I've used this round on a number of GA deer. Very accurate and expands reliably. My experience has been with a 20" barrel, but performance has been consistently good on live game from 25-100 yards.Originally Posted by texasaggie2005
It is also obtainable by mear mortals aren't LE. You can find it online for roughly $18 a box and I've seen it in Dick's and Bass Pro regularly.
Just checked the ammo.
The Winchester Ranger brass is not annealed but has a bullet and primer crimp and appears to be sealed.
The Prvi 75gr brass is annealed has a light primer crimp and does not appear to be sealed.
The whole idea behind a barrier blind round is to get adequate penetration and expansion, both at the same time. The M855 round doesn't always penetrate as much as many would assume it to.
Don't forget that we as a society are getting bigger and bigger. Yes a well placed head shot will make most of these arguments moot. But in the real world, a suspect rarely holds his head still, much less the rest of his body. If you then need to place a round or two into the upper center body, you might have to shoot through a few things first. Leather/jean jackets, shirts, ect., followed by layers of muscle and fat. Depending on the individuals fondness for Malt Liquor and French Fries, there may be a lot of fat to get through. You may have to take an angled shot and go through an upper arm.
I have seen what various handgun rounds can do when shot inside of housing projects and apartments. Like the energizer bunny, they just keep going and going. Until they hit something hard enough to stop them.
The moral of the story is that I would't concern myself about finding an under penetrating round as it relates to missing and the round going through walls. It most likely will not penetrate enough on the suspect.
There are a lot of good rounds out there under $1.00 per round. But I would much rather see an individual who understands and uses good tactics, is well trained and practiced, have his magazines loaded with M855 or M193 ammunition. Chances are that this individual would do ok during an incident.
While ammunition selection is important, it is only one of many factors involved.
At work I'm stuck with the 55gr Win Ranger 55 Ballistic Silvertip (RA223BSTA) we've had two lots of ammo recalled in the last 6 years for QC issues. Another batch was overloaded and popping out primers in our Rock River rifles during quals and taking the rifles out of action. The sad part of is that it was at semi annual quals and it was old duty rounds that were getting fired off. I wouldn't recommend anything that doesn't have crimped primers. Some of the Ranger loads are crimped and some aren't, I don't understand Winchester's logic on that one.
We've had some abysmal results with the Ballstic Silvertip in a few shootings (and I'm guessing V-max and Urban Tap would be about the same). The rounds didn't fail, they did exactly what they were designed to do, which is break apart and make shallow wounds.
-Officers go to man with gun call and actually find a man, a very obese man, with a gun in his hand. He's drunk, refuses to drop the gun, dares the officer to shoot him and points the gun at the officers. Both officer shoot at the susp. The officer with the pistol misses with both shots. The officer with the rifle is about 12 feet away, fires four shots, hits the susp in the right pectoral with three rounds and the fourth hits the susp in the hand and gun. The susp figures out that the officers mean business and gives up. Only the base from one of the bullets was able to penetrate through 4-5' inches of muscle and fat, pass through the rib cage and go into the susp's lung. The susp was not incapacitated from being shot in the chest. I wasn't at the shooting but I had to sit on the susp in the hospital and he was one belligerent SOB. He was very upset about his hand getting blown apart, but he couldn't see his chest and didn't realize that he had been shot there.
-Officer shoots carjacking susp through the windshield of a car. The rounds broke apart on hitting the windshield, spraying the susp with glass and bullet fragments. One of the bullet bases was embedded in the susp's forehead and another in his cheek bone. The susp lays down behind the dash, manages to get the car in reverse and backs onto the hood of a parked car, disabling the susp's car and a multi-hour standoff ensues, he finally surrenders when the SWAT team replaced the air in the car with tear gas.
I've done some unofficial testing by stacking old 3a vest and testing them against rifle rounds and the Ballistic tip did not do well. It's pretty amazing at what a lot of layers of tightly worn kevlar can stop.
Unless you're positive that you're going to be shooting thin, unarmored individuals i wouldn't recommend a ballistic tip round.
Pablo, I feel your pain. The 55 gr ballistic Silvertip was our duty round for a long time. The pullet tips would break if you dropped the round on the ground. Bullet setback was a huge issue also.
We got lucky in 2011 when the powers that be decided to upgrade our pistol ammo. I managed to be at the ballistic workshops that we hosted, and participated in the data collection. I was pushing for the new at that time 64 gr bonded Winchester 5.56 loading (RA556B). This round was impressive in gel. The results in gel from the 55 gr Silver Tips flat out sucked as far as penetration goes. Might be great if attacked by chipmunks or ground hogs. Other than that...
On the state contract, it wasn't that much different in price than the 55 gr silver tips.
The department actually pays a hefty premium for the ballistic tip round and that won't change until someone gets killed from the rounds failing.
It all stems from carjacking mentioned above.
The officer who shot the suspect, another officer with a rifle at the scene fired close to 50 rounds into the car, another officer with a .357 Sig 229 fires 13 rounds as well. The officer with the pistol basically did a spray and pray and shot up two parked cars and a house. The officers with the rifles were shooting fast but all their rounds struck the vehicle, most impacted the grill and hood, the ones that hit the windshield broke apart. The shooting took place on a residential street with cars parked on both sides and enough room for one lane of traffic. The first officer blocked in the susp with his car, exited the squad and was waiting for the susp. The susp attempted to ram the squad car out of the way, and the officer fired 5-6 rounds into the windshield, striking the susp. The susp puts the car in reverse and all three officer now fire at the susp while he's backing down the street. My thinking is that if we had better rounds the suspect would have been DRT, with the first rounds fired. The department's mis-logic is that it's a good thing that the rifle rounds don't hold together because there would have been more collateral damage. Somehow there's less liability in 60+ ineffective rounds than 5 effective shots.
I do know an officer at a nearby agency that shot and killed a rampaging bull, from an overturned trailer, on a freeway with Barnes TSX round and took the bull out with 4 rounds. Being able to stop dangerous animals, zoo animals or livestock, is another consideration.
Pablo--Your departments "leadership" is woefully lacking intelligence and logic--be sure to hire me as an expert witness should anyone ever decide to sue your agency over their stupidity...
Facts matter...Feelings Can Lie
I assure you that the win ranger brass is annealed. Now they might shine it off to make it look pretty.
OP
I moved to BB loads years ago over Mk262/ 75grTAP ,
My favorite BB load out of my 14.5 Barrel is Black Hills 5.56mm 50 gr TSX. I also like the 60yr old Nolser Partition. The 223rem Partiton penetrated deeper than some of the newer Bonded loads the Dr. tested. ( 18inches AG and BG if I remember right) might watch feed ramps for lead build up if you fire over 7mags.
At one time Federal Fusion 62gr was the cheapest BB load. I don't know if it still is today?
That makes sense. It is uniformly pretty brass as opposed to the stuff I usually shoot. I suppose the lack of tempering marks on the case neck led me to think they had not been annealed.
Last edited by Suvorov; 04-18-2014 at 10:56 AM.
Reply With Quote