Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Effectiveness of the 223 caliber for combat

12 guage.



22lr.

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Planemech... I'm not into a peeing match here, really.

I don't know what bullet Hornady uses in its TAP ammo, and neither does anyone other than Hornady. I don't know if it's the same VMax bullet I load in my varmint rounds.

What I DO know is that the 55 gr and 75 gr TAP ammo met FBI (and other) protocols. I don't think you're crazy to claim that the 5.56 will kill things like people and deer-sized quadrupeds. Been there, done that.

My point was that a home defender thinking he'll be "safe" shooting at a bad guy in his/her house with a shotgun or a pistol and expecting people to be safe on the other side of his/her "bad" shots is a fallacy.

You have to hit what you need to hit. Period. What you hit it with is, for the most part, irrelevant.

Maybe i should have worded my question differently, whats the most devestating, anti-personel round for the .233? I have a 12 guage, two pistols, two 22lrs, along with several other rifles. I have recently bought an AR-15 not thinking the world is coming to an end but because i have always wanted one. If im gonna have one in the house i want ammo that will be effective in it, im not too big on FMJ prjectiles.I not know this answer so i didnt mean to cause any in-fighting...

Just go pick up any hunting type mid weight soft point, hollow point or whatever non FMJ ammo and call it good.

I would concentrate a lot more money, effort and thought into taking care of loved ones who may likely get injured. Learn some casualty care and how to stabilize a trauma victim.

Bad things happen to good people, learn to deal with it.

It is very easy to dump dudes, it is a lot harder keeping people alive.

Excellent answer. I agree completely.

My personal choice for antipersonnel loads is any JSP bullet in the 60-65 gr weight range. They'll work in any rifle regardless of twist rate and are devastating on the receiving end.

I don't agree with any HP bullet though... I'd be happy with a SP, but still don't feel that an AR is a house gun for me.

I'll stick with birdshot in the 12ga backed up with buckshot if i need it, knowing full well that birdshot is about done once it has to go through one wall, but that buckshot can keep going, hence the reason for birdshot up close the first few rounds.

Did anyone post results of say 55 sps vrs a standard interior wall, how much further do they go after one wall?

And yes, totally agree you have to hit what you are aiming at and that helps, yet I carry a spare tire and fire extinguishers just in case.... same here, I intend to hit, but feel like I should put more thinking into the results in case I miss.

Jeff

Just playing around with different bullets and with shooting into different media, but I like the Winchester 64 grain SP.
It is quite accurate out of my AR15 and AR180B. It works fine in my Ruger Mini as well.
My reason for trying this was to see if it would work as a deer cartridge now that its legal on Florida. Looks like it will be fine for hunting, and for HD.

I like the Winchester 64 gr JSP as well. I think it will do fine on those little Florida deer, although Black Hills makes a fine 64 gr Nosler Partition load that I think would be even better (and has a great record at going through windshields and car doors with plenty of steam on the other side).

I've done testing on birdshot, buckshot, and 5.56mm 55 gr ball through standard construction sheetrock walls (5/8"), with a box of wetpack two feet behind it. Muzzles were set up 4 yards from the mockup wall.

The 55 gr ball ammo will penetrate 14 inches of soaked newsprint and blow out the other side. 64 gr JSP stays in the soaked newsprint. Buckshot blows a crater about 10" deep, and #7 birdshot blows a hole about 6" deep. I realize this is not as scientific/reproducible as shooting into a calibrated 10% ordnance gelatin block, but it gives some grounds for comparison between one projectile/load and another.

As far as I'm concerned, my results tell me that birdshot is NOT a "safer" alternative. The pellets have barely started to open up into a pattern at "home defense" ranges (7 yards or less) and strike as a solid mass for all intents and purposes. I know from treating GSW victims shot with birdshot inside 5 yards or so that the damage is comparable to that of buckshot. Past that distance buck is more lethal, especially Federal's Flite-Control buckshot.

Looks to me that a 6 inch hole penetrates less than a 64 that stays inside a newspack thats at least 14 inches thick? Am i right.

I don't use birdshot for the spread, anyone that thinks any pellet load spreads at house distances is crazy in my books. But what I ues it for is that after it hits human targer or wall, my feeble testing says it dissipates and travels not as far as other rounds/ammo. Point being it'll kill you just as dead as anything else, but if it hits a wall it wont' travel as much as others. Thats how I'm interpretting your results.

BTW typical wall is not 5/8 rock, thats fire rock, typical HOME walls are 1/2 rock, 2x4, no insulation, and 1/2 rock again. 5/8 is generally found in commercial buildings as a fire stop. Just FWIW.

Jeff... I'll have to find the pix and post them here. There's a big difference between the 6" deep and 6" wide crater the birdshot makes and the 14" pinhole the .223 round makes. My point is that neither one is "safe" for home defense use, nor should they be. As the Second Rule of Gun Safety says, "Know your target, and what's beyond it." Keep in mind that if an armed intruder is in your home, he's not going to be concerned about collateral damage, and he for damned sure won't be using "safe" ammunition.

My home defense shotgun is loaded with 00 buck, with slugs in the sidesaddle. I've treated a lot of GSW survivors with birdshot in 'em who did fine. I've never seen a GSW survivor with buckshot in him in 20-odd years of ER medicine. I know they're out there, but it's pretty rare.

And yes, I'm aware that 1/2" sheetrock is used in homes. I deliberately used heavier-than-code 5/8" to counter arguments from skeptics. No big deal.

FWIW, if you have the good fortune to live in an older home with plaster-and-lath walls, you probably don't need to worry about birdshot (or even most pistol rounds) going through them. Buckshot, slugs, and most rifle rounds will go thru, however.

was thinking the 6x6 hole would eat up energy more so than pinhole of the 223....

I'm not all that concerned about killing someone though I have no qualms about it either, I simply don't want to add my own damage to innocents.. I know the intruder doesn't care, doesn't mean I'm not concerned with overpenetration, and with our CHL laws we are more responsible.... Now you are saying birdshot won't kill as easy, which I find hard to believe at 10 feet inside your bedroom, but maybe so. For another view at this, of the survivors, how many do you think were shot at close range, 10 feet or so, and how many were not incapcitated instantly? VS dead with buckshot....

BTW the 5/8 rock also has built in moisture which means more dense, heavier... but I understand the use.

Any difference between say #4 buck and 00 buck in home penetrations? And what I currently have is LEO low recoil 00 buck a stash of it just because but the side saddle has 3 inch 00 buck..... a differnece in penetration to speka of or less pellets and less recoil?

And nope, not an old house. If I wasnt' worried much about penetration issues I'd likely have a handy M14 full of nice bullets and just pummel the guy or gal that made a mistake.

Jeff

The 5.56 will kill , but the 7.62 will leave a hole in the soul!

Grey,
I haven't read the whole thread so I may be repeating someone, but my opinion is that if you really want a gun for self defense at your cabin, a short-barrelled pump shotgun is the way to go.

Too much hardware, not enough software.

This was a silly debate the first time I heard it in 1966. The 5.56 kills just fine, and you can hump a lot more ammo than with the 7.62's,6.8's or whatever.

Jeff, I didn't see much difference between 00 buck and No. 1 buck, but No. 4 buck looked a lot more like #2 birdshot, IIRC. Which wasn't pretty, either. I don't feel a lot of difference in recoil between any of the above, to be honest. My home shotgun is an 11-87 M&P model. I feed it Federal FliteControl 00 buck and Federal 1-oz Foster slugs. Both are 2-3/4 inch shells. I have put 5 rounds of buck on a silhouette target at 5 yards in under 1.2 seconds with this gun, and 5 slugs in a 5-inch circle at 100 yards (slow fire), not braggin' on me, just the quality and versatility of the platform.

To be honest, what I've done is stick with 00 buck and pre-determine lanes of fire in my home that I know are "safe" (in terms of potential collateral damage). I've also added some "decorative" features to the house in a couple of places to make overpenetration less of an issue. My sheetrock/wetpack testing convinced me years ago that there's no such thing as a "safe" load when you're trying to incapacitate a bad guy but not create any collateral damage.

The only "safe" thing is to put the bad guy down for his dirt nap pronto. Your first shot is always your best shot. Make it count, and a second (or third) shot will not be required, and all ballistic materials will be retained within the new autopsy material. (BTW, this is the training doctrine of one of the major metro PD's I have trained and continue to work with, and their OIS data shows that it works.)

YMMV.

Stay safe.

Heck to be truthful, I'm overly protective, I guess its fear of lawsuits etc... and I'm in the country.... we dno't have kids, its not really an issue at all to me but I still feel I should be thinking. Plus I generally keep birdshot there as the shotgun mostly kills cottonmouths.... but there is buck in the tube.. Maybe I should rethink it all and go buckshot only.

Any thoughts on the short buckshot shells? Someone gonna call me Jeff O for asking all the questions probably... or just forget it and run the same 00 I buy for our local PD at 2.75 inches low recoil?

All I know is that i did not sign the Geneva convention, and i am not going to be using FMJ ammo.

It is similar to the 9mm in that when using a proper expanding bullet, the round becomes a much more solid performer. Are their probably better choices? Sure, but there are compromises. 360 rounds of .223 into a fight or 200 rnds of .308. I guess it depends on how far from the truck you plan on running out of ammo.

I don't see what signing the Geneva Convention has to do with any of this discussion.