Finally got out to the back 40 to Test out Freedom Munitions .223 60gr VMAX Load.

The 60gr VMAX Load is a Polymer Ballistic Tip Round that comes screaming out of the barrel at 2975 fps with a muzzle energy of around 1229 ft. lbs. At 100 yds the FPS drops to around 2698 with a muzzle energy of around 970 ft lbs.

A fun fact for you: This is the preferred round for the Vertex Helicopter Feral Hog Eradication/Control Program. The round is flat shooting and hard hitting!

The Weapon I was using was a Bushmaster XM-15 10.5″ Barrel Enhanced Patrolman’s AR Pistol. It has quite a few mods, but the sights are Magpul MBUS’ and a Truglo Red Dot.

I started out from a bench rest position at 100 yds with a “Dirty Bird” target just to see where I was at. As you can see with this three round group, 1 MOA is not a problem.

Covering those holes up with markers, I then tried some offhand standing shooting at 100 yds, as expected the group opened up, but not much! With this 5 shot group, I averaged just a hair over 1.5 MOA.

Covering those holes up, I did a “quick-up” Contact Drill. This is where I start with the weapon at low ready and then as quickly as possible, mount the gun and engage. I always do this drill with no set number of rounds, but typically never exceed 5. Here I put 4 rounds in a “zipper” pattern, with the first 2 almost touching and the other two in a nice vertical string. The ideal is to “Zip” the target starting at the sternum and working up, putting as many rounds in the vitals as you can.

Next I moved out to 150 yds and changed targets this is LE Targets DT-ANTQ-A. I like these because of the varied numbered colored shapes (great for Discretionary Command Drills) and the main target has the vital organs outlined. This 5 shot group was shot offhand while doing another “quick-up” Drill. Though the “groupings” seem larger here, you should remember that this is at a further distance and also this was a COMBAT drill, not a Marksmanship Drill! Note almost all the rounds hit a major organ and 3 of them hit the spine.

Covering those holes up I moved on to a “Controlled Pairs” drill at 150 yds. The first two were center punched and I broke protocol and sent three down for the head shot, putting the first two right on top of each other.

The last drill I did was a standing to prone drill at 150 yds. The first round as a head shot with the remaining 3 taken from prone. They averaged 1.5 MOA.

Overall, I had ZERO malfunctions with the ammo. It fed smoothly and ejected cleanly. I would like to take all the credit for the accuracy, but obviously the ammo was superior! Well Done Freedom Muntions and Hornady!

I would not hesitate for a second to use this as a hunting or self-defense round in my AR.

Stay Alert, Stay Armed and Stay Dangerous!