Hornady Critical Defense 223 55gr FTX – Swift Home Defense Load

Description

The Hornady Critical Defense 223 55gr FTX is the lighter and faster of their two defensive 223 loads, and the one that suits older and slower twist barrels. A 55 grain FTX at 3240 fps carries about 1282 ft-lbs, and the polymer tip is there to guarantee the bullet opens whether it leaves a long barrel or a very short one.

• Hornady Critical Defense 223 55gr FTX Overview
• 223 Defensive Rifle Ammo Ballistics
• Why The 55 Grain FTX Bullet Opens Every Time
• Specifications
• Rifles That Suit This Fast Expanding Carbine Load

Hornady Critical Defense 223 55gr FTX Overview

Hornady item 80270 loads a 55 grain FTX bullet to a nominal 3240 fps, producing roughly 1282 ft-lbs at the muzzle. Twenty rounds per box.

Hornady publishes the curve from a 24 inch test barrel: 3240 fps and 1282 ft-lbs at the muzzle, 2690 fps and 883 ft-lbs at a hundred yards, and 2201 fps and 592 ft-lbs at two hundred.

A 24 inch barrel is longer than most defensive rifles carry. A 16 inch carbine typically runs two to three hundred feet per second below those figures, and a 10 or 11 inch upper considerably more, which is the situation the bullet is designed around.

Critical Defense in a rifle calibre is a different engineering problem from the handgun line. There is no shortage of energy, so the work goes into making the bullet behave predictably across barrel lengths rather than into extracting performance from a small case.

223 Defensive Rifle Ammo Ballistics

At 3240 fps a 55 grain bullet produces about 1282 ft-lbs, from grains times velocity squared divided by 450437. That is almost identical to the 73 grain version of this load, which makes 1262 ft-lbs at 2790 fps, reached from the opposite direction.

Downrange the heavier bullet pulls ahead. At two hundred yards the 73 grain load still carries 736 ft-lbs against 592 for this one, because a heavier bullet with a better ballistic coefficient sheds velocity more slowly.

At defensive distances none of that matters. Inside fifty yards this load is doing well over a thousand foot pounds, and the choice between the two weights comes down to what twist your barrel has.

Trajectory is flat enough to ignore at any defensive distance. A 223 defensive rifle ammo load sighted at fifty yards stays within an inch of point of aim from the muzzle past a hundred, which takes holdover off the list of things to think about.

Why The 55 Grain FTX Bullet Opens Every Time

The Flex Tip does two jobs. The first is familiar from the handgun line: a conventional hollow point driven through heavy clothing can pack its cavity with fabric and fail to open at all, and a polymer filled cavity cannot pack.

The second is specific to short barrels, and it is the more important one here. A short upper gives up a great deal of velocity, and a hollow point that relies on speed to open may simply not. Hornady states that the Flex Tip helps the bullet expand at low velocities, which is what separates this from a varmint load in a different box.

A 223 also has an advantage indoors that surprises people. A light fast bullet that expands or fragments sheds energy quickly in drywall, and often penetrates less through interior walls than a handgun bullet does.

At 55 grains the bullet stabilises in almost anything. That is the practical reason to choose this weight over the 73 grain: it works in the slow twist barrels that will not handle a longer bullet at all.

Hornady also loads low flash propellant. A rifle fired indoors in the dark produces a substantial fireball with ordinary powder, and losing your vision at that moment is a serious problem.

That is the whole case for slow twist barrel defense ammunition in this weight: a 55 grain FTX bullet that stabilises in any barrel you are likely to own and opens whatever velocity it arrives at.

Specifications

Rifles That Suit This Fast Expanding Carbine Load

Any rifle chambered in 223 Remington or 5.56x45mm in sound working order will fire this load. A 223 chamber is the tighter of the two, so 223 ammunition is safe in both, while 5.56 ammunition is not always safe in a 223 chamber.

Twist rate is where this weight earns its place. A 55 grain bullet stabilises in everything from a 1:12 varmint barrel through the 1:9, 1:8 and 1:7 twists common on AR-15s. If your rifle is older or you are not sure what the barrel is marked, this is the safer of the two Critical Defense 223 loads.

Feeding and magazine length are non-issues. The round is loaded to standard overall length and cycles through any AR magazine or bolt action without complaint.

If your rifle wears a short barrel, prefer this over a standard soft point. A fast expanding carbine load built to open at reduced velocity is doing exactly what a 10 or 11 inch upper needs from it.

Slow Twist Barrel Defense Ammunition Availability

This Hornady Critical Defense 223 55gr FTX is in stock and ships from our Collegeville, Pennsylvania shop. MAG5 Firearms is a family owned FFL dealer, and orders of this slow twist barrel defense ammunition normally leave within one business day.

For a fast twist barrel and better downrange performance see the Hornady Critical Defense 223 Rem 73gr FTX. In a larger rifle calibre the Hornady Critical Defense 308 155gr FTX is the equivalent, and for a handgun the Hornady Critical Duty 9mm 124gr FlexLock covers the same job. Full ballistics are published by Hornady.