.223 Or 7.62x39: Which Would You Pick For HD?

I would go with .223 because it is what I already have and it is easier to find acceptable ammo in that caliber. However, either caliber will work fine in the HD role. With proper ammo selection, both .223 and 7.62x39 can penetrate fewer interior walls than defensive handgun ammunition or buckshot.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=566923&highlight=Drywall+penetration

However, at the end of the day, you are planning on shooting 200lb mammals not drywall. If it won't penetrate drywall, it is a bad idea to use it on 200lb mammals in my book.
 
Personally, I keep a Mossberg short (18.5") barreled .410 pump shotgun for HD; no structural over penetration issues and I doubt any jury would view me as a "trigger happy gun nut"... (we keep all that good stuff locked up)

:D
 
Which for Home defense ?

Hi, I would have to vote for 7.62X39 as thats the caliber of the carbine I have. More than likely grab My PM9 as it always at hand.......WVleo
 
Home defense, BETWEEN the two, I'd say .223 JHP, nothing with good penetration capabilities. Ideally, a click clack of a Moss500 is enough to send them sprinting (16 experiences of this in 6 months) and a round from it would discourage further criminal activity. Unless they shoot you first.
 
Doesn't matter that much IMHO, they'll both penetrate walls. 7.62mm a little more than 5.56mm, but such things ain't exact science. If you're planning on using that stuff indoors, you can't rely on the little difference between the 7.62 and the 5.56. More important would be ammo selection I think, very light hollow point 5.56mm and if you can get to it, Yugo 7.62mm

If you live in an urban environment, using either one would be madness though. 12 ga would be the obvious choice.
 
The very valid point was made that a 5.56 will break up on building materials. I think a lot of people here are kind of delusional about what will happen when one hits drywall, though. Probably any normal .223 round can go from room to room, two sheets of drywall, and end up intact and still absolutely lethal.

This high velocity round, in a house defense situation, would be safer. a home's wall is drywall, sheathing, and then siding. The sheathing is bone hard plywood. Siding, unless you live in a very modern home with only vinyl, is another 1/2 inch of wood, and eac of these mostly represent fresh impacts, not 1-1/2 inches of penetration. Then, a fourth, fifth, and maybe sixth layer of materials blocks another home, and maybe another internal wall.

a 5.56 might wind up striking another person with damaged fragments after escaping your home, it will obviously be more dangerous if you dump one through a window.

There are still a whole lot of houses around that have lathe and plaster walls. Anyone who has ever worked on this sort of wall will know, this stuff is almost like concrete in some homes. A .22 lr wouldnt get through a sheet of it that I experimented on.

Honestly, I think a .223 varmint round, fired at my wall, would'nt get out of my house. It would fragment in the 1" of plaster, and be stopped by the 1-1/2" siding/sheathing layer.
 
I agree with briandg. If you live where over penetration is a serious problem, I'd go with the 223.
I live 1.6 miles from my nearest neighbor. My 2nd nearest neighbor is 3.5 miles from me.
So I have to confess, I am not taking the advice I'd give you. My "house gun" is an FN FAL loaded with 180 grain bullets, that work well on elk.
But city dwellers don't have that luxury.
EVERY round we fire WILL hit something.
You are a wise man to consider that most folks are friends, not enemies, and you do very well to protect them.
 
oh yes, the age old question of AK over AR, I own both but if I was going for home defense my go to gun is going to be a handgun. but hypothetically, if I did not have a handgun handy, I would probably grab the AR. both of my rifles are carbines so tactically they are the same. 7.62 sov is going to penetrate sheet rock more easily at HD distance than 5.56 but 5.56 loses energy at a slower rate, if the only thing between you and your kids is 2 3/4 sheets of drywall then the 5.56 will probably cause more penetration in soft tissue after it goes through than the 7.62. It's a heck of a gamble but I would probably take the AR, my house has thick walls so it would be less likely to cause injury. that and I'm more comfortable with the AR platform than the AK.
 
"Over-penetration" is only an issue if you live in relatively crowded circumstances. Not everybody does.

My nearest "hittable" neighbor is a mile away. No other house is visible from mine. Some variant of that applies to many who live in rural areas.

If the concern is for others in your house, well, you should have already worked that into your tactical planning...
 
To add just a little, for example, I live on the slope of a big hill. Let's assume a horizontal discharge. Diagonally, a brick house. West, stone. south and north are both old, heavy construction. East, if it makes it through my heavy cast concrete with brick garage, it will go through the attice of one, or over rooftops. I could almost certainly discharge a 5.56 randomly on horizontal, in almost any direction, and know for certain that the round wouldn't make it into another house, unless it escaped through a window. But, as was just said, who would take that chance, when he loves his neighbors? Am I going to fire a shotgun slug indoors, knowing that a teenage girl is sleeping in a pretty direct line to my front door, one of my best friends lives ten feet away in the mother in law cottage, and so forth?

I once heard a guy spouting that nobody should use anything short of a .44 magnum, because the first shot has to work. Yes, for those who are shaking their heads, he was just as dumb as an ingot of casting lead.

Those uninvolved people behind your target are worth protecting. Collateral damage is only a PC way of saying "I didn't mean to kill the infant in the crib, it was in the way, and I was protecting my own life and family."
 
