This is purely an idle question. I have no interest in doing this, for
many reasons. The main reason is that 7mm rem mag is armor piercing
even if bullets are made from dung. Anyway. I have some 4.8mm (3/16)
tungsten electrodes (lanthanated). I could, conceivably, cast some
bullets for a 7mm rem mag rifle with the electrode pieces inside, that
would be quite armor piercing. Would they go through, say, 1 inch
thick mild steel plate, assuming propellant loads that are safe for
the rifle?
i
I'm no expert on armor at all. But, ONE INCH? Have you seen what the
Army and Air Force use for armor piercing ammo? Like the 30 mm rounds
for the A-10? These things weigh a whole POUND each, and are
SOLID U-238 (both hard and heavy as hell!) The armor they are trying
to pierce is about that thick, as far as I know. A tank couldn't
possibly have steel armor too much more than an inch thick, or it would
be too heavy to move.
Jon
I shot through railroad tie plates (mild steel) with 7.62 mm Mosin
Nagant, using 50 year old ammo. They are, what, 1/2" thick?
Frontal armor on a tank can be much thicker than one inch, such as 4
inches or more. Plus, tank armor is stronger than mild steel, due to
metallurgy, use of composite materials etc. And I was asking about 1
inch of mere mild steel.
i
The old Nam era M133 armoured personnel carrier
had 1.25" of armour in places. The new M1A1
Abrams has an incredible 800mm or 31" of of
armour *equivilent* on the turret.
The 7 maggy, is a poor AP round. The bullets are too soft for the
velocity. Same as most overbore magnums.
I suggest you drill a 160gr in a collet, and insert a 1/8" chunk of
tungsten. The tungsten tends to be a bit brittle, but the impact of
the rest of the bullet will get the plate at the point of impact,
nearly red hot..and the penetrator will go a surprising distance
beyond normal crater depth.
Or so they say. I read it somewhere. Yup..thats it...read it.
Gunner
"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.
Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner
LOL...Ah Jon? A 3006 will just about punch an inch of CRS at 100 yrds
Tank armor used to be T1 plate..many inches thick, and the glacis
plates..feet thick.
Now its composit armor, various layers of ceramic, kevlar, aluminum
and steel. Google "Cobham armor"
And there are dead spaces between some of the layers to help break up
the flame front jet from shaped charges.
Ive got a set of standard 3/4" HRS plates that I hang from chains for
gongs and I have to weld them up or replace them every couple years.
Standard 308 FMJ will penetrate fully a half inch at 400 yrds and a
smidge more at 500 yrds. Can you tell me why it penetrates less at
closer ranges?
Which will shoot though a standard stop sign..a 22 rifle or a 22
pistol, both shooting the same cartridge and at the same 25ft range??
(shooting stop signs is NOT recommened btw)
Gunner
"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.
Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner
On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 22:16:39 -0600, with neither quill nor qualm, Jon
Elson quickly quoth:
(Ig, you meant to say "_Someone_ could, conceivably, cast...", right?)
...with 3' of explosive-filled shell behind them.
Much of the newest armor is a lighter-weight _ceramic_!
--------------------------------------
PESSIMIST: An optimist with experience
--------------------------------------------
I could double check, but it is my recollection that possessing AP
bullets is not illegal, at least in the US in general. High power
rifles, such as 7mm Rem Mag, give their bullets so much energy that
pretty much any bullets from these rifles can go through pretty much
all "bulletproof" vests. A vest that could stop a bullet of this
nature would not be practical to carry.
So, then, when we talk about AP rounds in the context of these high
power rifles, we'd be talking about rounds that can penetrate thick
steel plates, not a situation to be relevant for our everyday life and
even everyday crimes.
It is purely a theoretical discussion as it is not relevant to
practical life.
i
Gunner
I would suspect that the velocity at a short distance is higher that at long
range and that is the cause of better penetration at longer ranges.
Energy transfer verse velocity, may be more efficient at lower velocity.
Hugh
Not a ballistician.
That's true for almost rifles of roughly that size - .30-06, .308, 7mm
mag, and god-only-knows how many others. Basically anything that size is
going to fit in the category "armor piercing" when loaded with plain old
off-the-shelf deer bullets.
When I asked a cop I know (who, at the time, was bragging about his
spiffy new state-of-the-art, top-of-the-line vest - "This sucker will
stop damn near anything!") "So, if it's so great and protects so well,
what happens if I point my .30-06 at you and pull the trigger?", he
flinched a bit, then in a very matter-of-fact tone replied "Well, I'm
probably gonna drop like a steer in a slaughterhouse, then quietly lay
there and bleed to death - assuming I'm not already dead before I hit
the ground."
Oddly enough, I haven't heard him say diddly-squat about his
ever-so-strong vest since... :)
Even if his vest stopped the bullet, it still would transfer almost
100% of the bullet's momentum on him. That would amount to being hit
with a high speed paddle. The momentum would be the same as the
rifle's recoil (which is painful), only transferring more energy
because of higher speed of the affected area of the vest, compared to
the speed of rifle moving backwards.
