reread the thread and my replies
and the last post syme wrote
Okay, please someone clarify this:
So are we talking about Pitbulls and Rottweilers trained to attack and maim humans and having these dogs living in our houses with us as guardians, or are we talking about dogs whose bark alerts us to the presence of intruders and whose size appears intimidating?
If it's the former, how do you, like, have guests come over to your house?
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?
If dogs are allowed then that might make a decent alarm system, but dogs are unpredictable in a sense of whether or not they will defend you.
"Back in the old, dark days of the internet when men were men, women were men, and children were FBI agents, no one cared what people thought of them"
Id use my SBR AR-15 with my Hornady TAP 77gr 5.56 (NOT .223) for self defence over an AK any day.
Ive used both MANY MANY times. And the AR is just a better weapons system overall IMO.
I like AKs, and I will be picking up a Romanian underfolder after I get my Garand, but Ive just seen them fail too many times. Which makes me laugh because people always say how reliable they are. Cheap guns = cheaply built with cheap parts = unreliable.
I could make an entire thread on this, but Ill keep it short.
As for the hunting bullets in a SD weapon, there is a reason companies make HD ammo, and hunting ammo, and they are different.
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.
I got a 10.5 for self defence, but like you said, I knew what I was getting into. I know that the effective range is probably somewhere around 75-100 yards. And its all about ammo selection with this thing. I am still on the hunt for this ammo, but once I find it Ill stock up. Its the Hornady 5.56 77 gr I was talking about. The fact that its a 5.56 and not a .223 adds a little to the effective range. And the 10.5 in gun is made for a home defense gun. I doubt Ill ever have to take a shot over 100 yards in my house, and if I do, well then I have a huge ass house. I have my 16 in AR for longer distances.
I was actually talking about fragmentation range; what I meant is that with a 10.5" barrel, M193/M855 rounds won't even have enough velocity to reliably fragment at the muzzle. So by that standard of "effectiveness", with those rounds, the 10.5" barreled AR has an "effective" range of zero yards. But if you are using hollowpoints then it's a non-issue. Just be sure that your hollowpoint of choice expands reliably at whatever muzzle velocity it gets from that barrel (should be around 2300 fps for Mk.262-style 77 grainers from a 10.5").
Last edited by Syme; 10-28-2009 at 07:43 PM.
I'm sure that's true in some sense for some ammo. "Effective range" is a pretty vague term which can mean many different things. You could say that M193 from a 10.5" barrel has an effective range of zero (because it can't be relied on to fragment even at the muzzle) or you could say it has an effective range of a couple hundred yards (because that's the range at which a decent marksman could hit a human-sized target), and neither statement would be wrong, since they use totally different meanings of "effective range".
Fragmentation range is a much more concrete measurement than "effective range". Fragmentation range is the range at which the round drops below 2700 fps and thus will no longer fragment reliably in tissue (again, obviously this is only meaningful if you're using ammo that fragments in the first place, i.e. M193 or M855). Fragmentation range is around 150-250 meters for a 20" M16 barrel; around 50-100 meters for a 14.5" M4 barrel, and 0-50 meters for a 10.5" barrel (meaning it will sometimes, but not always, have a muzzle velocity above ~2700 fps). For even shorter barrels, like those silly 7.5" ones, it is unequivocally zero, meaning the round will NEVER have enough velocity to fragment even at the muzzle.
Yeah, they're right. Bear in mind that they are the ranges at which the bullets will reliably fragment. That doesn't mean it's impossible for bullets to fragment at ranges longer than that; it just means that fragmentation shouldn't be relied upon at those ranges. It's not impossible for the bullet to fragment at 250 yards from a 20" barrel, or at 75 yards from a 10.5" barrel. But it's far from guaranteed and shouldn't be relied upon.
The variation is due in part to manufacturing variations in bullet construction, powder charge, etc. (the M855 bullet is particularly complicated in it's construction, which leads to a lot of performance variation), and in part to the certain degree of randomness that exists in uncontrollable external and terminal-ballistic factors. I gave the M4's frag range as 50-100 yards but in fact even from a 14.5" barrel, M855 rounds can drop below fragmentation velocity as little as 10 yards downrange.
