I can tell you that the 7.62Nato 150grn tips are not as good of quality as the 30-06 AP 163grn tips.
Ofcourse it could just be my 300WinMag that's roasting the heck out of the 150s. I have a decent sized chunk of steel measuring 11x11x 1 1/2 inches. My 163grn loads out of the 300WinMag at close to 3200fps are just beginning to reach full penetration, some exit some don't. The real key is that the 163grn penetrators are still in good shape upon exiting the backside, still together and still sharp, I highly suspect that they are made of tungsten or an alloy similar to tungsten.
Now the 150s... I got them to try simply because I wanted to see if they would perform better by getting pushed another 100-150fps faster. These things are a disappointment big time, on the steel they are barely bumping out the back of the plate. Upon inspection of the impact crater I can see where the steel is mangled and melted, it looks like the 150grn steel core is melting upon impact and fusing with the the target material.
Comparing the craters made by the 163grn pills and the 150grn pills gives tell tale signs of what I describe, the 163grn bullets make very clean impact craters that are very smooth and even. The 150grn bullets make a very irregular crater that has pools of metal around it's impact site, the core also appears to tumble upon impact which I believe is a result of the bullet tip not being able to maintain it's shape which reduces it's ability to penetrate in a straight line.
All of this is still in the educational/experimental stages. I've fired only about 15-20 rounds of each bullet type on my test target, to date I've had 2 rounds throughly penetrate the steel plate and both were the 163grn variety.
As for loading for 308Winchester, I personally am not about to go there. Just too much hoopla concerning the "handgun AP ammo" regulations for me to want to go there. Besides, the 300WinMag does a much better job, my 163grn AP pills are going a good 400fps faster than that which the WWII 30-06 ammo could hope to drive them to.
My steel plate isn't of mild steel composition either. It's not to hard armour specs but it isn't near as soft as some of the mild steel I've come across, I've done surface hardness tests but those were inconclusive.
I intend to eventually document some of my experiments just for the heck of it. I have some pictures of the steel plate just after my 2nd load over starting with the 163grn bullets, I'm onto my 3rd load above starting and those are the ones that are now fully penetrating. I've been putting the plate about 80 yards distant for testing, don't want to be any closer than that incase something strange happened(especially if I had true hardened steel plate).
Here is a close up of the backside of the plate showing the 2nd attempt,
http://home.bak.rr.com/varmintcong/APplate/penetrated.jpg
Here's what the back of the plate looked like after my first attempt, you can see areas where the crystaline structure of the steel had been blasted away as the metal expanded. This is similar to what the 150grn bullets will do only they are less effective, I highly suspect they are desintegrating.
http://home.bak.rr.com/varmintcong/APplate/backplate.jpg
Here's a close up of one of those 163grn craters, surprisingly one of the cores became unlodged and left a DEEP hole. Wish I could have found that stupid core.
http://home.bak.rr.com/varmintcong/APplate/holyheck.jpg
I've cross sectioned both the 163grn and 150grn bullets, eventually I'll get some decent pictures up of both. I believe the 163grn bullet to be the better designed bullet. Strangely, the 163grn uses a chunk of lead in the bullet tip ahead of the AP core where as the 150grn bullet uses a steel core sitting ahead of a small bit of lead in the base of the bullet. Also, the design of the AP core itself is much different. The 163grn AP penetrator is a cylinder with a truncated cone tip, definitely looks as if it was machined from a piece of solid rod. Whereas the 150grn AP core is more bullet like with a rounded ogive that matches the contour of the bullet itself. I believe upon impact the truncated cone of the 163grn AP core is better at penetrating, driving like the wedge of a wood splitter. The 150grn rounded ogive though, it doesn't help that mine appear to be melting further messing up the works, I suspect the rounded ogive helps to promote tumbling rather than causing the bullet to penetrate in a straight line. Interestingly, if you check out the FAS.org site where they show the new M993 and M995 tungsten core AP bullets for the 5.56x45mm and 7.62x51mm, the designs have returned to a truncated cone bullet tip, either it's due to practical purposes of design such as machining the tip or it's linked to performance related reasons.
I sure would love to see some of the design criteria and testing results for the various small arms AP ammo testing.
Maybe one of these days I'll have a 300RUM or 30/378 to really test those 163grn bullets?
Another 150-200fps on top of what the 300WinMag could do, that would spell mayhem for sure on this poor steel plate.
Oh, I also have plans to test copper solids such as the 125grn and 150grn Barnes solids. It's possible that they will have an effect somewhere between that of an all lead bullet and that of a steel core bullet, I'm hoping for a sort of HEAT/shape charge effect where the moulten copper will eat away at the steel. A 125grn copper solid at darn close to 3500fps should make for interesting results on target, not sure what will happen but it should be significantly more impressive than a lead bullet at 2950fps muzzle velocity.
