Millitary rounds often cross over for hunters

[WhiteFeather]

The first one is a reponse to second article, thought you might enjoy some of the points mentioned in here.

Might make some heated debates as well.

The very last statement in second article is 100% true.



http://www.observer-reporter.com/OR/...06-01T00-34-00

Millitary rounds often cross over for hunters

The other day we were discussing rifles and cartridges that are useful in the varmint field. When the ranges are long, the .22-caliber rounds that stand out are the .220 Swift, and the 22-250. For medium-range shooting, the old reliable .222, and the exact copy of the military round, the .223, work fine.
While all four are .22s utilizing bullets of .224 diameter, the difference is in the speed each attains. Both the Swift, and the .22-250 have a greater powder capacity than the .222 and .223, resulting in a much higher velocity with more punch and greater ranging ability. There is no magic in cartridges, and when pressure is equal and barrel length the same, the larger casing will always result in higher velocity.

That brings us to a feature article appearing in the May 27th Observer-Reporter, with headlines saying, "Military's bullets come under fire."

Aside from mistakenly calling a cartridge a bullet, the article covers what many of us who shoot a variety of rifles have said for years. The 5.56, or .223 in its Sporter version is hardly more than a varmint cartridge, useful for animals that weigh less than 40 pounds. And one must remember that even with the expanding bullet used in the Sporter version, the .223 is not a big game cartridge.

The military is, in fact, trying to use it on animals that weigh from 140 to 200 pounds. Of course, they are depending heavily on multiple hits.

The 5.56 came out originally around 1960, loaded with a 55-grain bullet, moving just short of 3,300 feet per secod (fps). Early rifles had problems with stabilization, so rifling twist was changed to a faster rate.

Since that time, experiments have been done with even quicker rates of twist, to stabilize heavier bullets. Regardless of what is said, the 5.56 is still a small-cased .22-caliber round, and hardly one that is designed to stop 200-pound animals with a single shot.


There are some instances, which were mentioned in article, of barrels being shortened to 18 inches. Just last month, the NRA magazine, The American Rifleman, did a test with 18-inch barreled .223s and came up with the velocity of .2700 fps, cutting further into stopping power.

This highlights a lesson I learned long ago with all rifle cartridge combos. Shorten the barrel and you lower the performance noticeably.

It is only natural that all military rounds catch on with a different name, as a Sporting round. Right after the turn of the 20th Century, the .30 Govt. became the ever popular .30-06. It remained the military round through two world wars, giving way to the 7.62 Nato, which is the .308 Winchester, and is the cartridge chambered in the M-14.

Here we find a .30-caliber, 165-grain bullet, moving at almost 2,800 fps. This represents ballistics that place it in the good big game cartridge category. Is it any wonder that it is preferred by knowledgeable soldiers?

Of course, today we find the 5.56 chambered in the M16, and its look alikes. It's a fine varmint round, but hardly big enough for deer-sized animals.

This is not to say there are not advantages to using such a round. For one thing, today's young men are less and less familiar with firearms, therefore, more difficult to train with a rifle that recoils. Also, one can carry more rounds when using the smaller cartridge.

Of course, one also needs more rounds because it takes multiple hits to stop what needs stopped.

http://www.observer-reporter.com/OR/...E-OVER-BULLETS

Military's bullets come under fire

WASHINGTON - As Sgt. Joe Higgins patrolled the streets of Saba al-Bor, a tough town north of Baghdad, he was armed with bullets that had a lot more firepower than those of his 4th Infantry Division buddies.

As an Army sniper, Higgins was one of the select few toting an M14. The long-barreled rifle, an imposing weapon built for wars long past, spits out bullets larger and more deadly than the rounds that fit into the M4 carbines and M16 rifles that most soldiers carry.

"Having a heavy cartridge in an urban environment like that was definitely a good choice," says Higgins, who did two tours in Iraq and left the service last year. "It just has more stopping power."

Strange as it sounds, nearly seven years into the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, bullets are a controversial subject for the U.S.

The smaller, steel-penetrating M855 rounds continue to be a weak spot in the American arsenal. They are not lethal enough to bring down an enemy decisively, and that puts troops at risk, according to Associated Press interviews.

Designed decades ago to puncture a Soviet soldier's helmet hundreds of yards away, the M855 rounds are being used for very different targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. Much of today's fighting takes place in close quarters; narrow streets, stairways and rooftops are today's battlefield. Legions of armor-clad Russians marching through the Fulda Gap in Germany have given way to insurgents and terrorists who hit and run.

Fired at short range, the M855 round is prone to pass through a body like a needle through fabric. That does not mean being shot is a pain-free experience. But unless the bullet strikes a vital organ or the spine, the adrenaline-fueled enemy may have the strength to keep on fighting and even live to fight another day.

In 2006, the Army asked a private research organization to survey 2,600 soldiers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly one-fifth of those who used the M4 and M16 rifles wanted larger caliber bullets.

Yet the Army is not changing. The answer is better aim, not bigger bullets, officials say.

"If you hit a guy in the right spot, it doesn't matter what you shoot him with," said Maj. Thomas Henthorn, chief of the small arms division at Fort Benning, Ga., home to the Army's infantry school.


At about 33 cents each, bullets do not get a lot of public attention in Washington, where the size of the debate is usually measured by how much a piece of equipment costs. But billions of M855 rounds have been produced, and Congress is preparing to pay for many more. The defense request for the budget year that begins Oct. 1 seeks $88 million for 267 million M855s, each one about the size of a AAA battery.

None of the M855's shortcomings is surprising, said Don Alexander, a retired Army chief warrant officer with combat tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Somalia.

"The bullet does exactly what it was designed to do. It just doesn't do very well at close ranges against smaller-statured people that are lightly equipped and clothed," says Alexander, who spent most of his 26-year military career with the 5th Special Forces Group.

