Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Under 100 yard bullet performance?

Gel test is pretty cool and may be equal to shooting a hog for comparison or close but nothing close to real life shots/performance on thin skinned critters. Been shooting red fox and coyotes for over 30 years and skinned out close to 2000 in that time. I always stop and take the time and do a little CSI work on some of them to see or check how a certain bullet performs or see why it didn't perform. If a bullet remains inside the critter I try to recover it as well. Usually, a med. to med. light bullet listed for what cal. you are using does the best job. Some cal. doesn't have a good bullet like the 20 cal. for example, yeah sure you can get by at times with what there is but its not reliable and I don't care who you are. and some cartridges just don't have the right vel. for the type of bullet you using as well. Under 600 yards fast and flat wins every time.


A broad side shot on a coyote hit it in the rib cage area the bullet is going to perform differently due to going through bone or Cartlidge. Plastic tip bullet will just lose 1/8-1/2" of the tip and rest behave like a fmj or solid slug.

Can get same results of bullet not traveling as fast as it should, not enough speed or energy to cause bullet to expand or frag.

A bullet that just passes through is a wasted bullet or shot as the bullet did not dump all its energy inside like its suppose to, what energy you had left went out the door so to speak.

On a frontal chest shot you be shooting at the meatier part of a coyote and the bullet can and will change how it performs there as well. Some will expand way to soon and leave a shallow splash dumping all energy close to surface, not good. Maybe I'll put up some pictures later on the subject.

Sorry Timmy but a 40 grain Vmax or NBT is a killing SOB in the 204 Ruger, way better than the 25’s in a 17 Remington from my experience. But this is getting off topic to the OP.

The problem with the 55 grain FMJ or even the 62 grain FMJ is they work and then they don’t work. Too inconsistent. They are very dependent on velocity and have a huge variety of commercial loads out there that are underpowered. Real M193 and M855 have a standard but even then it’s hit or miss on performance. The effective terminal range from a 20” barrel is not that far but fired out of an 11.5” barrel and you’re in double digit yardage and performance is still iffy.

My 11.5” SBR is loaded with MK262, my 16” guns are loaded with 55 grain NBT’s until I run out then they’ll be loaded with 77’s too.

Anyone compare the 64 grain gold dot to a 77 grain SMK?

Forget the SMK, you want the TMK. The 77 is one of the most consistent bullets I’ve ever used on flesh.

I use the 62 gr. Fusion and 64 gr. Gold Dot bonded core bullets for my all-around general-use AR load. Both are accurate and kill everything I have shot with them from crows, coyotes, bobcats, coons, groundhogs, feral cats, wild hogs, and deer very well. The mid-weight bonded core bullets are barrier blind and work well for me in any scenario I have used them in.
I mostly shoot them from two AR rifles, one with a 14.5" barrel and one 16".

I use the Nosler equivalent, their 64gr Bonded Solid Base.

There are lots of bullets that work better than M193.

I'll take pretty much any 60-80gr polymer-tipped or softpoint cup/core over 55gr ball if shooting live critters.

I confess I use 62 grain Fusion, 64 grain gold dot, and like the 77 grain TMK. I need to investigate Sticks 75 grain hornady to see how it shoots in my rifles. I have a few boxes of xm 193 practice ammo but other than a few rabbits I have not shot anything with it. The M193 “breaking apart at the canilure” at close to 3000 FPS must be fake news? I need to buy 500 rounds of something as my gold dot/fusion stock is low. Naturally you want something that does not break the bank, but works for a variety of “applications”. Thanks for feedback.

I got a bunch of Hornady 75 grain HPBT factory ammo on a trade and none of my 1/7 twisted AR's liked it but then I remembered I had a Kimber Montana in 223 with a 1/9 twist so I thought I'd see how it worked there. It was very accurate and kills coyotes and pigs very well.

Tried it in my 18” Criterion 1/8 twisted barrel and it shoots okay there too so that’s what I’m using on pigs.

It's not "fake news", but they break apart better when launched at 3200. Regardless, you're not getting a nice consistent mushroom, and it takes more penetration or hitting solid bone to achieve fragmentation, and even then your results will vary widely.

Wide application that doesn't break the bank typically = 55gr Hornady SP.

I have some of the Hornady 75 grain HPBT bullets and they shoot very well in my 1/7 twist Daniel Defense 16 inch barreled AR-15. They also shoot well in my 1/8 twist barrels.

I tried them in a Sionics and a couple of Colts. They just didn’t like them at all but that Kimber sure likes them.