What a Difference Bullet Weight Makes!

[Bailey Guns]

I've had an old Colt lightweight upper for about 25 or 30 years. Never had it on a lower so I've never shot it. It's in great shape and looks like it's seen minimal use. The barrel isn't marked with a twist rate but I assumed it was 1/12 due to it's age.

So I finally decided to put it together as sort of a "retro" project. I put it on an H&R lower I got from PSA. A few days ago I took it out to test fire it and, using 62gr SS109 ammo, shot about 5 rounds from 25 yds just to check the sights. Pretty much perfect...shoots exactly to point of aim. I moved up to about 10 yds and fired 7 rounds in rapid succession. I was amazed at the amount of keyholing I saw on the 10 yd target. I've personally never seen anything like that. Strangely enough the 4 or 5 rounds I fired from 25 looked fairly normal...maybe a very slight sign of keyholing but I had to look very close. Fluke I guess...because I don't think a tumbling bullet will stabilize between 10 and 25 yds.

I didn't have any lighter ammo handy. Today I got some 55gr FMJ stuff...Tula steel-cased and generic Remington. Wow! What a difference 7 grs makes. Turns out, with the right ammo, this is one of the best shooting ARs I have. Especially with the cheap Russian stuff. I loaded what I thought was 20 rounds (actually 11 rounds of Tula and 10 Remington...math is hard) and fired several groups from 15 and 25 yds, all standing. All of the 3-shot groups except 1 have 2 rounds touching. This could be my favorite rifle.




62gr SS109


55gr