The boom in black rifle (AR) sales naturally led to a boom in the sale of .223 Remington or 5.56x45mm ammunition. This was no big surprise to anyone as that is the most popular chambering for that rifle. What you had was thousands of new AR owners now added to the .223 gene pool. The days of paying three dollars for a box of Winchester white box .223 are gone and not likely to return.
XS Sights Marketing VP Dave Biggers sights in S&W M&P15 in 5.45mm. |
It was with this in mind that I first acquired a S&W M&P15 carbine chambered in 5.45x39 Russian. The price of the Russian equivalent to our 5.56mm runs about half. Simply put, you can buy 1000 rounds of 5.45x39 for what you'd pay for 500 in .223 Remington. That's training or practice ammo mind you, match grade and controlled expansion .223 Rem runs much high at about a buck a shot.
My good friend Dave Biggers, marketing guru extraordinaire for XS Sights, puts on numerous demonstrations and exhibits every years with AR rifles topped with XS sights. Naturally the ammunition budget for these events is considerable. Dave was looking for a way to save some money on demos and we discussed the S&W M&P options.
Hornady's new steel case 5.45mm ammo shown here. |
Along for the ride on this trip were products from S&W, Ruger, Adams Arms, DPMS, Colt, Leupold, Hornady, Federal, and various lacquered, steel cased ammunition from overseas. Bill Davidson was kind enough to host this gun party at his facility, Tac Pro Shooting Center located west of Weatherford, Texas. Tac Pro has ranges from 25 yard pistol all with way out to 1000 yard rifle. We called this get together the Lone Star Lowdown.
For two solid days our group fired AR's, AK's, and a couple of Ruger Mini-30's at distances from 7 out to 300 yards. We ran several shooting multiple magazine drills and quite often got the barrels smoking hot. The guns started well-oiled but were purposely not stripped or cleaned until the end of the session. Each rifle consumed several hundred rounds of ammunition.
After the dust settled and the smoke cleared we had several impressions of what you could reasonably expect these self-loading rifles and carbines. First, the 5.56mm rifles shooting high quality ammunition always out -performed all others in the accuracy department at least on paper. However, when we moved out to the 300 yard line and fired on steel plates and silhouettes the 5.45 rifles were not that far out of the game. Steel shooting is hit or miss.
The S&W and Adams Arms 5.45x39 rifles were fed by C Products magazines and ran without failures. The Ruger, DPMS, and Colt 5.56 rifles were solid performers and reliable.
AK being fired at 300 yards. |
Here's the bottom line, the guns firing the cheaper ammo were not matchgrade, but neither were they slouches. For close-in, fighting carbine work, the guns using the inexpensive ammo were neck and neck with the 5.56mm version. If you like to shoot your black rifles and would like to do more of it the less expensive 5.45 and 7.62x39 guns might just be the way to go.
Paul Markel has a history in the Marine Corps, in law enforcement and firearms training. His company, Firearms Training Associates, Inc., is "The Gulf Coast's Premier Firearms Training Company." For more info, call 330-390-0230 or email firearmstraining556@gmail.com. http://paulmarkel.com