kBob
Member
forgive me if this has been done and done and done but It has come up among friends.....
As far as wound effects, does a 55 grain M193 FMJ ball bullet do anything different out of a 1/7 twist barrel from what it does out of a 1/12 twist, in both a 16 inch and 20 inch barrel and at under 100 meters?
Back around 1970 the Swedes produced a weird folding stocked, magazine for a pistol grip rifle for their military's consideration that featured a 1/7 twist long before NATO started looking at steel core 62 grain bullets and all our -16s were 1/12.
The stated reason was to prevent the sort of destabilization in flesh then making the M193 and M16 famous by insuring stabilization with a faster twist. They thought this twist would make the 193 settle down and fly straight even after passing through a nice parka, some wool cloths and Ivan's breast bone with out the three to four inch gymnastics and so somehow be more "humane" than a tumbling bullet.
I never heard about their results, but some back then theorized that the increased friction involved in spinning up a bullet to that sort of rotational velocity might heat things up enough to make the lead core sort of start melting and sloshing about. Others opined that the increased rotational speed would lead to such high amounts of Centrifical force that any upset at all would lead to fragmentation. Some said both of those were correct and some said neither.
I have to say a lot of the gel test I find on line show that same old flipity do at the three to four inch mark in gel we saw back in the 1/12 days.....but more regularly with fewer failures to do so.
Also from what folks doing the gel test are showing, again greater regularity in that 4 to 8 inch mark in the wound channel it sure looks like the M193 bullet does not just switch ends, but comes apart violently with many small bits taking off in directions not in the expected bullet path.
Has the switch to 1/7 made the M193 an even nastier bullet than it was supposed to be back in the 1/12 days?
-kBob
As far as wound effects, does a 55 grain M193 FMJ ball bullet do anything different out of a 1/7 twist barrel from what it does out of a 1/12 twist, in both a 16 inch and 20 inch barrel and at under 100 meters?
Back around 1970 the Swedes produced a weird folding stocked, magazine for a pistol grip rifle for their military's consideration that featured a 1/7 twist long before NATO started looking at steel core 62 grain bullets and all our -16s were 1/12.
The stated reason was to prevent the sort of destabilization in flesh then making the M193 and M16 famous by insuring stabilization with a faster twist. They thought this twist would make the 193 settle down and fly straight even after passing through a nice parka, some wool cloths and Ivan's breast bone with out the three to four inch gymnastics and so somehow be more "humane" than a tumbling bullet.
I never heard about their results, but some back then theorized that the increased friction involved in spinning up a bullet to that sort of rotational velocity might heat things up enough to make the lead core sort of start melting and sloshing about. Others opined that the increased rotational speed would lead to such high amounts of Centrifical force that any upset at all would lead to fragmentation. Some said both of those were correct and some said neither.
I have to say a lot of the gel test I find on line show that same old flipity do at the three to four inch mark in gel we saw back in the 1/12 days.....but more regularly with fewer failures to do so.
Also from what folks doing the gel test are showing, again greater regularity in that 4 to 8 inch mark in the wound channel it sure looks like the M193 bullet does not just switch ends, but comes apart violently with many small bits taking off in directions not in the expected bullet path.
Has the switch to 1/7 made the M193 an even nastier bullet than it was supposed to be back in the 1/12 days?
-kBob