.jpg

If you need to fuk shiit up with a 5.56 gun, that's the projectile to do it.  If you need to shoot windshields and try to break cinder blocks, shoot SS109.  :thumbup:

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1 hour ago, 98Z5V said:

Scap the 50gr TSX.  Use the 70gr TSX.  Thank me later.  :thumbup:

Here's the vaulted Sierra 77 SMK compared to a Barnes 70 TSX.

m6fiuzhwkc.jpg

If you need to fuk shiit up with a 5.56 gun, that's the projectile to do it.  If you need to shoot windshields and try to break cinder blocks, shoot SS109.  :thumbup:

 

Sounds like I will have to get me some ss109 and TSX 70, thanks.

 

 

 

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One thing to think about, usually "defensive" ammo is not designed to penetrate far because in defensive situations, over penetration can be a problem. That's why a lot of defensive ammo even is designed to fragment so that it doesn't go through your walls and hit grandma two houses away. but generally defensive ammo is crap for penetrating barriers. but basically anything can go through car doors and windshield glass, which is designed to defend against wind and rocks. .22LR can go through those usually in most places. 

If you're serious about wanting as much penetration as possible, I think 98 has given you exactly what you are looking for.

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18 minutes ago, ARTrooper said:

One thing to think about, usually "defensive" ammo is not designed to penetrate far because in defensive situations, over penetration can be a problem. That's why a lot of defensive ammo even is designed to fragment so that it doesn't go through your walls and hit grandma two houses away. but generally defensive ammo is crap for penetrating barriers. but basically anything can go through car doors and windshield glass, which is designed to defend against wind and rocks. .22LR can go through those usually in most places. 

If you're serious about wanting as much penetration as possible, I think 98 has given you exactly what you are looking for.

I agree, Ive never really experimented with alot of different ammo. Should be fun, only stuff I shoot now is some BH 77 gr stuff and  55 gr fmj for plinking. Thanks for the input, guys.

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I have some experience with 556/223 in duty rifles. My department is limited to 62 gr Remington bonded core because the military gave us some m16s with 1/12 twist and that the longest bullet it will stabilize. Even at that it takes a double le tap for a windshield as a singlegle round will be stopped in a heavey coat. The bullet will split on impact into two projactiles each weighting around 12 grains apiece. 

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3 minutes ago, 08sniper said:

I have some experience with 556/223 in duty rifles. My department is limited to 62 gr Remington bonded core because the military gave us some m16s with 1/12 twist and that the longest bullet it will stabilize. Even at that it takes a double le tap for a windshield as a singlegle round will be stopped in a heavey coat. The bullet will split on impact into two projactiles each weighting around 12 grains apiece. 

55gr M193 will rage right through a windshield, and send 3100fps fragments everywhere inside.  That's what the 1:12" was designed for.  1:9" twist was designed for the SS109 (M855) and long-ass tracers.  That 62gr bonded is a soft-point.  It's gonna suck through glass.  That's a hunting round, and deer don't wear jean jackets often.  USBP uses it, though. 

On another note, M193 defeats some rifle-rated armor, too.  It's a weird load.  Speed kills.

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We use 55 gr Speer LE Gold Dot Duty

1 hour ago, 98Z5V said:

55gr M193 will rage right through a windshield, and send 3100fps fragments everywhere inside.  That's what the 1:12" was designed for.  1:9" twist was designed for the SS109 (M855) and long-ass tracers.  That 62gr bonded is a soft-point.  It's gonna suck through glass.  That's a hunting round, and deer don't wear jean jackets often.  USBP uses it, though. 

On another note, M193 defeats some rifle-rated armor, too.  It's a weird load.  Speed kills.

We use 55 gr Speer LE Gold Dot Duty ammo. a lighter bonded soft point than what 08sniper's department uses. I honestly think many departments go with soft points because they don't want over penetration in residential areas.

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12 minutes ago, ARTrooper said:

We use 55 gr Speer LE Gold Dot Duty

We use 55 gr Speer LE Gold Dot Duty ammo. a lighter bonded soft point than what 08sniper's department uses. I honestly think many departments go with soft points because they don't want over penetration in residential areas.

Yep.  Worried about over-penetration - Which is wrong, from 5.56.  The round is designed to frag, and not over-penetrate.  That's in it's very nature, unless you get crazy with other projectiles that are designed to do more.

You get into this stuff, from the older days, and it just plain "dispells myths."

Hit #1 and go up... 

https://www.theboxotruth.com/tag/original-chapters/

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We were using a varmint bullet in which I complained. But it took shooting a bad guy 5 times with no serious injury to convince powers to be we needed a change. The winds are blowing to get rid of the m16 so we can go to a better bullet maybe some of the hornady tap rounds with some weight. Not many departments are forward thinkers it takes a tragedy or near one to get change. Sad. Also people win bids that want to push certain things that make them more money. It took me a good while to change from remington match SMK to Hornady tap. Which has shown to be the right decision on a couple occasions 

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10 hours ago, ARTrooper said:

We use 55 gr Speer LE Gold Dot Duty

We use 55 gr Speer LE Gold Dot Duty ammo. a lighter bonded soft point than what 08sniper's department uses. I honestly think many departments go with soft points because they don't want over penetration in residential areas.

This is surprising considering how many PDs use .40 SW Glocks but makes sense.

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Big problem with the SS109 is a 1 in 9 barrel is the least amount of twist you need and 1 in 7 is better, but then you lose the bullet yaw characteristics of the M193. One hole in, one hole out. Reloading all my shot M855 (SS109)LC brass with 75 gr Hornady BTHP’s.for my 1 in 7 twist AR15 HBAR Match.

Edited by Sisco
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9 minutes ago, edgecrusher said:

Umm I think your confused. We are talking patrol rifle ammo.... I’m sure they have a duty sidearm. We use M&P 45’s

  The .40 S&W up untail a few years back was the most common pistol round used by LE , right?  Isnt that round pretty effective at barrier penetration? Im just wondering why its common to have pistols that penetrate but rifles that dont?

Maybe I misunderstood what we were talking about.  Anyhow , sorry for derailing a really informative topic. I am really liking the looks of that 70 gr TSX that 98z5v was talking about.

 

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The people that make decisions don't k ol anything about ballistic as already said. My department for along time wouldn't let SWAT have the dreaded ar15 for fear of over penetration even though our hand guns would penetrate far more. Like most people they think the ar is akin  To thor's hammer. They are coming around slowly. Ha

Edited by 08sniper
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6 hours ago, 08sniper said:

The people that make decisions don't k ol anything about ballistic as already said. My department for along time wouldn't let SWAT have the dreaded ar15 for fear of over penetration even though our hand guns would penetrate far more. Like most people they think the ar is akin  To thor's hammer. They are coming around slowly. Ha

Lol make sense. 

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