Thread: Girl-Friendly Home Defense

Originally Posted by jojo

I'll choose the bigger hole puncher over something that is suppose to tumble or fragment, thank you very much. The performance of such ammunition will vary greatly by barrel length twist rate and other factors. I will also choose something that is specifically designed to expand while staying together (core lock style hollow points) spreading the energy of the projectile over an even wider area while retaining mass inflicting more injury. Generally keeping all the mass together by controlling fragmentation and spreading it over a wide area is the focus of defensive ammunition. If you want to leave someone full of pieces of material why not just use a shotgun?

Hmm, this seems to be totally unrelated to your earlier post, which is what I was responding to: The post where you claimed that "at a simple distance of generally less than 25 feet the .223 ar-15 isn't going to do much more damage" than a .22 LR. That's utterly wrong, and again, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about, so I hope no-one in this thread listens to you.

Your post here also has some problems. Firstly, none of the standard AR twist rates will adversely affect muzzle or fragmentation velocity for M193/M855 bullets, so that's a non-issue (again, seems like you don't know what you're talking about). Buy your defensive AR with a 1-in-9 twist or a 1-in-7 twist; it won't make a difference in fragmentation with M193/M855.

Secondly, while barrel length obviously does affect muzzle velocity and thus effective fragmentation range with those bullets, the relationship there is well known and thus the buyer can take it into account. E.g., it's well known that 10.5" barrels may fail to give fragmentation velocity even at the muzzle, so don't buy a defensive AR carbine with a 10.5" barrel. Easy. Stick with 16-18" and you are guaranteed reliable fragmentation velocity at defensive ranges.

Thirdly, M193/M855 bullets, when they fragment, actually inflict larger wound cavities than .223 hollowpoints; so that nonsense about "spreading the energy of the projectile over an even wider area while retaining mass inflicting more injury" is apparently something you just made up. Within their reliable fragmentation range, M193/M855 are more destructive in tissue than hollowpoints. http://ammo.ar15.com/ammo/project/term_fbispec.html. There's a reason frangible ammunition has been developed for antipersonnel use in the military.

Originally Posted by jojo

I wasn't saying just the twist or just the length would automatically make the ammo ultimate FAIL. I was saying a combination of the things could affect its performance, which you pretty much agree with in saying they may fail to fragment out of a 10.5 inch barrel.

Right, but all that means is that you shouldn't use M193/855 out of that barrel length. Again: The behavior of these rounds, and the factors that influence them, are well-understood. There's no mystery here, there's no unpredictability. If you do your research, you will know how your frangible rounds will perform. So it's disingenuous of you to suggest that the performance of such rounds is chancy and less reliable than the performance of hollowpoints.

Originally Posted by jojo

Later on in the thread you and Annony agree that the hollow point rounds would be a better choice out of his 10.5 inch barrel than the standard fragmenting ammo. Is it that wrong of me to want to use hollow points out of any defensive weapon?

No, not at all. I'm certainly not telling you not to use hollowpoints out of your defensive weapon. Go for it, use whatever you want. What I'm telling you is that you are wrong to make inaccurate claims about the effectiveness/reliability of frangible rounds, and that you are wrong to erroneously claim that their wounding effect is unreliable or less reliable than that of hollowpoints.

Originally Posted by jojo

When they fragment is what I was getting at. While the barrel length would affect velocity and expansion of a hollow point causing it to behave differently, it will still somewhat function. Is it wrong for me to want something that will function at least to some extent whether it is fired out of a pistol AR or a 20 inch barrel?

Again, no, that's not at all wrong of you. What's wrong of you is to suggest that because frangible rounds perform differently out of different barrel lengths, they are therefore unreliable in their effects and that hollowpoints can be more readily depended upon. It's not like your self-defense weapon is going to have a different barrel length every time you pick it up. It's always going to have whatever barrel length you put on it. So you can know how frangible ammo will perform out of it. Again, there's no element of unpredictability here. Yeah, IF you didn't know whether your weapon will have a 7.5" barrel or a 20" barrel, then the hollowpoint is a better choice because it will still expand even from the short barrel... but I should hope that you know long a barrel your AR has.

Basically the issue is this: Yes, you are correct that factors such as barrel length and other things can affect whether or not a frangible bullet fragments properly. But those are all factors that YOU have control over, so the fact that they affect whether the bullet fragments doesn't in any way mean that there's a risk of the bullet not fragmenting when you expect it to. So, if you aren't a total idiot, frangible bullets are just as reliable--and more destructive--than hollowpoints. But again, I'm not telling you want to use in your self-defense gun. Hollowpoints work fine if that's what you want. I'm just refuting misinformation about how frangibles work.

Originally Posted by jojo

As for me making stuff up that is in fact the very way hollow points function, whether I made it up or not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow-point_bullet

When you said that the expansion of hollowpoints results in their "inflicting even more injury", I thought you meant even more injury than that caused by a fragmenting bullet of the same caliber (as I made clear in my response). If you meant more injury than a non-fragmenting ball round, then yeah, I have no problem with that statement. I wasn't saying you were making up stuff about how hollowpoints work; I was saying you were making up stuff if you thought a 5.56mm hollowpoint does more tissue damage than a fragmenting M193/885.

Originally Posted by jojo

Everyone should also read the legality section and you will see that hollow points are prohibited for military use, thus the necessity of fragmenting rounds.

Actually, this is totally untrue, and you should be careful about accepting hearsay as fact. Many people think that hollowpoints are simply "illegal for the military" but the truth is a bit more complex. As the page you link to says, the use of hollowpoint bullets (along with all other bullets designed to expand or flatten inside the target's body) is regulated by the 1899 Hague Convention. However, if you had followed up on that and found out what the Hague Convention actually says about them, you would have learned that it's ban on these bullets only applies in the case of a state of war between two countries which have both signed Declaration III of the Convention. It is also waived if either belligerent is joined in hostilities by a non-signatory cobelligerent. So the United States military is perfectly free to use hollowpoint bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in fact is free to use them against almost anyone we want--the only time we can't use them is when we are shooting at soldiers in the army of another Hague Convention signatory, and no non-signatory states are participating on either side of the conflict.

Here is the actual text of Declaration III: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/dec99-03.asp

So, long story short, the US military uses fragmenting bullets because it CHOOSES to, not because it's prohibited from using hollowpoints. The US military could be using hollowpoints if it wanted to. It could have used them against the Viet Cong and NVA when the 5.56mm round was first adopted, and it could have used them against pretty much every enemy we have fought since them.