... What in your opinion is a good short range (<75-yards) .224" rifle bullet that is effective for most home/farm scenarios?
Small farm, you know. Anything beyond 50-75 yards isn't a threat to us. I'm thinking of soft target predators with ill-intent against my animals or my family.
On duty I used to carry Hornady or Barnes all-copper hollow points for their barrier penetration properties (especially sheet metal, auto glass, etc) because of the probability that a more typical bullet would fail me when the chips were really down. Those monolithic bullets would retain 100% of their weight and still do real damage even after punching thru stuff.
My department gave me the awful (and thankfully discontinued) Federal T223A LE ammo, which in Federal's own auto glass tests showed almost zero weight retention and only one inch into ordnance gel after the windshield Denim covered gelatin only did 7.25" penetration and 30%~40% weight retention. Awful stuff. I still have some. Won't use that for anything real soon!
For now, I have switched and re-zeroed my 5.56 bolt gun and 5.56 AR-15 to plain old M193 ball with the cannelure.
I have lots at home in my stash to pick from including polymer tipped varmint bullets, ball, monolithic, LE Gold Dots, and lead soft points.
Thoughts?
Small farm, you know. Anything beyond 50-75 yards isn't a threat to us. I'm thinking of soft target predators with ill-intent against my animals or my family.
On duty I used to carry Hornady or Barnes all-copper hollow points for their barrier penetration properties (especially sheet metal, auto glass, etc) because of the probability that a more typical bullet would fail me when the chips were really down. Those monolithic bullets would retain 100% of their weight and still do real damage even after punching thru stuff.
My department gave me the awful (and thankfully discontinued) Federal T223A LE ammo, which in Federal's own auto glass tests showed almost zero weight retention and only one inch into ordnance gel after the windshield Denim covered gelatin only did 7.25" penetration and 30%~40% weight retention. Awful stuff. I still have some. Won't use that for anything real soon!
For now, I have switched and re-zeroed my 5.56 bolt gun and 5.56 AR-15 to plain old M193 ball with the cannelure.
I have lots at home in my stash to pick from including polymer tipped varmint bullets, ball, monolithic, LE Gold Dots, and lead soft points.
Thoughts?