Garys
NES Member
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htweap/articles/20070205.aspx
I have no convictions either way, not having either an AK or AR.
Gary
I have no convictions either way, not having either an AK or AR.
Gary
-
If you enjoy the forum please consider supporting it by signing up for a NES Membership The benefits pay for the membership many times over.
-
Be sure to enter the NES/MFS May Giveaway ***Canik METE SFX***
Interesting
- Thread starter Garys
- Start date
Problem is they don't really get into wound ballistics. And not all .223
does what they describe. M855, for instance, has a limited distance in
which it will tumble, if it tumbles at all.
On the flip side of the coin, the other thing the 7.62 x 39 people don't want
you to hear is that often times people shot with the cartridge recieved through
and through bullet wounds similar to 9mm ball ammo. (at least
in the case of some types of military type FMJ ammo.) Of course, not
all AK ammo is created equal, either, even among the same bullet
weights and types. (EG, one factory's bullet may be more stable than
the others is, and the unstable bullet may lend itself towards greater
tissue damage. )
What most of these "caliber war" articles fail to address is how important
bullet selection is. Both .5.56 NATO and 7.62 x 39 can cause good amounts
of damage if the right bullet is selected. Provided, of course, that you
hit the target, but that goes without saying. With good hits even
mediocre bullets will probably do the job.
FWIW, I don't really have a stake here, either, because I own both
and like both.![[smile]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/001.gif "Smile [smile]")
-Mike
does what they describe. M855, for instance, has a limited distance in
which it will tumble, if it tumbles at all.
On the flip side of the coin, the other thing the 7.62 x 39 people don't want
you to hear is that often times people shot with the cartridge recieved through
and through bullet wounds similar to 9mm ball ammo. (at least
in the case of some types of military type FMJ ammo.) Of course, not
all AK ammo is created equal, either, even among the same bullet
weights and types. (EG, one factory's bullet may be more stable than
the others is, and the unstable bullet may lend itself towards greater
tissue damage. )
What most of these "caliber war" articles fail to address is how important
bullet selection is. Both .5.56 NATO and 7.62 x 39 can cause good amounts
of damage if the right bullet is selected. Provided, of course, that you
hit the target, but that goes without saying. With good hits even
mediocre bullets will probably do the job.
FWIW, I don't really have a stake here, either, because I own both
and like both.
-Mike
from what i had read in the early stages of the war...the 5.56 wasnt doing the job...people were saying this as far back as vietnam
however...more recent articles have yielded that different types of 5.56 loads have incredible incapacitating abilities...i read one account of a private contractor who was able to take his own ammo over there...he used 55 grain federal hollow points...never had to double tap...not once...he was even on board for some of the autopsies of the men he had shot since they were high profile targets...said the entrance wound was small...same as the diameter of the bullet...when the victims were opened up...a soccer ball wound channel had formed in the chest cavity from the bullet
unfortunately...the guys over there...arent issued HP ammo...also...i dont believe they have the same amount of training as the private contractors which could also account for more effectiveness of the round through a more skilled rifleman's hands...my .02
however...more recent articles have yielded that different types of 5.56 loads have incredible incapacitating abilities...i read one account of a private contractor who was able to take his own ammo over there...he used 55 grain federal hollow points...never had to double tap...not once...he was even on board for some of the autopsies of the men he had shot since they were high profile targets...said the entrance wound was small...same as the diameter of the bullet...when the victims were opened up...a soccer ball wound channel had formed in the chest cavity from the bullet
unfortunately...the guys over there...arent issued HP ammo...also...i dont believe they have the same amount of training as the private contractors which could also account for more effectiveness of the round through a more skilled rifleman's hands...my .02
I have to disagree with 5.56 as a tumbler.
Early on twist rates and bullet weights did cause this problem. It's better understood now, and rifles are available with twist rates from 1:7 to 1:12 that I know of. I use a 1:9, which works good for medium weight bullets.
I've seen the damage a 5.56 round can do to a torso hit, a head hit and a leg or arm hit. It was, as I described to my father in a letter from Vietnam..."a powerful little bastard".
FMJ DOES leave a lot to be desired, but it gets the job done.
Early on twist rates and bullet weights did cause this problem. It's better understood now, and rifles are available with twist rates from 1:7 to 1:12 that I know of. I use a 1:9, which works good for medium weight bullets.
I've seen the damage a 5.56 round can do to a torso hit, a head hit and a leg or arm hit. It was, as I described to my father in a letter from Vietnam..."a powerful little bastard".
FMJ DOES leave a lot to be desired, but it gets the job done.
