Ammo Tests

Sixty-plus years in, .223 Remington still delivers cheap practice and low recoil, but its ceiling shows fast. We ran it through hunting, defense, and training use to see exactly where it still wins and where it taps out.

Seven decades in and the 243 Winchester still runs flat, hits hard for its size, and keeps varmints and whitetails honest while treating your shoulder kindly.

Despite its smaller size, the .243 round is capable of downing whitetail and more, and has even gained a following among experienced hunters and long-range sport shooters.

Day Two of the Fest also saw us shooting into clear ballistic gel. For the self-defense 5.7 rounds, 12- to 14-inches of penetration was about the average.

Jim tests the original Hornady LEVERevolution .30-30 to see how it stacks up compared to old school flat point loads.

I set out to test 10 modern .380 ACP rounds to see how they would actually perform.

The mild-kicking and flat-shooting 6.5 Creedmoor is one of those newer rounds that beat the odds to become a prolific contender for hunters, target shooters, and even in specialized military applications, and, in some cases, displacing those older rounds.

The 50’s as they are termed, are two different animals of the same family. The original Fifty of modern times the 50BMG, uses bullets of .510 diameter.  This is where some of the confusion begins.

It took me a few years to warm up to the 300 BLK cartridge after SAAMI blessed the round in 2011. The 300 BLK has been around for a lot longer.