Ammunition Consistency Testing: 5.56 55gr, Winchester White Box vs. Independence

1. The .38 Special ammo that I own from Independence was manufactured in Lewiston Idaho which the same small town where CCI is based. Federal Ammo’s parent firm HQ’d in Minnesota owns Independence Ammo, Federal, CCI, and other recognizable brand names.

2. Finally! Glad to see this series continue.

   • Love to see this going on. I am however disappointed with the findings of the Israeli made Independence branded 5.56. I honestly expected very good consistency, but oh well.

3. “Ammunition Consistency Testing: 5.56 55gr, Winchester White Box vs. Independence”

   Because that’s all they could find at that moment.

4. Pretty sure Winchester’s parent company is Olin, not Odin. Autocorrect FTW?

   • I think Winchester firearms and Winchester Olin the Ammo folks are independently owned unrelated companies. Winchester the gun maker is owned by the same people who own Browning namely FN Herstal.

     • Correct. I was referring to the ammo makers, members of the ATK gov-industrial megaplex.

   • Norse gods need to diversify to survive these days.

     • You must have read the most recent Dresden Files book.

       • Hell yeah, glad there is another Dresden fan here. The last two books got me looking for another lever action than just my Henry .22. Book 15 cannot get here soon enough.

       • “Then what is Summer’s purpose?”

         Only Harry Dresden would take on Santa Claus with a .45 Colt carbine.

       • Wasn’t directly referring to that, but yes, Dresden is awesome. Definitely agree on his Awesome Moment of Badassness and wanting a lever gun. 😀

   • you rang?

5. Out of curiosity, what’s the twist on that barrel? (Rhetorical for me).

   • 1:7 in the SCAR.

6. Did I miss what chronograph you used?

   • Shooting Chrony, the F1 style.

7. Any barrel cleaning or cooling time between each brand?

   • Nope.

     A) It’s a SCAR and don’t require none of that city-slicker cleaning.

     B) Since we’re comparing the ammunition to itself, it doesn’t impact the accuracy of the results. It should definitely have an impact on the velocity, but not the IQR. That’s the wonder of a calculated metric.

8. Any chance there’s a ballistic gel test in the offing comparing different 5.56 loads with 7.62×39, maybe throw .300 BLK in there too?

9. if only those prices were still real….

10. This is awesome Nick!

    Could you add to this handloaded ammo with individually weighed powder charges?

    Also some kind of control test to make sure that barrel temperature didn’t affect the results.

    I don’t know if barrel cleaning would be as important so long as you didn’t start with a totally clean and oiled barrel. Like if you started with a cleaned and oiled barrel and then blasted 30 rounds of something to get some “baseline” barrel dirt you’d probably be ok.

    A related test would be to fire rounds at regular intervals, like one round every 2-5 seconds starting with a clean and cold barrel. Do this for about 100 rounds. Then compute your variances using a sliding window across the shot sequence. For example with a window of size 11 rounds, starting with round 6, compute statistics for rounds 1-11, then for round 7 compute statistics for round 2-12, and so on until the end. This would test the affect of both dirt and heat build up. If you really wanted to go all out put a thermocouple on the barrel and record the temperate on each shot.

    Doing the same test except letting the barrel cool in between shots would let you just test “dirt”. Using this “dirt” data and the “dirt+heat” data you could decouple the contributions of “dirt” and “heat”. (Since you can’t test “heat” without “dirt” easily).

11. “Just remember LOW=GOOD”

    Let’s put some of this in perspective.

    Take some of that “bad” ammo, the Independence 55. You report a range of 3125-3300. Now let’s ask what happens if you have one round at 3125, the next at 3300, all else equal, using a ballistics computer. At 100 yards, the 3300 should hit 0.1″ higher than the 3125. At 200 yards, the 3300 should theoretically hit 0.5″ higher than the 3125. At 600, 12.6″

    Certainly it is not choice ammo (aside from the relatively light bullet, but that’s a wind issue) for long range work. But for most 100-200 yard applications, I would think it is just fine and no plinker or anybody whose competition target is generous should snub their nose at it.

