Thread: FMJ on animals

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

Nathan fosters website is a mine of info, he reckons that the norinco 55gr .223 would perform as well as hunting ammo something to do with the bullet design makes it work as Eugene Stoner intended

I dont think, or I have seen no proof Stoner knew exactly what the effect would be. Could be wrong, so if someone has a URL Im interested in reading it. As a target guy I have not paid much attention to the wounding side of it, paper is paper. Anyway I spent some time digging in my info as I got interested in the Q and my books have quite a lot on it.

The first commonly issued M16 had a 1 in 12 twist (lets ignore the 1 in 14 oopsie) and first, the 55gr FMJ. From what I have read that bullet only worked because it was only just stable and because of its very high velocity, 3200fps. So as long as you are above 2500fps the proper/real FMJ is going to split in 2 major pieces at the canalure plus fragment and do a lot of damage, it also reads that it needs to be not over-stabilized.

So shooting the proper 55grain FMJ in a 1 in 12 twist (typical?) 22inch barrelled boltie at a terminal velocity of no less than 2500fps might work very well (<250m?), Note by 2300fps the bullet is no longer snapping in half by the way from the photos/research I have seen.

There are also FMJs and FMJs. So Belmont sells what they call seconds, 556nato, 55FMJs at $28 (ish) per 50 strikes me they are cheap, seem pretty accurate from my target testing so could work really well in a bolt gun on an animal below 200 or maybe 250m. The FMJs in say barnual ammo? I have no idea if it breaks up the same, it might be stronger as its steel jacketed? best avoided I suspect. If hand loading for a bolt gun, well it looks like you want them as fast as possible to work better.

If you are going to have a go, let us know how you do, I for one am very interested if it works, especially as its cheap!