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Thread: a military commanders take on the .223 platform..

  1. #81
    Boolit Grand Master 303Guy's Avatar
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    I went hunting with a guy who had survived three AK47 hits to the chest. The first one put him down and the terrorist stood over him (or near him) and fired two more into his chest.
    Rest In Peace My Son (01/06/1986 - 14/01/2014)

    ''Assume everything that moves is a human before identifying as otherwise''

  2. #82
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    yup lots (well not some much anymore) of American soldiers came back from the war with 857 and 7.7 jap rounds that wounded. Lots of japs and germans wounded by the 06 too. Some of this is silly. Put a 556 in the chest of a man and theres a pretty slim chance hes going to survive. Put a 458 mag in the leg and chances are hes going to get a purple heart and be able to brag about it.
    The fact is the AR platform in 5.56 has served as the front line rifle of the US armed forces for over 50 yrs. It is effective enough that it is the most widely used rifle and caliber in the free world. It is so effective that our adversaries adopted a cartridge that duplicates its performance.
    yes sir that's a fact. Its also a fact that even when given a choice many of our special service guys still grab a 5.56. ANY battle weapon is a compromise of some sort. Even if there is a SLIGHTLY better option do you realize what it would cost to rearm our entire military with them?? Like rick said the funny thing is that Russia who citizens don't have a choice or say in how there money is spent did make a big change and what did they do? They went with a round about identical to the one we already have. Why? Because it works. Not because we have a mental block against a round designed by a foreign government. If you believe that then tell me why we now arm our troops with 9mm's. Seems to me to be just the opposite today. Foreign countrys haven't or don't see the need to waste there money trying to improve on whats proven to work and work well. Want a more powerful military spend the money building another carrier and some planes to put on the deck. build better troop vehicles that are more resistant to ied's spend a fraction of what it would cost to rearm our frontline troops and keep them in boot camp one more week to learn to use what they already have!!!!!!!! Whats tragic isn't the weapon we issue to our troops but the fact that they go from mommas little boy to getting thrown into a gun fight with only 8 weeks of training and half of that is learning how to march, salute and wear there uniform and how to act around girls and gays!
    Quote Originally Posted by Rick Hodges View Post
    Everyone talks about the lack of stopping power of the 5.56, yet I know a few guys who are walking around today after taking multiple hits with an AK's 30 cal. rounds.

    My family's insurance man, when I was a kid, got stitched with a MG34 as he crossed an open field...took 7 hits from his left thigh, across his abdomen, chest and right shoulder on the way to dropping a grenade on the gun and crew. He won a silver star and purple heart for that stunt and lived to sell us insurance. Do you suppose if one of that machine gun crew would have lived they would be complaining about the lack of stopping power of the 8mm Mauser?

    Watch the video and read about Sgt. Benavidez in the post here.....do you think there might be some NVA wondering about the stopping power of their weapons?

    Sometimes people are just hard to put down.


    The fact is the AR platform in 5.56 has served as the front line rifle of the US armed forces for over 50 yrs. It is effective enough that it is the most widely used rifle and caliber in the free world. It is so effective that our adversaries adopted a cartridge that duplicates its performance.

  3. #83
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    I've never been much of a war booster.
    The majority of war's victims are not soldiers; playing the game..;

    they are moms, dads, grandma, grandpa, ......and the little kids who get in the way, ....or, who are shot down in revenge by angry soldiers. (It matters not which side....)
    .
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    Setting that aside, the Geneva Convention prohibits expanding bullets.
    .
    .

    The original 55 gr ball ammunition in the 5.56 was slightly unstable in 1/12 twist, and... a little known fact, was that the lead core was melted by the hot powder gas when the bullet exited the muzzle.

    On impact at high velocity, the 55 gr. bullet flattened, then broke apart at it's cannalure.

    .
    .
    The newer 62 grain m885 ( green tip )has a lead base, a steel anvil, and a hollow capped point.
    On impact, (at high velocity), the hollow capped point goes flat, the lighter steel anvil ......slows.... faster than the lead base.

    The soft lead base does then smash against the steel anvil, and the bullet pops open at it's cannalure.
    .
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    Military studies concluded that folks in the Middle east were too malnourished, and too thin to cause the m885 bullet to expand ( along with newer shorter gun barrels, and resulting lower velocitys ) so two new bullets are in the pipeline.

    For the Army:
    The newest bullet is M885a1, it is an all copper hollow point, with a ...... "Remington type," .... bronze point over the hollow.
    Idea is the bullet will expand on impact,, at the surface entry, even on small bodied people, and at low (short barrel )muzzle velocities..

    For The marine Corps:
    They are moving toward a bonded lead core, copper jacketed hollow point bullet , virtually identical to the newer big game bullets. (Trophy bonded hollow point )

    For the new 9mm pistol, a hollow point is in the works.
    .
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    So much for the Geneva Convention.

  4. #84
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    It's the Hague Accords, not Geneva, but at any rate, all the non-expanding bullet decree did was immediately spur worldwide engineering of fully-jacketed projectiles that tumble and often fragment on impact, the effect of which is that pretty much everybody rejected the spirit of the law while obeying the letter.