Problem is they don't really get into wound ballistics. And not all .223
does what they describe. M855, for instance, has a limited distance in
which it will tumble, if it tumbles at all.
On the flip side of the coin, the other thing the 7.62 x 39 people don't want
you to hear is that often times people shot with the cartridge recieved through
and through bullet wounds similar to 9mm ball ammo. (at least
in the case of some types of military type FMJ ammo.) Of course, not
all AK ammo is created equal, either, even among the same bullet
weights and types. (EG, one factory's bullet may be more stable than
the others is, and the unstable bullet may lend itself towards greater
tissue damage. )
What most of these "caliber war" articles fail to address is how important
bullet selection is. Both .5.56 NATO and 7.62 x 39 can cause good amounts
of damage if the right bullet is selected. Provided, of course, that you
hit the target, but that goes without saying. With good hits even
mediocre bullets will probably do the job.
FWIW, I don't really have a stake here, either, because I own both
and like both.
-Mike
I've heard that some of our troops in Iraq praise the 7.62x39 and say they prefer it over 5.56 in certain situations.
I also hear the military scratched the 6.8 SPC idea because they were getting similar results with 77gr 5.56. Supposedly it performs best with a shorter barrel twist, though.
After a certain distance the 7.62x39 and the 5.56 both go through and through leaving less effective wounds. Like I said before, within 100-150 yards they both fragment in soft tissue and are devestating.
That article is a bit missleading about the 7.62x39, calling it a low velocity round. A 124gr bullet traveling 2400fps is hardly low velocity and at longer distances ends up traveling faster than the 5.56 due to the momentum of the heavier bullet. Of course you wouldn't be able to hit the broad side of a barn with the AK at that distance, though.
Not slamming the 5.56, just sticking up for the 7.62x39. Anything outside of 200 yards I would much prefer the 5.56 and certainly feel it does it's job well up close. I just think the 7.62x39 has a niche, and out performs the 5.56 up close in certain situations just as the 5.56 out performs the 7.62 reguarding accuracy at distances.
Perhaps you're right. Not tying to be argumentative as I'm certainly no expert. As far as fragmenting in soft tissue within 100 yards, in a human it is certainly desireable. While a handgun round that fragments may leave tiny wound channels as you mention, a rifle round that fragments at such high velocities has a very explosive and incapacitating effect.
Here is an interesting bit I found at another forum reguarding this subject:
From 'Assault Rifle: the Development of the Modern Military Rifle and its Ammunition' by Max Popenker and myself (details on my website):
"When a bullet passes through a human body, it creates permanent and temporary wound channels. The permanent one is slightly wider than the bullet and is the source of most of the injury, the temporary one is wider still but usually closes quickly without causing much damage. The first generation of jacketed military rifle bullets at the end of the 19th Century had rounded noses and parallel sides and were quite stable, following a straight path through the body. This created a very narrow wound channel, with a strong probability of the victim making a quick recovery provided that no vital organs were seriously damaged, and this earned such bullets a reputation for ineffectiveness.
However, as we have seen, modern pointed bullets are inherently unstable because their centre of gravity is much closer to the base than the tip. They will therefore tumble end-to-end on entering a body, before settling down to travelling base-first. This tumbling creates a far wider permanent wound channel (widest where the bullet is travelling sideways in mid-tumble) and is responsible for most of the injury caused. In contrast, commercial hunting bullets are designed to expand on impact, which greatly increases the size of the wound channel, but these are illegal for military use; tumbling achieves a similar effect in a different way. The rate at which a bullet tumbles depends on a number of factors, mainly concerned with the size, shape and composition of the bullet. The British .303 inch Mark VII ball round, used in rifles and MGs in both World Wars, had a light-alloy tip filler, thereby producing a stronger rearward weight bias which caused more rapid tumbling. This was the subject of criticism from Germany, who argued that it was against the spirit of the international Hague convention of 1907 which banned bullets calculated to cause unnecessary suffering.
