Apolyton gun thread

[Pekka]

I have experience with 7.62 and 12.7... I can say from the bat that 7.62 is a powerful thing. It's not so much *pop pop* anymore .. it's little more banging actually. The good part is the bullets will fly good in the air and won't be so deflected from leafs and stuff so easily, plus it IS bigger so it'll make more damage for sures, and it can make a difference if the enemy is wearing some type of body armor. Like they say, wth 5.56 you wound, with 7.62 you tear up.

Anyway, they are still pretty close to each other, and with 7.62 you actually have to learn to shoot the damn gun because it kicks more so in case of rapid fire you're shooting all over the place if you don't handle your weapon, because it tends to rise up. So the rebels with AK 47s and most likely to be very unaccurate, and if they use rapid fire, like they do, you can most likely walk in the park and not sweat it. Of course if the enemy is well trained with the weapon, it is dangerous and accurate. Then again no real army uses AK 47's anymore but more sophisticated models or modifications or their own versions of that, or a complete different assault rifle.

12.7 is nice. Now that starts to be a real 'gun'. I had a chance to try out this 12.7 kind of AA type of gun that is mostly used against human force, not planes, because duh, obviously it doesn't do anything to planes. So use it on human force, it's very nice, very effective and extremely demoralizing when you start chopping them bodyparts off, I think it will actually explode a human hitting the right place. Little noise already and you can smell the powder. Very nice weapon, though starts being kind of heavy to carry and all that. Stick that up to your roof and you have the block pretty much covered for any peace time type of situations.

[Mr. Harley]

atomant - wasn't trying to contradict you, I was talking about a totally different sort of purpose, virtually antithetical to snap-shooting. I liked the 30-30 Mossberg lever action for hunting white tail deer in densely overgrown Appalachian woodlands. I preferred the balance. Other people swear by the Winchester. Snap shooting is largely a case of balance and personal preference via recoil and weight. The rifle you use is excellent for that. Since I've never dealt with a tropical environment, and never plan to - I hunted for meat, not trophies - I cannot say anything one way or another reference your post on that. I assume you are a reloader reference your solution to the problem you had? Was the problem due to using compressed powder charges in the tropical environment ? If so you also might have changed to a different powder that packs slightly better - I know you'll probably lose a littlve muzzle velocity, but you should get better consistancy. I had never considered how humidity/temp could affect a compressed powder load, that is an interesting topic.

[BeBMan]

Is this the replacement for the "best MBT" thread?

[Dis]

guns are easier to acquire than MBT's.

[Sikander]

Regarding the M-16, or more to the point the .223 (aka 5.56mm Nato) cartridge:

There are a number of factors which enter in to wound ballistics, but one very basic idea is to impart as much shock to the target as possible. It is the idea behind the shotgun and the .45 pistol, both of which have very high one shot stop percentages in gunfights. The shotgun and the .45 both use a similar strategy, which is to throw a fairly heavy bit of lead with a large cross section at the target at a lower than average velocity (compared to all firearms). Even though the total energy in these rounds isn't as high as some other cartridges, you can be fairly sure that most if not all of it is going to be left in the target (ie these rounds don't tend to overpenetrate).

The .223 uses another strategy to achieve this goal. It is a light high velocity round with the capability of penetrating all but the best body armors available. The bullet is thin and long, which makes it unstable once it hits anything. It is quite likely to tumble once it makes contact with its target (or a leaf for that matter). This tumbling can produce terrible wounds sometimes, with the bullet taking erratic and sometimes long paths through the body of the target. But it isn't a sure thing at all. As with all ballistics this round trades certain things for others (bullet weight for velocity) while its tumbling tendency tries to balance out the desire for penetration in a military setting against the desire to make the most of a light round within the international conventions against any but solid bullets on warfare. The smaller ammunition allows a lot more to be carried by the individual soldier, which is an important consideration for the military.

