by John Boch, president of Guns Save Life
Low muzzle flash is one of the non-negotiable requirements of any good self-defense load. In October, at the GSL Defense Training Urban Rifle 101 course, one of our students was shooting PMC X-TAC 5.56 XP-193 ammo in his stock Ruger SR-556 rifle. We noticed some muzzle-flash during the day. But during the night-time segment of the course, the pyrotechnics were downright obnoxious . . .
We looked over his rifle to see if the problem was there. He had a standard Ruger SR-556 rifle with a standard military-style flash suppressor integrated into the barrel. So we swapped him out some Israeli M193 ammo and saw only a tiny bit of flash — nothing like the ball o’ fire produced by the PMC X-TAC.
So the incident provided a valuable lesson to our students on the importance of test-firing their personal defense ammunition in low-light conditions to make sure there’s little or no muzzle flash. You don’t want to mark your position for return fire from bad guys. Not to mention blowing out your night vision any more than necessary.
In this particular case, the PMC X-TAC XP-193 ammo was double trouble. Not only did it illuminate our shooter, but it also lit up the other good-guys around him, too.
Bottom line: we can enthusiastically recommend this ammo if you want to display an impressive fireball from your muzzle and wow your friends or novice shooters. But only a fool would use this ammo for self-defense purposes, despite the high-speed, low-drag tactical graphic on the box. Remember, as the late, great Paul Vallandigham used to say,
“incoming rounds have the right of way.”