Also it's not entirely impossible for M193/M855 rounds to fragment when hitting at less that 2700 fps. They can sometimes fragment (albeit less destructively) in the 2600-2700 fps range. If you include this, the "fragmentation ranges" for a given barrel length will increase accordingly. You still won't get reliable fragmentation from <14.5" barrels even at close range, though.
EDIT: You probably won't like hearing this, but here's what Ammo Oracle says about sub-14.5" AR barrels:
"Question. My department is considering using 10" or 11.5" barrels for our ARs. They are so cool, and everyone knows that all the real go-fast, high-speed, low-drag operators use SBRs. Plus, Robert DeNiro uses one in "Heat." What's the best ammo to use to poke big holes in the bad guys with these?"
"We dislike this question. We dislike it because of its premise. The premise is that 10" or 11.5" barrels are good choices for law enforcement or defensive use. We strongly disagree with this premise. Some of us actually dislike even 14.5" barrels, in fact.
The primary wounding mechanism for .223 and 5.56 ammunition is fragmentation. The primary factor in fragmentation is velocity. The primary velocity booster is barrel length. 11.5" barrels barely bring milspec (NATO) 55 grain FMJ to 2700 fps (the critical fragmentation threshold for many FMJ .223 rounds). Accordingly, any distance at all drops the rounds below fragmentation velocity. 10" barrels are unlikely to ever get rounds above fragmentation velocity at all.
If you are saddled with a department mandated SBR we recommend the following:
1. A marathon letter writing campaign citing the Ammo Oracle often persuading the powers that be to see reason and potentially save lives by giving you REAL weapons, not toys.
2. Use heavier rounds known to fragment at lower velocities and do more tissue damage such as:
68 grain Hornady Match OTM
69 grain SMK OTM
75 grain Hornady TAP
77 grain Nosler OTM
Obviously, you should probably have a 1:7" twist.
Under no circumstances should you take comfort in the assurances your armorer gives you that the latest soft point or hollow point law enforcement specialty round will solve the problem. Most likely it will not. Soft point and hollow point rounds lack penetration even at high velocity. Because they are not prone to yawing or fragmentation lower velocities will not increase penetration as with many fragmenting rounds."
Last edited by Syme; 10-28-2009 at 09:09 PM.
They have the ammo I plan on using in that list at the end. I wonder what the muzzle velocity is on the 75 gr TAP from a 10.5. I need to find someone with a chronograph. And make some ballistics gel. lol.
I would like to see what kind of damage these heavier rounds do from a shorter bbl.
Someone needs to invent a faster burning powder. lol. If that would happen, I could easily get the 2700+ from the bbl, and further depending on how fast it burned.
EDIT: And I like hearing anything that makes me learn more about my guns.
Hrmm, as far as faster-burning powders go, they definitely exist--for one thing, pretty much all pistol powders are going to burn much faster than rifle powders, since they are much finer-grained in order to get full combustion in a 4-5" barrel--but I'm not sure why such powders haven't been used in 5.56mm loads tailored for SBRs. Could be worth looking into.
As for how open-tipped/hollow-point rounds perform from a 10.5" barrel, better than M193/M855 would but still not as well as they would from a longer barrel.
I think you already pointed that out in your reply after that post, and guess what this one wasn't related to the earlier one.
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. 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?
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?
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 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. It also talks about bonding of the jacket to the core to prevent fragmentation and control expansion
"Back in the old, dark days of the internet when men were men, women were men, and children were FBI agents, no one cared what people thought of them"
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.
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
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.Originally Posted by jojo
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.
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
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.Originally Posted by jojo
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.
God damn syme
Everything I know about international laws of war and the provisions of the Hague Convention, I learned from xbox.
haahah, maybe if they could somehow pick up the depolarization between the nodes or something, but then the radios would be 1000000000x more potent
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