Your hydro shock ammo for your 9mm uses another strategy. The 9mm is a medium velocity medium weight round, which doesn't excel at anything in particular. Military ball ammo tends to overpenetrate unarmored targets, which in a home defense mode can be doubley dangerous as it can leave your opponent standing while it can also easily penetrate several walls and kill someone accidently. To forestall both of these possibilities hydroshock rounds are prefragmented, which reduces their penetration very significantly. Thus it will deliver all of that kinetic energy to the target in the hopes that the shock will kill or incapacitate him. The tradeoff is that your chances of killing him by organ damage or bleeding are reduced significantly.

As for shotguns, if you want one for home defense then don't worry about which one all that much. A Winchester Defender or even a Mossburg pump will do the job just fine. With few exceptions expensive shotguns are for hunting and competitive shooting.

Also I'd definitely go with a 12 gauge pump, as it's the most common type, the heaviest of the common types, and has the cheapest ammunition. Get buckshot for it (buckshot is pricier than birdshot but not prohibitively so.

[Dis]

Interesting. I've always been kind of confused about calibers and such.

What about the .357 magnum? Why is that considered such a powerful gun? Although I guess that is bigger than a 9mm? I can't remember all the conversions. And I remember seeing a lot of .40 cals in the 90's? How have those turned out?

[atomant]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
atomant - wasn't trying to contradict you, I was talking about a totally different sort of purpose, virtually antithetical to snap-shooting. I liked the 30-30 Mossberg lever action for hunting white tail deer in densely overgrown Appalachian woodlands. I preferred the balance. Other people swear by the Winchester. Snap shooting is largely a case of balance and personal preference via recoil and weight. The rifle you use is excellent for that. Since I've never dealt with a tropical environment, and never plan to - I hunted for meat, not trophies - I cannot say anything one way or another reference your post on that. I assume you are a reloader reference your solution to the problem you had? Was the problem due to using compressed powder charges in the tropical environment ? If so you also might have changed to a different powder that packs slightly better - I know you'll probably lose a littlve muzzle velocity, but you should get better consistancy. I had never considered how humidity/temp could affect a compressed powder load, that is an interesting topic.

No hit no foul

The problem was with fouling during case ejection. As you know things swell when heated and even a minute amount of expansion in a rifle cartridge has been know to present problems. One thing my PH taught me was that in terms of big game hunting, you really want to have your second shot ready and a 110% reliable cartridge and rifle. Limiting the grains, limits the 'bang' but doesn't really affect muzzle velocity too much (I use low velocity ammo), but mean that the heat in the chamber is not emough to affect reloding or feed from a magazine. Of course, as with the reliability of the rifle, good quality powder is enough. Charly Hayley wrote an excellent paper on the penetrationfactors of various rifle calibres, high velocity and low velocity slugs and also souped up ammunition.

Interestingly, I prefer a bolt action rifle, but would buy a double rifle if I had the cash. As a by the by, on three hunts all kills where within 50 metres, in dense bush. In terms of plains game, I would go with the 30 30.

But, if you get the chance to head out to africa, take it, its honestly a different type of hunting, I never thought so until I tried it. Additionally, the meat you get goes into the pot every night, and also feeds alot of other familys. Strangely, I have never been into trophies that much, more the thrill of the hunt.

[Mr. Harley]

The 9mm pistol round is being used because of a another issue, which is very similiar one of the issue that contributed to the .223 being adopted. Sight picture. What I mean by that is maintaining the target in your sights after the first round is fired, in such a way you can adjust your second and third shots. The more powerful rounds, with their more potent recoil, are more difficult to maintain this with especially when you consider most users are not large and strong and/or well-trained.

With the 9mm they also discovered that something like 80% of all police weapon discharges are off hand snap shots, i.e. taken with one hand immediately after clearing the holster. The reason for this is most criminals, upon hearing "Freeze" behind them, realize the cop is in a standard two-handed firing stance, and if they twitch the wrong way, the perpetrator is shot.

Conversely criminals are much more likely to attempt to shoot the policeman/woman if they catch them by surprise, hense the 80% one-handed snapshots. That's why the 9mm is an excellent concealed-carry weapon. You ARE NOT supposed to brandish the weapon, and this means that in the typical situation where you need it, you will be in a similiar situation.

