Category: Tests

Or try to kill one, anyway.

I've been working on this comparison of Wolf, Brown Bear, Tula, and Federal .223 ammunition since July. I think those who read my blog will find it interesting. It should bring forth some real data to a number of discussions relating to AR reliability, wear, and the differences between types of ammunition... There seem to be some errors accessing the site right now, but it should be accessible to all soon.

Back in 2010, Mike Pannone and I were at the range doing some other shooting when we decided to do an impromptu dirt test with an AR. It was similar to the one I did in 2009, but with more ammo, and more dirt. I think we'll be doing another such test soon. Please forgive the poor production quality. Here's Mike's narration: The rifle is a 14.5 BCM M4 Spec barrel, spring was stock, buffer was H, trigger parts were factory. The rifle had fired 1200 rounds prior to the… Read More

In early May, I performed a BUIS drop test which was partially published on Military.com's KitUp blog several days ago. The unpublished portion involved an EOTech 552 and an Aimpoint CompM3. The EOTech used the standard thumbscrew mount, and the Aimpoint was in a GDI CMC7-OSM mount. POI shifted 12MOA to the right with the EOTech, POI shift was 1MOA or less with the Aimpoint. One thing I did not mention in the post which was sent to KitUp (due to word count limitations) was that after dropping the MBUS twice,… Read More

Last week, I put several types of .300 AAC Blackout ammo through two short uppers, using 8" and 10" Noveske barrels. While I do not have photos due to a hard drive failure, I do have velocity and accuracy data, so I'll make this short and sweet. If you're really looking for the short version, the ammo to definitely buy is the UMC 115gr CTFB (closed tip flat base) ammo, with an honorable mention to the Atlanta Arms 125gr Pink Tip ammo for reliability/velocity reasons, if not accuracy. Uppers, as… Read More

Work ran late recently, so I was able to photograph a fairly consistent comparison of the muzzle flash resulting from the use of Federal .223 Rem 55gr FMJBT - also known as AE223 - and a 16" AR-15. Actually, there were two AR-15s used for this photo. The PWS TTO requires a thin wrench for removal and installation, and all I had at the range was a standard AR-15 armorer's wrench. All of the other devices were used on a Spike's Tactical 16" carbine length AR-15. Other than the bare… Read More

In this video, I shoot three different Kahr handguns back to back. All are loaded with standard pressure ammunition, in the heaviest (standard) bullet weights available for the caliber - 230s in the .45, 180s in the .40, and 147s in the 9mm. Although the CW40 actually "felt" more controllable than the CW45, you can see in the video that the CW40 had more muzzle rise. The CW9 was much easier to control than both of the larger handguns.

Back to "ye olde format" for this video, but I'll probably do a mix of "new" and "old" in the future. A long time ago, I was able to shoot .22s very well, because that was pretty much all I did, all day. I hadn't shot slowfire with a .22 in years, and decided to see if I was good as I once was. I also compared a 1/16 twist bolt action rifle with a 1/7 twist AR-15 that had a .22LR conversion. Was the 1/7 completely inaccurate, as is… Read More

This is from an upcoming video. I also shot at 15 and 30 yards - the latter with only selected loads, because the others had simply too large of a pattern and would have damaged the target stand. Not pictured is Winchester 3" 00 Buck, which had an approximately 7" pattern at 7 yards - far too large for my tastes.

I first heard about Hornady Superformance ammunition and powders over a year ago, when pulling targets at a rifle match. "Word in the pits" was that significantly higher velocities were possible without increased pressures. Naturally, I was interested, if only to have slightly better long-range performance - the main attraction was to try something new and supposedly better. However, I've been pretty busy, and wasn't able to try them out until recently. Even then, Hornady hasn't made it easy. There is a decent selection of Superformance ammunition, but official load… Read More