Tahunua001: Actually, when we're talking 7.62x39 vs. .223, I personally am not thinking AK vs. AR. I'm talking Mini 14 vs. Mini 30! ;)
 
You just blew it. In my experience with most ar fans, thinking that the mini is a rifle that one should buy is tantamount to having "I'm an idiot" tattooed to your forehead.

Personally, I like them. Good ergonomic design, and quite capable of doing what they are meant to do.

Sure, the ar platforms are usually more accurate and more durable, and can be loaded up with all sorts of cool doojies, but unless you are going to be firing thousands of rounds rapid fire at invading zombies at 500 yards, well, a mini 14 will perform everything else.

There was a time when police units used almost as many minis as they did ARs. That was back when some jurisdictions wanted rifles in the car, not shotguns, and did not want to either spend the extra money, or wanted to avoid the ramifications of the public seeing a paramilitary rifle in a squad car.

Yes, virginia, there were actually times that many police leaders wanted their men to look non threatening. right now, I suspect that a lot of police leaders would encourage their men to file their teeth and sprout horns. It's a very different world.
 
For HD, I'd give the edge to the Mini-14 over the Mini-30, unless you can find some bullets designed to reduce penetration. I've never looked for those in 7.62R, so can't tell you where to look or what to look for.

But for an all-around rifle, if you were only getting the one, there's hunting ammo available now for the 7.62R, and in the North Carolina woods it would probably make a decent deer rifle.
 
Neither would be my first choice if over penetration is an issue. That said between the two id take 7.62x39 everytime. Why? Because to me the 223 is a varmint round and nothing more. In most states its not even legal for deer so why would i use it to stop a 225lb crackhead trying to cause my family harm? Anybody here actually witnessed what 223 does to an attacker? It leaves some to be desired... Especially with fmj
 
Briandg: I have an article from Massad Ayoob where he related that one the officers with his agency attended a rifle class. That officer told Ayoob that he saw several AR rifles used in the course jam, but that his issued Mini kept on perking without a hitch. For me personally, the AR snobs are welcome to their opinion, but I'm a no-frills kinda guy who is also on a single-income budget. I also really like Ruger. Ergo, I'll take a Mini any old time.
 
to me the 223 is a varmint round and nothing more. In most states its not even legal for deer so why would i use it to stop a 225lb crackhead trying to cause my family harm? Anybody here actually witnessed what 223 does to an attacker? It leaves some to be desired... Especially with fmj
Click to expand...

well as a matter of fact MOST states actually allow 223, it's the minority than have banned it. I trust my 223 to take down 225lb whitetail bucks, why wouldn't I trust it to take down a 225lb crackhead? I think an animal who's adrenal glands kick into overdrive when spooked is a better test of a round than a very unhealthy human speciman. I can't think of anyone who has used FMJ 223 in a self defense roll, 5.56 on the other hand, I can think of about 10 million marines, sailors, airmen and soldiers that have seen what a fmj will do to an attacker, and that's just U.S. service members who've actually seen armed conflict.
a little situation in somalia about 20 years ago comes to mind when I think of how ineffective that round really is.
 
If I need to shoot anything at 200-400 yards I'll take the .223. It's a far more accurate round and it still has stopping power at that distance. Anything under 200 yards I would want a 7.62 x 39 rifle (and I have one). My SKS has been incredibly reliable and it's accurate enough to be effective at 200 yards. But as we all know SD at 200 yards is usually called murder in this country.

Why would I want a less powerful round over a round that has very little recoil and was engineered to go bang every time in the guns designed to use it originally? The 7.62 x 39 is a much more effective round for knocking down larger animals including humans - btw even humans get a big rush of adrenalin whether they are unhealthy drunks or not - they probably won't be able to sustain it as a long as a healthy human but they will keep it going long enough to be a big problem - look at those Somalia fighters mentioned before - their khat kept them on an adrenaline rush for the entire battle and that's why they were so successful - they were addicts and clearly not healthy humans.

I pray that I never have to use either but if I find a roving band of rioters and looters in my neighborhood and heading for my house I'll pick up my SKS. I don't own an AR but I do own a .223 varmint rifle. In the very, very small chance I have to move back to the farm and defend it at all costs I'll want that varmint rifle there to hold off invaders at 400 yards. But that has practically a zero chance of happening. Rioters and looters are actually fairly common but not in my neighborhood. If the economy collapses (and it very well might - the Bank Of England CEO just said we were on the brink of the worst financial collapse in history) we might start seeing desperate mobs roaming around looking for food. Heck we have a potential mob on Wall St. and in other places already. And then there's Europe. That place is a powder keg and if it goes off it will affect us in a big way.

All this is to point out that a 7.62 x 39 is the right choice in a weapon these days IMO. A .223/5.56 will be effective of course. It just won't be as effective as a 7.62 x 39 weapon IMO.
 
Have you tried looking at frangible ammo? I've realized that finding frangible .223 is a lot easier than finding frangible 7.62x39. Maybe that would be a better option.
 
Generally, I'd figure that real-life defense is inside of 25 yards. With either cartridge I'd be using a hunting bullet. Either one will make a serious mess inside a Bad Guy. And I'd not shoot just once and then stop to see if something good happened. My deal is to shoot until it's obvious that there is no further need.

The particular platform is pretty much irrelevant. Properly maintained and tested, all of them should be reliable.

Then you're into technique and tactics, and I see nothing wrong with the thoughts expressed at:

http://www.jeffcoopersmozambiquedrill.blogspot.com/
 
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