.223 Subsonic

I think the company called Extreme Shock made some 100 grain .223 ammo that they claimed was subsonic. I have not heard anything positive about it's accuracy or reliability.
 
What's your purpose for it? My understanding is that subsonic .223 isn't exactly ideal for most practical purposes.
 
It's just that I'd like to use my .223 for backyard shooting where I don't need the full punch of the round and definitely don't want the full bang. I reckon a .223 subsonic would still be much more potent than a .22lr, apart from the fact that said adapter is not available in my country.
 
You'll need to use very heavy bullets. Preferably 70-80g and you'll need a barrel with a fast twist to spin those big bullets at low velocity. If you use much lighter bullets you won't get any more power than a 22lr.

What twist is your rifling?

Boomer
 
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100gr .224dia would be one hell of a long projectile.

Ackley's handbook for shooters and reloaders touches upon some experiments that were done by Fred N Barnes with a .226" bullet weighing 125gn in a cartridge based on the .257 Ackley Improved necked down. 49gn of ".50 Cal MG powder" (sic) got it going around 2700fps (probably max load as it's the only one listed), and the required twist was one turn in 5.5 inches. Approximate bullet length given is 1.375 inches.

I cannot even begin to think about how tight a twist would be required to stabilise such a bullet at subsonic velocities.
 
I suppose you can always load down to get subsonic and use light bullet or even plastics projectile if you reload. Not sure if gluet works in rifles but many do that in handgun to practice indoor.
 
As far as my understanding goes, a subsonic .223 wouldn't generally have the ability to cycle the bolt carrier.

Don't take that as truth, I'm sure someone somewhere figured it out, but I really don't believe a sub .223 is practical or has been made to work well.
 
Here's a thought,

back in the 1970s, I spent some time in Germany. At that time, the W. German army using the 7.62x51mm NATO as their rifle round, also had "training ammunition". This was a brass case head, with a plastic case & bullet molded in. When fired, the plastic bullet tore off the case and went downrange at very high speed. Being very light (something like 15 grains or so) the bullet lost speed very fast, and was only dangerous at very short range (under 25yds).

These training rounds did not need any modifications to the rifle to function. They didn't need a blank adapter or anything like that.

I do not know if they continued this concept with the 5.56mm, but if they did, and if you can legally get some, you could use it for backyard shooting.

As I recall, the report was different from regular ammo, but still pretty loud.
Also, I understand it was a pain in the butt to get the plastic out of the barrel after firing a bunch of these rounds. There's no free lunch.

As far as I know, no one commercially loads subsonic (low power) .223 ammo.

Two other possible options are 1) a chamber insert to allow firing .22RF (which is a one shot at a time thing), or 2) full .22LR conversion kit for the AR ($$ and possible legal issues getting one, where you are).

Best of luck to you.
 
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