.223 for bear, mountain goat, deer, elk, and moose.

[Jesse Jaymes]

I do. I just shot the 77TMK into really tiny groups over 8208XBR

 

[amassi]

Do any of you guys use a .223 AI with an 8 twist?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I had a 1:8 223ai worked great with 75 berger vld and the 77 matchking. 25.5g varget gave 2900fps from a 20" barrel
Cfe 223 was over 3,000 fps but harder to find than varget
Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

 

[cmahoney]

Great thread, you guys convinced me to get a Tikka in .223 for my 7 year old to hunt with. He’s been shooting my old 700 .223 with a 12 twist at steel for a while.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[WheatWhacker]

I had a 1:8 223ai worked great with 75 berger vld and the 77 matchking. 25.5g varget gave 2900fps from a 20" barrel
Cfe 223 was over 3,000 fps but harder to find than varget
Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

CFE 223 harder to find than Varget? What world do you live in? I want to be there too.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

 

[amassi]

CFE 223 harder to find than Varget? What world do you live in? I want to be there too.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

Well at the time I had #40 of Varget and all the ar15 nerds were buying up this new magic powder cfe223 that removed copper fouling and cleaned your barrel for you so it was relatively hard to find. Time travel back to 2017~

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

 

[roosiebull]

this thread always makes me miss my AR! i just didn't shoot it much, and found myself always packing my 6.5... i got the AR for lions, and quit bringing it, and gave it and a couple thousand rounds to my BIL for a steal... that rifle shot 77gr SMK's as well as any rifle i have ever owned with any bullet, so assume it would shoot the TMK the same.... now i'm dumping money into my 6.5 so i can fit it to my daughter and others i take every year... that sig AR would be handy now

again, i really appreciate those who have contributed to this thread, it's the best thread i have seen on any forum, and is an info gold mine if you have an open mind.

lots of people seem to trust their feelings over tons of testimonials.... sucks for them

 

[WheatWhacker]

Well at the time I had #40 of Varget and all the ar15 nerds were buying up this new magic powder cfe223 that removed copper fouling and cleaned your barrel for you so it was relatively hard to find. Time travel back to 2017~

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

Gotcha, I've only been reloading for the last year so I've had the opposite experience. I have 10 lbs of CFE 223 but have only seen varget once in person for $43 a pound. And I'm not willing to pay hazmat and shipping unless it's for 8lbers.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

 

[amassi]

Forgive me if it's been answered already, but are the blue tipped 77gr tmk any different from the green?

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

 

[HaydenLane]

Forgive me if it's been answered already, but are the blue tipped 77gr tmk any different from the green?

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

 

[2531usmc]

Interesting discussion on the 556 for larger animals.

I’ve always wondered about an m4/556 for bear defense, but have never seen it (rationally) mentioned.
Ever since Al Gore invented the Internet, the most common thread across every newsgroup on the Internet is “what is the best pistol and caliber for bear defense?”

Given that very few people could hit the broad side of a barn with a handgun (excluding us roksliders of course) in a stresses situation, I would think an m4 with a collapsible stock shooting green tip (AP) ammo would be a much better solution. Given it’s short length and it’s not much heavier than a10 mm Glock, an m4 would be a much better bear defense weapon than any handgun. And almost certainly a green tip 556 would have much better penetration than any handgun caliber

 

[Formidilosus]

I’ve always wondered about an m4/556 for bear defense, but have never seen it (rationally) mentioned.
Ever since Al Gore invented the Internet, the most common thread across every newsgroup on the Internet is “what is the best pistol and caliber for bear defense?”

Given that very few people could hit the broad side of a barn with a handgun (excluding us roksliders of course) in a stresses situation, I would think an m4 with a collapsible stock shooting green tip (AP) ammo would be a much better solution. Given it’s short length and it’s not much heavier than a10 mm Glock, an m4 would be a much better bear defense weapon than any handgun. And almost certainly a green tip 556 would have much better penetration than any handgun caliber

Rationally, a properly setup AR15, would be the answer for bear. Greentip sucks.

