In the hierarchy of ammo, 77-grain 5.56×45 has become something of a mythical beast. It’s whispered about with reverence, but rarely seen on the range. Is it really as good as they claim, or is it just a way to remind people they are too poor to shoot long range? If you missed with 55gr, would you have hit with 77gr?
The answer is a little of all of the above, but there are good reasons that people respect it, and why some shooters will shoot nothing else.
Short and sweet, to get the most ballistic coefficient out of a bullet, you want it to be long and heavy for caliber. There is more nuance to this, having to do with the exact shape of the projectile, etc., but all things being equal, long and heavy is generally better. For 5.56 that means 77gr is about where it maxes out. Technically, you can squeeze a little more like an 85gr, but those sacrifice a lot of muzzle velocity. 77gr is the Goldilocks.
Long and heavy mean they are more resistant to wind and lose velocity more slowly than other bullets.
Example, using the numbers for the American Quality Ammunition 77gr Vs. bulk 55gr both shot out of my 20” precision AR-15, the AQA 77gr stays supersonic past 800 yards, but bulk 55gr is only a little more than 650 yards.
With a 10MPH full-value wind, AQA 77gr has 1 MIL of windage at 325 yards, but bulk 55gr is only 250.
At 500 yards, AQA 77gr has 1.7 MIL of wind, and bulk 55gr is at 2.26 MIL.
Bottom line: if you want to push the range of your AR-15, using ammo built for the task helps a whole damn lot.
If you’re interested in some more background and history, AmmoToGo has a good article to read.
This isn’t a recipe page where you have to read about my entire life story before getting to the good part, so let’s cut to the chase. American Quality Ammunition 77gr has turned out to be a lot more precise than expected. AmmunitionToGo.com provided this case of ammo for testing, but they are not sponsoring the article or paying us to say this. AQA 77gr was pretty damned impressive.
Four rifles were tested, and the ammo functioned perfectly in all of them. That included a 10.5”, 12.5”, 16”, and 20” barrels and a mix of carbine gas to rifle gas, all using H2 buffers.
Chrono and precision testing were done with a 20” Rosco barrel and a Vortex 1-6x Razor LPVO. This rifle has been extremely good to me at long range with consistent hits on steel to past 700 yards using 63gr Magtech.
American Quality Ammunition 77gr chrono’d at an average 2,612 FPS with 49.8 FPS extreme spread and only 16.8 FPS standard deviation. 5-shot groups averaged 1.7 MOA with just a 1-6 LPVO. That’s impressive on every count. The speed is good, but the consistency is awesome. A little context helps to know that Hornady ELD-M match ammo is normally around 17 FPS STD DEV, so AQA hitting that mark is very good.
This ammo shines at range, and so far it hasn’t dropped a shot on me at 400, 500, or 600 yards on steel. With even a slightly decent wind call, this ammo just hammers.
The best long range 5.56 ammo on the market is almost without question the 77gr made by Black Hills, but it will run you about $1.40+ per round. Plus shipping. Ouch.
Great alternatives at slightly lower prices are available from SIG Sauer at about $1.30 per shot and IMI for a bareable $1.15 per, again both before shipping.
AAC really shook things up with their 77gr OTM ammo at only $0.50 per round, but then they changed what powder they use, and the velocity dropped several hundred FPS, and that’s… really not great.
American Quality Ammunition 77gr from AmmunitionToGo.com runs $0.60 per shot, plus shipping. And with groups and numbers like it showed for us, it’s clearly one of the better options on the market, regardless of price.
That said, it’s still almost double what bulk ammo costs. But these are tools for very different jobs. Performance is never free, but it can at least be affordable. If hits matter and you’re shooting at range, you can drastically improve your odds by using the right ammo. More than that, you might actually save some money. Missing 2 or 3 times with bulk ammo ends up costing a lot more than hitting on the first shot with something better.
Long range shooting is my great love in the shooting world, even though it directly competes with my lizard brain that hates spending money. American Quality Ammunition 77gr has proven to be a solid option that performs extremely well and costs something in the world of affordable. While I’ll still end up shooting more rounds of bulk 55gr than I will of anything else, when it comes time to reach out, it’s really nice having a good option to do it with.
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