In another thread on "Why so much hostility towards 'tactical'," strambo remarked,
This brings up a question which I've wanted to ask for about a year. About five years ago I shot up a 20-rd box of 5.56 NATO ammo made in Malaysia in the 60s which was pretty inaccurate in my .223 varmint rifle. Now maybe I was shooting badly that day, or whatever, but that's not the real question.
I kept a single round of it just as a curio, and about a year ago I decided to pull the bullet just for grins.
I examined the bullet and found a small off-center ding in the lead at the base. This ding looked like it was very precisely and deliberately made when the bullet was formed --perfectly circular, about .015" in diameter and about .030 off-center, a little more than midway between the center and the part where the lead meets the jacket at the boattail. It looked like it was about .010 deep by my calibrated eyeballs, and was highly polished, as if it were die-stamped in.
Unfortunately, I have only this one bullet as a sample, and no more military ammo around, either US or other source, to examine.
OK. So somewhere (Hatcher?) I read that ammunition is much more sensitive to irregularities at the base than it is with deformed noses, and somewhere else I read that for full-auto arms (such as the military 5.56 mm weapons) it was better to have the shots disperse than to have ammo that was too accurate.
After all, a number of highly-accurate rounds through one hole in burst fire is not as effective as having the rounds establish a "cone of fire."
So here's the question:
Is some military ammo deliberately made to be slightly inaccurate for the above reason by "dinging" the bases of the bullets --in other words, to establish a "dispersal" of the rounds in battle? (Note that even though any deliberately-made "dings" may be precisely formed, their orientation for each round would be indeterminate, thereby making one round go slightly off to one side, and the next round off in another direction.)
Sorry if this sounds ignorant, but that little ding sure as heck looked like it was put there on purpose, and strambo's remark about his 2 inch groups with non-match ammo brought this question to mind again.
...well my M4 only does about 2 MOA with 4X ACOG and non-match ammo at 100yds and I'm a darn good shot.
This brings up a question which I've wanted to ask for about a year. About five years ago I shot up a 20-rd box of 5.56 NATO ammo made in Malaysia in the 60s which was pretty inaccurate in my .223 varmint rifle. Now maybe I was shooting badly that day, or whatever, but that's not the real question.
I kept a single round of it just as a curio, and about a year ago I decided to pull the bullet just for grins.
I examined the bullet and found a small off-center ding in the lead at the base. This ding looked like it was very precisely and deliberately made when the bullet was formed --perfectly circular, about .015" in diameter and about .030 off-center, a little more than midway between the center and the part where the lead meets the jacket at the boattail. It looked like it was about .010 deep by my calibrated eyeballs, and was highly polished, as if it were die-stamped in.
Unfortunately, I have only this one bullet as a sample, and no more military ammo around, either US or other source, to examine.
OK. So somewhere (Hatcher?) I read that ammunition is much more sensitive to irregularities at the base than it is with deformed noses, and somewhere else I read that for full-auto arms (such as the military 5.56 mm weapons) it was better to have the shots disperse than to have ammo that was too accurate.
After all, a number of highly-accurate rounds through one hole in burst fire is not as effective as having the rounds establish a "cone of fire."
So here's the question:
Is some military ammo deliberately made to be slightly inaccurate for the above reason by "dinging" the bases of the bullets --in other words, to establish a "dispersal" of the rounds in battle? (Note that even though any deliberately-made "dings" may be precisely formed, their orientation for each round would be indeterminate, thereby making one round go slightly off to one side, and the next round off in another direction.)
Sorry if this sounds ignorant, but that little ding sure as heck looked like it was put there on purpose, and strambo's remark about his 2 inch groups with non-match ammo brought this question to mind again.