 

[Oneforeachofyou]

Interesting discussion on the 556 for larger animals.

I’ve always wondered about an m4/556 for bear defense, but have never seen it (rationally) mentioned.
Ever since Al Gore invented the Internet, the most common thread across every newsgroup on the Internet is “what is the best pistol and caliber for bear defense?”

Given that very few people could hit the broad side of a barn with a handgun (excluding us roksliders of course) in a stresses situation, I would think an m4 with a collapsible stock shooting green tip (AP) ammo would be a much better solution. Given it’s short length and it’s not much heavier than a10 mm Glock, an m4 would be a much better bear defense weapon than any handgun. And almost certainly a green tip 556 would have much better penetration than any handgun caliber

It’s not much heavier than a Glock? I have carried a 10mm in bear country a lot and none of those times would I have been able to haul an M4 around. Granted, if you’re hunting or not hiking too far, etc it seems like it’d be perfect (with 77g TMK)

 

[LimeSpoon]

M855 doesn't consistently and substantially outpenetrate many handgun rounds, at least not in muscle tissue. The "short NL" (neck length) example shown here is probably somewhat closer to the average wound profile at M4 muzzle velocities, and it's about as deep as many handgun hollowpoints go.

Handgun JHPs designed for deeper penetration like the Critical Duty loadings out of standard service calibers as well as the 10mm 200 gr Gold Dot and HST loadings are likely to push it more into the 15-18" range, closer to the "long NL" M855 profile.

To give some explanation, long NL is what happens when the bullet travels point forward for a longer period of time and takes a while to yaw and fragment; this occurs unpredictably and is more of the minority of situations at M4 muzzle velocities.

Occasionally M855 will simply fail to fragment at all even above its nominal velocity threshold and in this case may attain 20+ inches of penetration, this is far from reliable though (but does occur often enough to make it a rather poor 5.56 hunting/antipersonnel round, at least comparatively). It also results in narrow wounding.

It's possible that greentip may realize a more notable advantage when passing through harder tissue types (and perhaps ironically, possibly also lung, as the high shear strength of lung tissue is likely to be of minimal importance at higher travel velocities while the lower density vs muscle tissue reduces resistance), this is harder to verify however. Barrier performance of the M855 through such things like car doors and auto glass actually tends to be rather unspectacular.

Graphic courtesy of Martin Fackler and Fr. Frog's website.

 

[BigNate]

This is way off topic, (bear defense) but I do agree I'd feel better about stopping a charge with an m4 than any handgun. M855 would not be my choice of ammo though.
Picking a proven combination is smart. There are a few bullets I would consider, but if faced with the choice today the 77 tmk would be it.

 

[2531usmc]

LimeSpoon,

Thank you for the well reasoned response backed up by data. That went a long way towards answering a question I’ve been asking myself for a long time.

so refreshing and unusual to see an Internet response like yours. Normally the response is something along the lines of “that sucks”.

 

[260madman]

Took a doe at about 310 yards this afternoon with an 18” AR. 77gr TMK did it’s job and made the lungs mush. Through and through and a blood trail Ray Charles could follow. Blood trail was instant and quite a bit of hair. Doe died a bit short of where my daughters buck died so a short blood trail.

Should have had this on video. Was sleeting today and the objective was iced over but still had a half way decent view through the spotter. I set it up for my camera man and told him just follow the big one and he decided to zoom in my phone for some reason so the video is crap and he couldn’t find anything through it. It was uneventful so I don’t have any stills to post from it, just grainy crap. He was trying to find deer with the equivalent of 72x at 315 yards . Maybe next year.

 

[cmahoney]

DVOR has 77 TMK’s


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Nomosendero]

DVOR has 77 TMK’s


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the tip, I just ordered some, can't have too many!

 

[cmahoney]

Thanks for the tip, I just ordered some, can't have too many!

I did too and the price was better than the ones I had on back order at midway


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[DBL B]

Elevated gun works has 500 rd cases of Blackhills loaded 77tmk for $675 if anyone’s interested.