    That being the case, use of traditional soft and hollow points merely calls a spade a spade. The rationale behind requiring infantrymen to poke clean holes with their rifles in the same enemy that moments before they were trying to vaporize with artillery has always seemed more than a little tweaked to me.
    WWJMBD?

    In the Land of Oz, we cast with wheel weight and 2% Tin, Man.

  5. #85
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    "The original 55 gr ball ammunition in the 5.56 was slightly unstable in 1/12 twist, and... a little known fact, was that the lead core was melted by the hot powder gas when the bullet exited the muzzle."

    Gotta say I've never heard that one before.
    Larry Gibson

    “Deficient observation is merely a form of ignorance and responsible for the many morbid notions and foolish ideas prevailing.”
    ― Nikola Tesla

  6. #86
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    I heard that the original powder used in the 5.56 used powdered tyrannosaurus bones as part of its make up. Powdered tyrannosaurus bone burns at 25,000,000 degrees which is hot enough to melt the lead in the core of the bullet.

  7. #87
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    Wow guess my cast boolits are melting in my barrel. Wonder why they dont smear lead everywhere?

  8. #88
    Boolit Master RU shooter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Love Life View Post
    I heard that the original powder used in the 5.56 used powdered tyrannosaurus bones as part of its make up. Powdered tyrannosaurus bone burns at 25,000,000 degrees which is hot enough to melt the lead in the core of the bullet.
    That's why you gotta use gas Checks even with jacketed bullets ! Don't want that stream of liquified lead plasma to just go flying into your flash hider . Maybe that's why they used the pickle fork type ? Easier to get the lead out of it ........
    If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck!

  9. #89
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    Larry Gibson, I agree I never hear about the lead base melting. IIRC the way Mr. Stoner designed the M16 was with a 1-14 twist so that the 55gr. bullet was marginal stable. I believe Gen. LaMay wanted the 1-12 because the bullet was totally unstable in arctic temps. I don't remember what year but a Handloader's Digest, I think, had a article about bullet stability. The 147 gr 7.62x51 would turn base first after about +-24 inches. The 5.56 was almost instantaneous. Even the 7.62x39 would go base first after a distance. The only one that stayed point on was a 30-30 soft point. The mushroom kept it headed straight. Precision Shooting had an article one time about "sleepy bullets". The article stated that basically all bullets yaw on exit from the muzzle. How fast the bullets went into a non-yaw condition, went to sleep, was a function of twist and velocity They were looking at minimum twist for a given velocity where everything is stable for the distance they were shooting. They were also using light for caliber bullets.

  10. #90
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    if it is the 30-30 soft point im thinking of it was more or less a jacketed round nose with exposed lead. the reason they would do so well with the slower twist was that the center of gravity was more or less centered and there was no heavy end or light end.. if the projectile velocity is too low or the rotational velocity is too slow then most bullets will tumble as the heavy end always wants to go forward. that is why for a subsonic bullet you want a lead round nose as they are the most stable at lower velocities. it is simple physics and is like the arrow or dart effect. the tip of the arrow or dart is always the heaviest end and the lighter portion acts as a stabilizer to keep the heavy end going forward. the same thing happens with bullets that are traveling too slow or rotating too slow, the heavy end will try and go forward.. rotational velocity is directly coupled with linear acceleration of the projectile, the faster the slug is driven the more spin that is imparted upon it by the twist of the barrel. but as speed drops so does rotational velocity and so the bullets gets all wonky in flight.

  11. #91
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    Quote Originally Posted by RU shooter View Post
    That's why you gotta use gas Checks even with jacketed bullets ! Don't want that stream of liquified lead plasma to just go flying into your flash hider . Maybe that's why they used the pickle fork type ? Easier to get the lead out of it ........
    But is this plasma rifle phased and in the 40-watt range?

    I got to sit in on an AR/5.56 gelatin shoot in which we had everything from a 24" pseudo-sniper to the little 11" SMG. I forget the exact range to the blocks, but probably the FBI standard - close. The interesting thing about it was that as the barrels got longer and the velocities faster, the penetration of the military spec FMJ's DECREASED because the tumble-and-fragment effect was more violent. The slugs yaw and tear apart at the cannelure but on the shorter barrels, they would mostly just yaw, swap ends, and sometimes start travelling backwards. As I recall, the stated threshold for M193 coming apart was somewhere around the 100-120 yard mark out of 14-20" barrels.

    The problem with all this stuff is that the desired bullet/rifle combo will have an effective range of 6,000 yards, weigh less than an I-Phone, kick like a Daisy Red Ryder but be much less hard to cock, travel to the enemy guided by GPS, dodging around baby carriages and little old ladies, penetrate nine feet of granite cover, to liquefy an entire adult African elephant to the point its DNA cannot be identified, and be stopped by a single sheet of wet newspaper on the exiting side.

    Acceptance of the laws of physics is what's often lacking.
    WWJMBD?

    In the Land of Oz, we cast with wheel weight and 2% Tin, Man.