Of course this varies for the individual. When I was younger and in better shape, I had extremely strong wrists and could have handled a .45 as an emergency defense weapon. I still could, but I suspect in 10 years I will no longer have the wrist strength to adequately maintain the sight picture. That is why, if I go conceal-carry which is legal in my state, I will go with a 9mm.

Reference a different post, one other advantage to a pump shotgun for home defense (I use an Ithica being a southpaw - it ejects the round down versus accross your face) - the chu-chunk sound of a round being chambered has got to be one of the most frightening sounds in existance, when you realize it isn't yours. I plan to get a programmable door chime and use that once my little girl is old enough to date.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Dissident
Interesting. I've always been kind of confused about calibers and such.

What about the .357 magnum? Why is that considered such a powerful gun? Although I guess that is bigger than a 9mm? I can't remember all the conversions. And I remember seeing a lot of .40 cals in the 90's? How have those turned out?

The 357 is the same diameter as the 9mm, but more powerful. I don't have any personal experience with the .40s, but from what I recall they were relatively high velocity with a good sized bullet. They were designed originally to replace the .38 in FBI service after four agents were killed in a shootout with two guys. One of those guys had a Mini-14 (.223). The .40 has first shot stopping stats similar to the .45.

[Sikander]

I use a .45 (Sig) and I have no problem whatever maintaining the sight picture. The recoil is no problem at all, and being a cheap SOB I fire 230 grain ball at the range. I'm not a huge guy, 165 lbs. I like to play kick the can (shoot the can trying to get it to pop in the air or at least roll and then take a snap shot and try to hit it while it's still in the air or at least moving) once I'm warmed up, so I think any recoil problems would be noticable.
Part of the reason may be the Sig, it's probably the best gun I've ever owned.

Regarding maintaining the sight picture, my main problem with the M-16 is that it has an aperture sight. I strongly prefer open sights for action shooting, as they allow a much wider field of view and really help you reacquire the target when you've been jolted by recoil.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Jaguar
I personally prefer grenades to a second weapon. I used to love the M6D pistol. It's too bad they stopped making them. Since then, I've preferred the M90 shotgun to the M7 caseless submachine gun. You simply get a whole lot more power from it.

I'm glad they're done with the M6D, it made things no fun. Grenades are good, but two weapons = kill and chance to survive, while IME gun + grenade = kill and die. At least, if they see you coming.

[Mr. Harley]

Since my shoulder injury, the heaviest round I normally fire is a .223 - I'm way too set in my ways to switch shoulders, and I am hideiously left eye dominant. I have found the mini-14, with an extended synthetic reduced recoil pad, has virtually no recoil. The M-16 must be different, but I find very little difference between my mini-14 and a 22 magnum round in ease of use.

Sikander, are doing one-handed snap shots with the .45? My analysis stands more for police and concealed-carry work, the military is an entirely different world. I.E. for target shooting, etc. I can see a .45, but taking three snap shots out of the holster, coming up to your aiming point, one-handed? Try that with a 9mm versus a .45, I'd be curious to know which one you get and better scoring rounds into a human target in let's say two seconds.

[Kuciwalker]

I've never understood why they don't just put the center of mass of the gun along the barrel so that there ISN'T any recoil.

[Mr. Harley]

You're confusing recoil with balance, Kuciwalker. I don't have the formula handy, but it's essentially the mass x velocity of the bullet (momentum, not energy) divided by some factor that includes the weight of the gun. This means the heavier the gun, the less recoil.

[atomant]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
You're confusing recoil with balance, Kuciwalker. I don't have the formula handy, but it's essentially the mass x velocity of the bullet (momentum, not energy) divided by some factor that includes the weight of the gun. This means the heavier the gun, the less recoil.

I would also add that some weapons shoot better for different people.... You have to find the right one for you. A different 'brand' of pistol or rifle of the same calibre will shoot dramatically differently for different people.