Ammo to be reviewed: Hornady .223 Remington 62 grain FMJ Black. This ammunition retails for $10.99 (plus taxes, of course) per box of 20 at Academy Sports. According to Hornady's website, it has a muzzle velocity of 3100 fps from a 24 inch barrel. It has a ballistic coefficient of .274 - putting it ahead of most 55 grain ammo, but behind the M855 stuff.
The real question is, with Hornady's reputation for accuracy, will this ammo perform? 55 and 62 grain ammo in bulk typically has a mechanical best of 4 MOA. Will Hornady Black be better?
A 10 round group was fired from 100 yards. As you can see on the Birchwood Casey 3" target, the group was a little over 3" - or right at 3 MOA. Slightly better than M855. However, of note is the group was fairly tight, save the two "fliers." Perhaps it is capable of better and the two outlying shots were this shooter's errors. Perhaps another rifle would like this ammo better.
In either case, I think this ammo warrants sincere consideration from anybody wishing to stock fairly accurate ammo as inexpensively as possible. If you and / or your rifle get better results, then this might be ideal ammo for you.
The cost ($10.99) is virtually equal to most M855 clone ammo in these parts currently. If you have better accuracy results, then it would be well worth the investment.
Thanks for doing a review, I wondered how it would perform.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to try something similar with some .223 Gold Dot, IMI, Norma Match, and see how they compare.