  12. #92
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    well. im not looking for the perfect platform for others, im looking for the perfect one for me and my AO that i can effectively use. upwards of 100m-150m ill go with the 7.62x39 and my home brew ammo. if i want to shoot 200m and beyond ill get Vera.

    but im not sure the "ideal weapon" even exist. everyone has their own opinions on that subject as to what constitutes the "ideal weapon". but one must take into consideration, yes you can carry 2x-3x the ammo with the 5.56 as you can with the larger .308. but if you must fire 2x or 3x as many rounds to achieve the same objective then the loadout difference becomes null. or what if the target is beyond 300m? that is a must take into consideration here in the USA. there is a lot of old hunting rifles out there, there is also a lot of wide open spaces. during a hypothetical collapse there will be idiots trying to take what others have. but there will be no CAS like we keep doing in Afghanistan when our weapons will not reach. there will be no artillery support and no drones. there will be no option to keep the enemy pinned down and call in the coordinates. you will then have to rely on either a retreat (if possible) or hitting a vital spot when the projectile has dropped below the fragmentation velocity, if the round will even reach. what i have seen is too much reliance on the cool wonder toys in the modern military, and it has put a Band-Aid on the fallacy of the 5.56 platform. if we cannot hit them then we just call it in and let the fly boys bomb the snot out of them. but in the civilian world, when the wonder toys are gone, then the entire world changes. then it is the guy who can put lead on target consistently that will come out on top. im sorry, but i just do not see the 5.56 being a battlefield superiority weapon during a hypothetical collapse when there is too many open spaces and large caliber rifles..

  13. #93
    Boolit Master
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    5.56 will kill you stone cold dead well beyond 300 meters. Humans are a wild card. I’ve seen them drop dead right there from one center mass shot with 5.56, and I’ve seen them run several streets after getting hit with a burst from from the SAW.

    I’ve also seen the same with 7.62X51.

    Nobody runs from the Ma Deuce, lol.

  14. #94
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    Or the barret. Lol

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    me either and find it VERY doubtful that the lead melted. Ive recovered cast 223 bullets from an ar15 shot into a snow bank at 2800 fps and they showed no sign of melting the base. Add to that the alloy I use is hard so it would melt easier then a pure lead core in a jacketed bullet. Ive also recovered MANY 55 grain ball bullets with exposed lead cores shot at full power with 844 and 846 and none of them showed any melting of the base.
    Quote Originally Posted by Larry Gibson View Post
    "The original 55 gr ball ammunition in the 5.56 was slightly unstable in 1/12 twist, and... a little known fact, was that the lead core was melted by the hot powder gas when the bullet exited the muzzle."

    Gotta say I've never heard that one before.
    Last edited by Lloyd Smale; 05-18-2018 at 04:48 AM.

  16. #96
    Boolit Master
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    I'm as much of a chair-borne ballistic nut as anyone else, but I also had 25 years in the Army and shot on a bunch of unit level rifle and pistol teams, coupled with the obligatory year in 'Nam where I occasionally walked platoon point positon, even as an intel weenie. Within that context it still seems to me that for short to moderate distance shooting with lethality, that the ballistics of the old Jack O'Conner .270 130 grain load sighted 3" high at 100 yards will do most of what anyone needs for sporting or military tasks. I can still shoot to center of mass within that weapon's useable range with an aperture sight and tri-focals and don't have to worry about dead batteries. I guess that a Ruger stainless 18" barrel scout rifle in 7mm-'08 would do that job just fine. GF

  17. #97
    Boolit Grand Master 303Guy's Avatar
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    I've picked up bullet jackets when operating the target trenches. Just empty jackets. I have an empty 303 jacket too that I fired. The lead cores melted on impact and the jackets were falling into the trench. This kind of thing may give the impression that the core melts in the bore where there is an obvious source of heat. In actuality, the heat to melt the core is being carried by the bullet in the form of kinetic energy.

    An empty 303 jacket.


    An unmelted boolit base.
    Last edited by 303Guy; 05-18-2018 at 10:18 PM.
    Rest In Peace My Son (01/06/1986 - 14/01/2014)

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  18. #98
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    actually this is usually what happens when the core is not bonded to the jacket. sometimes what can happen is that the bullet will hit the target and strip the jacket off, and being the jacket has no real mass itself it deforms a lot less and the core just goes splat leaving the jacket behind. this is a very common thing if the jacket is aluminum or other material that will not bond to the core.

  19. #99
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    but this right here is one reason why the skinnies in the Mog could not hit anything with the AK..
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  20. #100
    Boolit Grand Master 303Guy's Avatar
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    Yeah, that empty jacket probably just lost the core. The berm empty jackets were melted out though. The core had to come out the base and being boat tails the only way to get out was being liquid. Of course, the jackets were deformed from impact into gritty soil.

    High speed impact videos show the lead going splat and there is some liquid but not all the lead melts.
    Rest In Peace My Son (01/06/1986 - 14/01/2014)

    ''Assume everything that moves is a human before identifying as otherwise''

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check