In that case, you can buy remanufactured, US made brass cased, copper jacketed 55 grain FMJ for pretty cheap from any of a dozen different online outlets - at considerable savings.DLuke00 wrote:Hey Cyphertext, my range does not allow steel. As much as I'm looking for cost effective ammo, I will not sacrifice accuracy and reliability for price! I am looking for accurate, quality and cost efficient ammo. I'm starting to teach my wife the workings of the AR. She hasn't shot yet and is a little intimidated of the rifle. I know once she passes a few rounds through, the uneasy feelings will pass! I really appreciate your and other views on this subject. Thank y'all!
Without being a "hater", I think the following is objectively accurate ......
If you:
- are very familiar with the AR platform and do not mind replacing major components like barrels at regular intervals, and
- you shoot thousands and thousands of rounds per year, and
- you are going to be a stickler for regular cleaning, and
- you are knowledgeable enough to keep your eye peeled for signs of wear/damage on minor consumables like extractors, extractor springs, cam pins, bolt gas rings, and bolt lugs,
However, what we have here in the OP is a self-admitted complete newcomer to the AR world who is asking about "good quality range ammo" (quoting from his thread title). Being perfectly objective about it, ammo that tears up the rifle, dirties it excessively, has a higher rate of malfunction, and is only 4 MOA ammo from a presumably 2 MOA accurate AR, is not "quality range ammo", nor is it a good choice for the entry level shooter. When you're shooting 4 MOA ammo out of a rifle that ought not exceed 2 MOA, you cannot even reliably zero the rifle for good ammo. I would advise that newcomer to the AR world to spend a little more on better quality ammo until he at least has his rifle properly zeroed, and has become familiar with its functions and its inherent accuracy. Then if he so pleases, he can buy steel cased Russian import ammo in volume and use all he wants of it for plinking.
That said, keep in mind that 4 MOA at 100 yards is a 4" group. At 200 yards, it's an 8" group. At 400 yards, it's a 16" group. Etc., etc., etc. For a weapon that ought to have what I would call "combat accuracy" out to around 450-500 yards (assuming a carbine length barrel), that amounts to an 18"-20" group.......at which point, whomever/whatever you're shooting at has about 50/50 odds of being able to walk around upright safely without too much worry of being hit. It's too inaccurate to zero for that ammo if you prefer to use it, because of load inconsistency from cartridge to cartridge. And you can't switch back to high quality ammo mid-stream, so to speak, to regain accuracy because your zero will be worthless until you re zero for the better ammo. And the reverse is also true, that if you zero for the better ammo, and plink with the cheap ammo, then your zero is worthless for the cheap ammo. Again, I state all of this with the caveat that I have no experience with the Hornady steel-cased ammo, so it may be that none of the above applies to the Hornady. You'll have to test it to find out.
My advice to the newcomer who is tempted to use cheap Russian ammo is this: buy some good quality 55 grain ammo, zero your rifle for that, leave your zero alone after that and just figure out what the Kentucky windage and elevation hold offs ought to be for the cheap stuff, don't expect too much in the consistency of accuracy department, and just enjoy hearing your rifle go bang and hitting the target once in a while. That way you have an accuracy baseline that you can actually depend on. If you're using the rifle for self/home defense, keep the magazines charged with the ammo that matches your zero. The difference in cost between a 30 round mag full of Federal 55 grain and a 30 round mag full of Tula 55 grain is probably less than $5-$6, which is negligeable if your life is on the line.
For my own part, of my ARs, the barrel with the highest round count now sits installed in my wife's carbine and almost never gets shot anymore. It's a 1:9 twist Gov't profile carbine length barrel from ER Shaw. It probably didn't cost more than about $150 to $175 when I bought it brand new (it's so long ago that I don't remember the original cost) back in 2007 or 2008. That barrel probably doesn't have more than about 2,500 to 3,000 rounds through it. As I don't compete in any kind of matches, I just don't shoot that many rounds each year. I shoot frequently, but I have a lot of guns, and I don't shoot 100s of rounds each time I shoot each gun. So the round counts go up slowly. So in the end, I still don't spend LOTS of money on ammo when I'm at the range. And by buying it 1000 rounds at a time, it is very affordable, and I can afford better, more accurate ammo that way, that doesn't tear up my rifle, than buying the cheap import stuff.
To each his own, and I've tried to be objective here, but I guess my point is that if you're not a "range rat" who is always at the range shooting large volumes of ammo....which I am not.....then it is hard for me to use cost differential of the import ammo, barrel wear included in that differential, as a criterion, because I get MORE satisfaction out of shooting accurately at whatever distance I'm shooting at, than I get satisfaction out of the pennies saved per round fired. If it were some cheap AR I bought at Academy for $499, I would probably care less about that aspect of it; but all of my ARs were built by me (and my son), and the parts were carefully chosen for their intended purposes......especially the expensive match grade barrels I bought for some of them. The thought of burning out a $250 Rainier Select 5R Stainless sub-MOA match barrel by shooting a bunch of crap ammo through it just gives me the fantods.
OTH, if you're trying to do all of this on a very tight budget, then buy the cheap stuff. Just know that you're going to have to pay more attention to maintenance and replacement of "consumable" parts - regardless of how much you have invested in the initial firearm - and also know that you will not get your best accuracy potential out of the cheap stuff.
There is apparently an exception to the above which I read of recently, but it involved a Gun-Tests magazine article (may require a subscription to read the whole thing) comparing new-manufactured reproduction M1 Carbines from Inland and Auto-Ordnance in which some steel cased Tula 110 grain ammo compared favorably with offerings from IWI, Aguila, and Hornady. But the pressures and velocities are much lower for an M1 Carbine than they are for an AR15, so the stresses to the barrel are going to be lower.
DLuke00, everything that BOTH Bitter Clinger and cyphertext said is true........FOR THEM. I hope that what I've written above will help you to make the decision that works best FOR YOU.