    (Now, it is possible that whatever is causing the velocity inconsistency (powder charge, seating depth, case volumes, etc…) could cause the group to open aside from theoretical vertical stringing. )

    I’m just not a fan of paying for more accuracy than is really necessary, and cringe when others do.

    I’m not saying your test doesn’t identify who makes the more consistent ammo, I’m just saying that there is probably only a very small group of shooters for whom the difference is worth considering when buying.

    • Thank you for breaking this down for those of us who didn’t understand what the ballistics numbers meant in real-world terms. I just bought a couple of boxes for plinking, since I’m not hitting anything like 600 yards anywho.

12. Hey. I recognize that range. My personal favorite place to shoot.

    Best of the West Shooting Sports

13. Side question- I know about the Wylde chambering from RRA in the 5.56/.223 calibre but is 5.56/.223 issue the same for bolt action rifles?

14. I know about the Wylde chambering from RRA in the 5.56/.223 calibre but is 5.56/.223 issue the same for bolt action rifles?

15. CRAN-R

16. Ah… The sweet smell of real empirical data! Looks like I will “Have too” purchase a chronograph just to validate the results.

17. There is still NO ammo available localy

18. I know it’s been a while for this thread, but I’m a noob that was looking for Ballistics data on Independence 5.56 (the only 5.56 ammo I could find locally) in hopes of assigning a reasonably close profile into my Bushnell Scout 1000 ARC rangefinder (it suggests drop compensation in inches for common factory rounds based on range and angle). I see now I may have the wrong round for any long range shots.
    Three questions:
    1) If I’m reading your data correctly, Independence 5.56 has a very high IQR and is thus VERY INCONSISTENT at long range?

    2) Based on your tests does the Winchester / Olin M855 62gr Penetrator have the most predictable point of impact on follow up shots?

    3) Is that the same round that I commonly see referred to as 62gr “green tip” penetrator available in bulk and manufactured by Lake City or Federal?

    If it matters, I am using a Ruger SR-556 Piston AR with a 16″ barrel and 1:9 twist.
    Thanks in advance… like I said, I’m fairly new to outdoor rifle shooting.

    • 1) Well, a high IQR isn’t a guarantee of high inconsistency at long range (what’s long range?), but it’s a good indicator. If you had a large spread of value, but most were clustered around a single point, then you’d have a large spread, but a low IQR. The larger the IQR, the larger the variation in velocity. Ideally you want a small range, with an even smaller IQR, like you see for M855 in the graphs above, meaning it’s going to do “X”, and nearly exactly “X” every time, except in cases of extreme outliers, which are rare.

      2) With everything else being equal, the most consistent velocity should have the most consistent point of impact. But that’s removing all other influences, such as QC in bullet production, heating of the barrel, etc. All you’re guaranteed is that the bullets are leaving the gun at nearly the same speed, as measured 10-15′ out from the muzzle. If the bullets themselves have issues, that effect won’t be felt ’til much further downrange.

      3) M855 and “green tip” are interchangeable terms for the steel core penetrator round. However, no, the Winchester/Olin is not the “same round.” Lake City is run by ATK/Federal. Winchester could manufacture an identical round and call it M855, but it would not be “Lake City” M855, it would be Winchester M855.

19. Just found this thread today after a trip to the range a couple of days ago. I had the chrony with me and did my own test on Independance 5.56. Two guns. 20 rounds each. Gun one, White Oak Varmit upper 1 in 8 24 inch bull barrel. The slowest was 3569 fps. and the fastest was 3612. The avg. was 3592. Not to bad on accuacy either but I only had 100 yds and was working on scope adjustment. Gun two, Bravo Company 20 inch goverment profile with 1 in7 twist. Slowest was 3364 and the highest was 3411. The average was 3390. Accuracy was decent with iron sights as well. I will use it more often for general rounds as it performed well and I keep the brass.

20. I’d like to see a test on the ZQ1 distributed MKE 5.56x45mm 62gr ammo, sold by walmart.

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