How does using a wadcutter in a rifle change the performance and ballistics of a wadcutter? Ive read that a wadcutter can almost be cosidered armor poiercing at short range on solid objects like logs and 4x4s. What are they like out of say a 16" or longer barrel?
wadcutters in rifles
- Thread starter Bezoar
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rcmodel
Member in memoriam
Are you asking about target style wadcutters?
Or hard-cast Keith style Semi-wadcutters?
http://www.remington.com/products/ammunition/handgun/remington.asp
The only difference in performance out of a rifle or carbine would be 300 - 400 fps higher velocity out of a carbine length barrel.
They are by no means armor piercing, but do penetrate well because they normally don't expand like a hollow point or soft point bullet.
rcmodel
Or hard-cast Keith style Semi-wadcutters?
http://www.remington.com/products/ammunition/handgun/remington.asp
The only difference in performance out of a rifle or carbine would be 300 - 400 fps higher velocity out of a carbine length barrel.
They are by no means armor piercing, but do penetrate well because they normally don't expand like a hollow point or soft point bullet.
rcmodel
Vern Humphrey
Member
A wadcutter is so-called because of the clean holes it makes in a target. A target shot with these bullets resembles what's left of a piece of material cut into shotgun wads with a sharpened pipe, termed a "Wad Cutter."
Wadcutters were developed to make those sharp, clean holes, because in most shooting events the rule is "a shot that cuts or touches a scoring line counts for the higher value." Shoot a .22 round nose at a sheet of paper and note how difficult it is to find the edge of the hole for scoring purposes.
Back in the 1840s, Whitworth demonstrated that a flat nose steel projectile penetrates steel armor best -- a sharp nose is likely to be deformed on impact. For that reason, most armor piercing tank and naval projectiles have a flat nose under a ballistic windshield.
A lead wadcutter is not an armor piercing bullet, by any means. In hunting, however, wadcutters and semi-wadcutters tend to cut full-diameter holes in game, and kill quite well.
Wadcutters were developed to make those sharp, clean holes, because in most shooting events the rule is "a shot that cuts or touches a scoring line counts for the higher value." Shoot a .22 round nose at a sheet of paper and note how difficult it is to find the edge of the hole for scoring purposes.
Back in the 1840s, Whitworth demonstrated that a flat nose steel projectile penetrates steel armor best -- a sharp nose is likely to be deformed on impact. For that reason, most armor piercing tank and naval projectiles have a flat nose under a ballistic windshield.
A lead wadcutter is not an armor piercing bullet, by any means. In hunting, however, wadcutters and semi-wadcutters tend to cut full-diameter holes in game, and kill quite well.
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