Ammo Basics: Rifle

Some of the pistol rules apply to your long gun pills. No steel cases, find stuff that works and buy as much as your credit card/bank account/wife will allow. But there are some significant differences between pistol and rifle ammo considerations. And it’s really easy to overthink this, so don’t. This is designed for those starting out in the shooting game, not a be-all, end-all primer. But let’s look at a few of the basics in helping you decide what kind of ammo fits your gun and purpose. And we’ll only be talking about 5.56mm for this post because it’s the most common defense rifle caliber today and rightfully so.

Because rifles are capable of great accuracy at distances far beyond that of a pistol (unless you’re Jerry Miculek) bullet weight will start to become a greater consideration provided you are interested in shooting past a few hundred yards – and I hope you are! Without getting too geeky on this subject, and I’m going to stick to the 5.56mm caliber for this discussion, your rifle will tell you what flavor of bullet is is most likely to enjoy spitting out. Look on the barrel for an engraving something like on the photo. It says 5.56 NATO 1/7. The latter meaning for every 7 inches of barrel travel, the bullet makes one revolution. So then you have to take barrel length into consideration and… OK, I promised I wouldn’t get into the weeds.

Here’s the deal: most of you will have 1/7, 1/8 or 1/9 twist ratios. Unless you’re doing specialized shooting or hunting, stick to 55 or 62gr ammo for both training and your SHTF stock. Keeping the bullet weight the same between your training and “fighting” rounds will at least minimize the difference in zero (or accuracy) when training. You ARE zeroing your rifle to your fighting rounds, right? That’s a post for another day.

Where rifle ammo starts to get more tricky is that each rifle will group different types and brands of ammo differently. Without getting hung up on the science of it, just go out and shoot. Initially, buy small quantities of different ammo brands and weights within your desired budget.  From a bench rest or other suitably stable setup (sandbag, backpack), fire 5 round groups at the SAME target/same point of aim (POA) with each and take the time to mark each grouping in between brands.

Do not adjust your scope/red dot at this point – you’re not looking for the group closest to the bullseye. You are looking for the tightest, most consistent group of the bunch. If you have more than one rifle of the same caliber, don’t be at all surprised if each likes different types and brands of ammo – even guns with the same rifle twist rate. Just keep track of who is who. When you find what flavor each gun really loves, then you can zero that particular round to the optic on your rifle. The only thing to do at this point is go out and buy a metric-shit-ton of it!

Speaking of which, I’ve rarely found rifle ammo locally that compares in price (even after shipping) with the online options. Just be sure to save up and buy in bulk – usually 1,000 rounds as your cost per round will be less. Here is a short list of places I trust…

Widener’s

AIM Surplus

SGammo

And if you really want to scour the interwebs, check out AmmoSeek.

How much ammo is enough? There’s no such thing! You should certainly have at least 2,000 rounds of rifle training ammo (5.56) as one professional training class will burn through up to 800 rounds over two days. As for your “go to war” load out, 8 loaded magazines (240 rounds) should be a basic starting point. Of course more is always better but you know that already 😉 That will set you back about $600 for 2,000 rounds of 5.56mm – in today’s prices – and that’s just a starter kit. But I can tell you, if you’re not willing to make the investment, don’t bother owning a firearm. Without practice and training, your weapon makes a mighty fine paper weight. You won’t win any fight by simply buying the gear.

One last thing on rifle ammo – expectations. If you are buying military spec ammo (sounds cool, right!?) don’t expect to shooting the eyeball off a fly at 100 yards. Common military spec ammo – M193 (55gr) and M855 (62gr) – is typically 2-4 MOA (average 2-4 inch groups at 100 yards). That means at 200 yards, the best that stuff can be expected to consistently do (all other things being equal) are groups of 4-8″. We call that MOM – Minute of Man 😉

Now go out and shoot…