Paul Howe was part of a U.S. military task force 15 years ago in Mogadishu, Somalia's slum-choked capital, when he saw a Somali fighter hit in the back from about a dozen feet away with an M855 round.

"I saw it poof out the other side through his shirt," says Howe, a retired master sergeant and a former member of the Army's elite Delta Force. "The guy just spun around and looked at where the round came from. He got shot a couple more times, but the first round didn't faze him."

With the M855, troops have to hit their targets with more rounds, said Howe, who owns a combat shooting school in Texas. That can be tough to do under high-stress conditions when one shot is all a soldier might get.

"The bullet is just not big enough," he says. "If I'm going into a room against somebody that's determined to kill me, I want to put him down as fast as possible."

Dr. Martin Fackler, a former combat surgeon and a leading authority on bullet injuries, said the problem is the gun, not the bullet. The M4 rifle has a 14.5 inch barrel - too short to create the velocity needed for an M855 bullet to do maximum damage to the body.

"The faster a bullet hits the tissue, the more it's going to fragment," says Fackler. "Bullets that go faster cause more damage. It's that simple."

Rules of war limit the type of ammunition conventional military units can shoot. The Hague Convention of 1899 bars hollow point bullets that expand in the body and cause injuries that someone is less likely to survive. The United States was not a party to that agreement. Yet, as most countries do, it adheres to the treaty, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Hague restrictions do not apply to law enforcement agencies, however. Ballistics expert Gary Roberts said that is an inconsistency that needs to be remedied, particularly at a time when so many other types of destructive ordnance are allowed in combat.

"It is time to update this antiquated idea and allow U.S. military personnel to use the same proven ammunition," Roberts says.

In response to complaints from troops about the M855, the Army's Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey assigned a team of soldiers, scientists, doctors and engineers to examine the round's effectiveness. The team's findings, announced in May 2006, concluded there were no commercially available rounds of similar size better than the M855.

But Anthony Milavic, a retired Marine Corps major, said the Army buried the study's most important conclusion: that larger-caliber bullets are more potent.

"It was manipulated," says Milavic, a Vietnam veteran who manages an online military affairs forum called MILINET. "Everybody knows there are bullets out there that are better."

Officials at Picatinny Arsenal declined to be interviewed. In an e-mailed response to questions, they called the M855 "an overall good performer." Studies are being conducted to see if it can be made more lethal without violating the Hague Convention, they said.

Larger rounds are not necessarily better, they also said. Other factors such as the weather, the amount of light and the bullet's angle of entry also figure into how lethal a single shot may be.

Heavier rounds also mean more weight for soldiers to carry, as well as more recoil - the backward kick created when a round is fired. That long has been a serious issue for the military, which has troops of varied size and strength.

The M14 rifle used by Joe Higgins was once destined to be the weapon of choice for all U.S. military personnel. When switched to the automatic fire mode, the M14 could shoot several hundred rounds a minute. But most soldiers could not control the gun, and in the mid-1960s it gave way to the M16 and its smaller cartridge. The few remaining M14s are used by snipers and marksman.

U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., is buying a carbine called the SCAR Heavy for its commandos, and it shoots the same round as the M14. The regular Army, though, has invested heavily in M4 and M16 rifles and has no plans to get rid of them.

A change in expectations is needed more than a change in gear, said Col. Robert Radcliffe, chief of combat developments at Fort Benning. Soldiers go through training believing that simply hitting a part of their target is enough to kill it. On a training range, getting close to the bulls-eye counts. But in actual combat, nicking the edges isn't enough.

"Where you hit is essential to the equation," Radcliffe says. "I think the expectations are a little bit off in terms of combat performance against target range performance. And part of that is our fault for allowing that expectation to grow when it's really not there at all."

The arguments over larger calibers, Radcliffe says, are normal in military circles where emotions over guns and bullets can run high.

"One of the things I've discovered in guns is that damned near everyone is an expert," he says. "And they all have opinions."

[knight0334]

Thats been a debate for over 40 years now.

No matter what - someone will bitch.. The 7.62/.308win came about because the 30-06 kicked too much. Then 5.56 came about because too many people whined that the 7.62/.308's recoil was too much. If you bring abouts something bigger - some wussified person(s) will bitch about it's recoil.

There's no satisfying everyone. Even if you step up to a .243 cal and/or power chambering - enough squeaky wheels will get the entire car greased.

[General Geoff]

The 7.62/.308win came about because the 30-06 kicked too much.

7.62 NATO was engineered to have identical terminal ballistics to .30-06. In 150gr military ball format, they are essentially the same. The 7.62 cartridge is shorter, and thus can be chambered more easily in autoloading receivers.

[Hokkmike]

Thanks for the great articles. My own caliber, the 6.5 X 55, is of military origin.

[knight0334]

7.62 NATO was engineered to have identical terminal ballistics to .30-06. In 150gr military ball format, they are essentially the same. The 7.62 cartridge is shorter, and thus can be chambered more easily in autoloading receivers.

While the short and autoloading thing is true - the ballistics was never identical, similar and close yes. But not identical. There was a two, three hundred FPS difference between the two that they knew would result in a lower recoil which was called for.

They had begun the accuracy versus power "war" in the late '40s. Accuracy not by better weapon design, but to ease up recoil so that the shooter could deliver better results.

I personally feel we should have something bigger than the 5.56, but some wussy will cry over a bruised shoulder. We would also have to dish out about $1000-1500 per new rifle/carbine times the millions of arms we would need for active, reserve, and national guard replacements, plus the reserve stockpile needed for war draft build ups. Then of course the ammo and magazine costs.

As much as I like blowing up countries that piss us off, it'd be cheaper to just stay home and guard our borders with what we have.