I was going to title this a 5.56mm ammo "test" but seeing
as it was totally unscientific I can't really call it
a test.
On my last outing to Bisley I took along a variety of
5.56mm, namely Canadian C77, some Target Master ammo,
assembled in Tewkesbury by HPS (using Winchester brass
and primers, RG powder and Sierra MatchKing 69gr HPBTs)
and finally Swiss Ammunition Enterprise ammo, which is
identical to their service ammo except it also uses
the Sierra bullet.
To cut a long story short, the Swiss ammo was the most
consistent and accurate, I was getting scores in the 90s
on the A-10 300m target, in the 80s with Target Master
and the Canadian military ammo. The Canadian ammo seemed
to have the occasional flyer, though that might just have
been me. My past experience is that the Canadian ammo
totally outclasses all other FMJ loads and I still think
that is the case (with the possible exception of Swiss
GP90). The Swiss ammo is as good as Federal Gold Medal,
the USMC marksmanship unit have used it so it can't be
bad. The USAMU have gotten 0.2 MOA groups with Federal
GM at 300 yards, so if the Swiss stuff is as good as that
(and I have no doubt it is) then you get what you pay for
and gee whiz is this stuff expensive!
Brass looks good, though I haven't measured the capacity of
the case yet and it suffers from the annoyance of having a
staked in primer, so you'll need one of those primer pocket
reamers to fix that.
Everyone I've spoken to says the Sierra bullet is best for
300m, it tolerates jump better than a VLD (or rather it does,
whereas a VLD doesn't) and if the USAMU is getting 0.2 MOA
then it's still pretty accurate out to 300m. I wasn't
getting 0.2 MOA but then my rifle wasn't built by the
USAMU and I'm not a machine rest.
The Swiss ammo comes in 50-round boxes on GP90 ten-round
stripper clips for the SIG SG550 assault rifle magazine, I
wasn't quite sure what to make of that although you can reuse
the strips and they're better than the horrid metal thingies
you usually find. Much better certainly than the loose
packed Target Master ammo (invariably I find one or two
mangled rounds in these boxes, no doubt due to the packing)
which comes in 100-round boxes, and better than the horrid
plastic foam boxes most ammo comes in. Does the packing
matter? Not really, but it's attention to detail and
Federal Gold Medal also comes in better than average
packing IMO.
Anyway, if you want some, Beechwood is the official importer
and it's called Swiss P .223.
One thing that always surprises me about 5.56mm is just how
well you can get them to shoot with a decent barrel and
good ammunition. Or even a halfway decent barrel and good
ammunition.
Steve.
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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