IOW, the discussion that I started is not of practical nature.
i
Oh, that's without question. The point I am/was making is that just
about any of the "big deer rifles" (Pretty much anything that's
reasonably comparable to a .30-06, .308, .300 savage, or similar) is, in
and of itself, an "armor piercing" weapon unless you're shooting nothing
but plain, soft lead bullets through it. There's just *SO MUCH* "oomph"
involved, behind such a (comparatively) small cross-section, that it can
hardly help punching through
like tissue-paper.
The "scary" part is that something like an off-the-shelf .30-06 isn't
even really all that "high powered" a load by the standards that today's
magnum and ultra-magnum loads use.
(That's *NOT* saying that a .30-06 isn't "high powered enough"... How
could anyone sane make that claim when it's generally considered to be
"plenty of rifle" for practically anything that walks, flies, crawls, or
slithers on the north American continent? Never mind the crazy folks
who have used it for taking African "big game", up to and including
rhinos and elephants...)
3006 ammunition is 7.62 mm calibre, isn't it? I don't know much about
guns, but I do recall that the armour used on the famous "Pig" trucks in
Northern Ireland was a little under an inch thick, and this was regarded
as being adequate protection against the armour piercing 7.62 mm rounds
available to the IRA in the 1970s. Now it was definitely welded steel
armour, but it may not have been mild steel, and I'm not sure of the
range at which it offered protection, but the British Army found that it
did the job.
Chobham armour. I believe it was first used on the British Challenger I
tank, and it's probably a good foot thick. Tanks just have huge engines
and wide tracks to cope with the weight.
The rifle because it has the longer barrel, so the bullet has more time
to accelerate, is that right?
Iggy might also like to check out this link. Look at the Steyr round
next to the regular 7.62 mm. That is one big AP round:
There is no unless here. Even lead bullets would have great
penetration.
Correct.
Never liked those, I think that they are a marketing gimmick to sell
expensive ammunition.
I cannot see why one would hunt rhinos and elephants, sorry, I am
completely against it.
i
7.62 is a caliber for all kinds of ammunition (7.62x39, 7.62x54,
7.62x51, etc etc). These different cartridges have different bullet
weights and velocities and cannot be grouped together.
You are 100% correct.
That's a sabot cartridge, another concept worth exploring wrt
tungsten. Now, I have no "material targets" worth destroying, and I
would rather sell these electrodes or use for for making big arcs, but
the concept of a homemade AP round is interesting.
i
I have read that almost any shotgun load, even with small shot, will
penetrate the common police dept. vest at close range when the shot is still
in a ball.
Randy
Chuckle...the ancient .30 Mauser pistol cartridge, often found in the
old broomhandled Mauser and other "obsolete" handguns, will generally
sail right through a Level II vest like it was lace. Often doesnt make
it completly through the other side of the vest..but the wearer is not
likely to be terribly concerned one way or another.
Im aware of two cases also of deaths by blunt force trauma, one case
the wearer was shot at nearly point blank range by a 12ga shotgun
delivering a slug. It busted the sternum, blew out the aorota and
pretty much tenderized the heart. Think bag of goo. The other was an
officre who was tagged with a 475gr round out of a 45-70 at about 25
yrds. He managed to survive nearly a week, before the internal organs
simply gave up. Another bag of goo. In neither case was the vest
penetrated.
Bullet "proof" vests, arent. Some are more bullet Resistant than
others however. Adding a ceramic "chicken plate" helps things
tremendously, but also adds some big issues to flexability, and
comfort. Vests at best of times are hot and somewhat uncomfortable,
adding a ceramic plate to the front, back or both, really makes for
some issues. Though a good one will stop..yes stop, a .308 round. Im
told its like getting smacked with a sledgehammer though.
When vests first became commonly available in the early 70s, many
police departments bragged about their officers having them. Then
wondered why so many cops were dying of head wounds.. The perps
simply understood you had to pop em in the head to stop em. And did
so.
Sigh..and Im personally aware of one case, where a fairly new cop,
equipped with the latest high tech geegaws, bells and whistles..and
wearing the latest and greatest state of the art vest, got into a
struggle with a guy armed with a .32, who put it into the cops armpit
and pulled the trigger. That slow, miserably weak bullet punctured
the lung, clipped the right descending aorta, punctured the other
lung and lodged in the other arm. The coroner had to flip a coin as
to what actually was the cause of death..the deflation of both lungs
collapsing and smothering the heart, or the bleed out from the leak in
the aorta. He was gone in less than a minute either way. Not gonna
put a bandaid on that sort of wound.
Ive not seen any data yet on vests versus the new .17 H&R cartridge,
though there are several handguns now made for it. The bottlnecked 5.7
x28 is a newish pistol cartridge specificly designed to penetrate body
armor. Another fine product from Fabriqe Nationale, and becoming very
popular in handguns and submachine guns by military and paramilitary
forces around the globe.
And of course..we cannot forget the fine Tornado bullet, used by the
BATF to shoot each other to doll rags at the Waco clusterfuck.
Gunner
"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.
Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner
The impulse energy is spread over the surface area of the rifle butt,
but is a point source of say.... .355"....at the impact area.
But its Scientific..and fun.
Gunner
"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.
Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.