Ammo Doesn't Matter (Unless You Shoot)

By Cori Tyler

Ammunition!  It’s more valuable than currency lately.  We’ve seen .22lr become unobtanium, and fetch ridiculously high prices.  Who ever thought that would happen?  Really?  .22lr?  Seems, as the other stuff got more and more expensive, and harder to find, the value of .22lr as a training round got appreciated a helluva lot more.  I can’t lie.  I sure wish I had some .22lr versions of my favorite firearms.  I’d probably shoot a whole lot more if I did.

The market seems to be settling down a little bit recently.  I can usually find common pistol calibers on the shelves in some form, even if it isn’t the bullet weight or manufacturer I’d like.  Of course, one of my favorite pistols is the Glock 29 10mm Auto.  Anyone tried to find 10mm lately?  Don’t bother.  I have hoarded my existing supply, and almost cry at the thought of firing any of it.  That’s a sad state of affairs for a gun owner.

Of course, along with some of the more fun pistol calibers, there’s a lot of rifle ammo that’s still a challenge to find.  And, naturally, it seems that we’re all about as picky about what we feed our long arms as we are for our handguns.  My own experience deals directly with .223rem/5.56x45 NATO rounds.  I love my AR.  Possibly in ways that aren’t legal in all 50 states.  I really like that rifle.  It’s been a great gun, a great learning experience, and is almost set up exactly how I want it.  It’s a dream for me to shoot, and will hit whatever I can hold it on.  Her name is Stella.

Stella has never been fed anything with a bullet weight outside 55 grains.  I’m not 100% sure why that is, except some people I work with, whose opinions I value, only shoot 55 gr loads in their duty rifles.  I’ve modified Stella as I’ve determined and specified what I want her to be capable of doing for me.  I haven’t changed her diet, though.  I found myself recently wondering if I should do some testing.  It’s an excuse to go to the range, so wonder no more!

Of course, this whole tangent about Stella is only partially relevant to what I wanted to write about today.  Ammunition!  Some people swear by one brand, bullet weight, bullet type, etc.  I have one good friend, one of the most knowledgeable firearm people I know; who swears that his favorite hand load is the only .45 ACP round done right.  It HAS to be a 230gr Gold Dot, over EXACTLY his powder charge, each one weighed out to be perfect, in ONLY once-fired Winchester brass, using ONLY Winchester Large Pistol primers, seated ONLY to his overall length.  It took him a week to load five rounds at one point, because they had to be so perfect.

Now, the great thing about shooting is that it can be whatever kind of pastime you want it to be.  My friend likes working for perfect ammo, a perfectly set up firearm, and perfect accuracy.  Nothing wrong with that, even to the extreme he sometimes takes it.  That’s HIS shooting pastime.  Some of us like to plink, just burning ammo at cans, paper targets, or my favorite – charcoal briquettes.  I love the way they poof.  There’s training for defense and competition, too.  We can have any or all of these things from just this one sport!

So, which ammo do we choose and why do we choose it?  Plinking and competition, I think it’s whatever functions in your gun, meets the rules (if any), and is least expensive.  That varies for some people, too.  For example, I’m not fond of feeding anything with a steel casing to my firearms.  Even though I know plenty of people who shoot a ton of Wolf and Tula ammo, I just don’t.  I’m not even sure why.  I’m dead set on my defensive loads for my handguns, though.  When it comes to my shotguns, I’m not picky.  Go figure.

So, I’m picky with my defensive ammo.  I think it’s because I’m a math and science geek at heart, and I pick the stuff that shows the best numbers in the tests and specs.  Is that really the most important thing in your ammo selection?  It might surprise you when I say, I don’t think it is.  Even though I go for the defensive ammo that puts the highest energy into a target, with the right penetration, etc., I don’t think that’s most important.  Why?

I’ll tell you why!  (Big surprise, I know.)  None of those numbers matter if I miss my target, or if I can’t hit a vital enough area to stop a threat.  So, I better be able to put those rounds on target, where I can make the most of the numbers I bought.  Lower numbers with higher hit count is going to do a lot more protecting than high numbers with a lot of misses.  Now, if we’re talking about anything other than self-defense, isn’t hitting our target the point?  In fact, the whole idea behind the invention of the firearm was to propel an object so as to be able to strike a target from a distance.  All of the entertaining parts of shooting are unimportant if we can’t hit what we’re shooting at.

So, go ahead and pick the ammo that gives you what you want:  lowest price, highest muzzle energy, etc.  Just make sure that, whatever you do, you can hit your target reliably with it.  If you can’t, you aren’t going to have much fun, especially if we’re talking about self-defense.  Then, practice and train whenever you can.