Other things being equal, small-calibre bullets tend to tumble faster than larger ones, which partly accounts for the reputation for effectiveness achieved by the 5.56 x 45 NATO round. Both M193 and M855 bullets usually start tumbling about 10 cm after penetration and take another 15 cm to complete the manoeuvre. The 7.62 x 51 M80 ball tumbles more slowly, starting at around 15 cm and taking a further 25 cm to complete. The rate of tumbling for the 7.62 x 39 varies considerably depending on the type; the Russian steel-cored ball at first just yaws between 25 and 30 cm and does not complete tumbling until about 50 cm after impact, whereas the Yugoslav M67 bullet, which has a lead core with a hollow tip (and therefore a stronger rearward weight bias) tumbles much more quickly, starting after only 10 cm. The 5.45 x 45 ball (which also has a hollow tip) follows a similar pattern to the Russian 7.62 x 39, except that it commences yawing after only penetrating about 5 cm and has finished tumbling after about 40 cm. It must be stressed that these are all average figures when fired into an homogenous ballistic gelatine designed to mimic accurately the response of human flesh. What actually happens when bullets strike the decidedly non-homogenous human body may vary considerably, and there have been combat reports of 5.56 mm bullets passing straight through a body without tumbling.
Incidentally, it is often stated that the 5.45 mm's hollow tip is designed to bend on impact to encourage tumbling, and this has been demonstrated when the bullet is fired into plasticine (and sometimes occurs when it hits a human target). However, this does not happen when fired into ballistic gelatine. The hollow tip is probably there to keep the weight down despite the bullet having a long, slender nose for external ballistic reasons. It also provides a useful rearward weight bias. One experimental bullet type specifically designed to encourage fast tumbling was the Lőffelspitz or spoon tip, invented by Dr Voss when working for CETME, which has an asymmetric tip; this doesn't affect the external ballistics.
If the bullet hits an unprotected body, it is likely to be most effective if it completes tumbling within about 30 cm, as this is similar to the average thickness of a torso. This may appear to favour the small-calibre rounds, which generally tumble within this distance. However, if the bullet hits something else first (e.g. the enemy's arm) then the bullet will start tumbling before hitting the body, and in these circumstances the 7.62 mm bullets are likely to perform better. Furthermore, small-calibre bullets are more easily stopped by obstacles such as ammunition magazines kept in chest pouches, as has been demonstrated in tests. In any case, the basic wound channel created by the bigger bullet will clearly be larger than with the small calibres, other things being equal.
A further degree of injury occurs with bullets which break up under the stress of tumbling, the multiple fragments heading off in different directions and adding significantly to the wounding effect. Most bullets do not break up, the most famous ones which do being the 5.56 x 45 loadings, both M193 and M855. The US M80 7.62 x 51 does not break up, but the German equivalent has a thinner jacket with a cannelure (a knurled ring around the centre) which does break up and probably inflicts the most severe wounds of any modern military rifle bullet. It should be noted that bullets which strike bone may also cause much more serious injuries, as the bone fragments can act in much the same way as bullet fragments.
The importance of fragmentation to the effectiveness of the 5.56 mm bullets has a bearing on some of the criticism aimed at the current short-barrelled US M4 carbine. Fragmentation only occurs at high impact velocity. The barrel of the M4 is only 14.5 inches (368 mm) long rather than the 20 inch (508 mm) barrel of the standard M16A2, which reduces the muzzle velocity to the point where fragmentation only occurs at very short range. In the normal 510 mm (20 inch) barrel the maximum fragmentation distance is around 150-200 metres (the longer distance being for the M193), but in the short carbine barrels it can be as low as 50-100 metres. However, fragmentation is an accidental effect rather than a specific US military requirement, and it appears that different bullet production batches may perform differently, with some failing to fragment; serious criticisms were expressed about the effectiveness of the M855 'green tip' bullets used during the American action in Somalia. There are also reports from Iraq of combatants continuing to fight despite being hit in the body several times by 5.56 mm bullets at very short range.
The controversy over the effectiveness of the M4 appears to have stimulated the development of improved loadings. The heavy (77 grain / 5.0 g) Mk 262 5.56 mm loading was originally designed for accurate long-range target shooting, but has been found to tumble well and fragment at much lower velocities than the current service rounds. It was used by US Special Forces and the USMC in Iraq in 2003, and may well be adopted more widely. More radically, a new 6.8 x 43 cartridge is being considered, of which more later."
Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum
.
No, it turns out -you- are right, about that.
I still stand by my assertion, however, that you have to watch what
bullets are in use. The "wrong" FMJ type bullets in 7.62 x 39 have
inferior ballistics to anything which tumbles + fragments. There have
been reports of surgeons/medics seeing wounds from certain 7.62 x 39
shots which basically looked like the guy was shot by a 9mm
handgun firing ball ammo... no expansion no nothing.. just a 9mm on
crack. The same would hold true for 5.56 if you use the wrong
cartridge there, as well. (eg, M855 sucks. )
Course, even with the inferior ballistics, you could still "do the job
with those rounds if you put them in the right places....
-Mike
Last edited:
