Best Ammo for 5.56, or At Least, Ammo to Avoid

[TerryMiller]

Barrel twist is 1/8. Pardon my ignorance, but what's the difference with the ammo on the various twists?

 

[D.M.]

Faster twist is needed to keep a heavier bullet stable, your 1/8 is one rotation in 8 inches compared to a 1/14 your faster twist will handle the 77 grain bullets just fine and still work with the lighter 55 grain you might even be able to use 80's. The 1/14 works great with the light
45 - 55 grain but just can not spin a longer heavier bullet fast enough to stabilize. The only drawback to the faster twist is with very light bullets you can over stabilize and have the bullet literally vaporize when pushed to high velocity. 1/8 is an excellent twist that can handle just about anything. IMI and Silver State both load the 77 grain Sierra Match King to 5.56 pressure making an outstanding long range round for your AR15. Hope this helps.

 

[TerryMiller]

Faster twist is needed to keep a heavier bullet stable, your 1/8 is one rotation in 8 inches compared to a 1/14 your faster twist will handle the 77 grain bullets just fine and still work with the lighter 55 grain you might even be able to use 80's. The 1/14 works great with the light
45 - 55 grain but just can not spin a longer heavier bullet fast enough to stabilize. The only drawback to the faster twist is with very light bullets you can over stabilize and have the bullet literally vaporize when pushed to high velocity. 1/8 is an excellent twist that can handle just about anything. IMI and Silver State both load the 77 grain Sierra Match King to 5.56 pressure making an outstanding long range round for your AR15. Hope this helps.

Helps a lot in understanding the twist. I never knew that a high twist was detrimental to a round.

Thanks.

 

[D.M.]

Only a bad thing for light bullets, the light one's have thin jackets and when pushed to max velocity they cant handle the stress.
Back off on the pressure and they do fine. Most of the light bullets are made with thin jackets so they work on small thin skinned critters like prairie dogs. Most commercial ammo runs 55-62 grain, but you can find 45,50, 69 fairly easy. You are not loading your own right now I guess due to space, but you don't need a large press you can get small presses from Lee and a few others small enough to
fit in a drawer, they are slow but you can load some pretty good ammo on them if you pay close attention to what you are doing.

 

[swampratt]

Here is a bit of reading on store ammo vs tweaked store ammo.
I tested .223 in my savage axis bolt rifle.
Lots of numbers and some pictures.
https://www.handloadersbench.com/fo...les/40471-i-want-to-do-another-experiment-223

 

[Dumpstick]

Helps a lot in understanding the twist. I never knew that a high twist was detrimental to a round.

Thanks.

Just to clarify a bit on what D.M. wrote:

The problem with fast twist on lighter bullets, is the bullets spin so fast they fly apart.
There is an RPM limit, usually not a problem with factory rounds because the barrels of traditional rifles are designed with a certain weight in mind.
The MSR, with the modular design, allows almost any barrel to be installed. Twist rates, and their RPM results, are rarely thought of by the shooting public.

Get into shooting cast lead, it's an even bigger concern.

 

[bigchuck83]

I've recently been using Hornady Frontier ammo usually easy to find in stock at Academy and has been reliable for me. That or Federal ammo is all i really buy.

 

[TerryMiller]

Only a bad thing for light bullets, the light one's have thin jackets and when pushed to max velocity they cant handle the stress.
Back off on the pressure and they do fine. Most of the light bullets are made with thin jackets so they work on small thin skinned critters like prairie dogs. Most commercial ammo runs 55-62 grain, but you can find 45,50, 69 fairly easy. You are not loading your own right now I guess due to space, but you don't need a large press you can get small presses from Lee and a few others small enough to
fit in a drawer, they are slow but you can load some pretty good ammo on them if you pay close attention to what you are doing.

Ha!! Have you seen the drawers in cabinets of RV's? Granted, ours are fairly good sized for an RV, but with all the "toys" I have, including camera equipment, they fill up pretty fast.

Standard thought for those living in RV's is that if one chooses to buy something new, it generally means something older gets sold or given away to allow for the space.

 

[Oklahomabassin]

Federal XM193 is great for everything but hunting.

 

[Dumpstick]

Ha!! Have you seen the drawers in cabinets of RV's? Granted, ours are fairly good sized for an RV, but with all the "toys" I have, including camera equipment, they fill up pretty fast.

Standard thought for those living in RV's is that if one chooses to buy something new, it generally means something older gets sold or given away to allow for the space.

It's not the space for the press. It's the peripherals, the accouterments (or, in Okie-speak "uh-COOTER-mints").

Ya can't have just a press, no matter how small. There's dies, powder, projectiles, measuring apparatus, scale, etc etc etc.

We used to have a travel trailer. Even for 2 week trips, it gets small in there in a hurry.