What's everyone's view on armor piercing bullets?

[Paul D Hunter]

Armor piercing bullets ought to be legal. I do not want to be shot, but if I am shot, I would rather have nice neat hole that one of those ragged wound channels left by regular hunting bullets. Armor piercing bullets are relatively humane, leaving a wound like the full metal jacket rounds which were designed to minimize the injury caused by a bullet. Fortunately the press and the more stupid politicians do not understand this, if they did they would want to ban hunting bullets first. They have an increased wound channel, they are manufactured for accuracy, and they are usually fired from rifles and pistols powerful enough to defeat body armor at close to medium ranges.

 

[AF_INT1N0]

I don't know.. Something about all the terrible implements of war should be available to the people.. Or some such nonsense.

I don't think any personal weapon should be regulated. Especially Armor piercing Ammunition. Especially, especially armor piercing ammunition for weapons capable of shooting through armored limousines. Even more so armor piercing ammunition for small concealable weapons of the personal defense variety.

 

[alwilliam]

In years past I did a lot of testing of pistol caliber AP rounds..Heres a little known fact...KTW rounds were a very poor aramid piercing round.The old school metal piercing rounds made for 50 years prior to the ktw were just as good as ktw ammo.

"Metal piercing " or hiway master type rounds are NOT covered in the laws and are 100% legal to own and carry..they can still be found and were never a restricted type round..very stupid written law and this "loophole" shows it.

FWIW---THV,ARCANES,CYCLONES..ETC were far better designed rounds for aramid piercing....but were so rare out side of goverment circles that nbc tv show just focused on the common ktw round.

In fact the 25,32 and .380 ktw were totally useless AP and were that same as standard ball ammo.

KTW are the rounds that were the catalyst for the P.L. 99-408 Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act of 1986...All this "cop killer AP " BS came from a nbc tv show....people are sheep.:banghead:

 

[atek3]

AP bullets should be legal. First they come for the tungsten carbide, then hardened steel, and eventually FMJ.

atek3

 

[alwilliam]

Pstol AP rounds are NOT as illegal under federal law as most people think.

http://www.atf.gov/firearms/legal/armor.htm


If you are NOT a (FFL) licensee under the Gun Control Act (an individual):

It is: legal to OWN AP ammo
legal to SELL AP ammo
legal to BUY AP ammo
legal to SHOOT AP ammo
ILLEGAL to MAKE AP ammo (18 USC sec. 922(a)(7))
ILLEGAL to IMPORT AP ammo (18 USC sec. 922(a)(7))

If you carry or use AP rounds in the commission of a crime you will be bent over so far you may snap...laws as far as carry or use by criminals of pistol AP are very hardcore.

also some states have their own set of AP laws.


Now for the down side and what really keeps them from criminal use...pistol AP rounds are VERY RARE items...you could pay 20.00 a round for ktw,40.00 per round for thv,50.00 per round for arcanes and 100.00 for cyclones ....BTW you also have to find them ...so even if you have the cash you may not be able to find them.

 

[thexrayboy]

The law was made by STUPID policticians, who understand nothing about bullets or firearms.

The law is BS enacted to make people who hate firearms and understand nothing about crime FEEL good.

The law has no benefit.

It can be quite tempting to feel this way and believe that such laws are frivoulous dogoodery by mindless harmless people. Occasionally this is true.
However most politicians, while deceitful, duplicitous, dishonest, self serving, power hungry, greedy, immoral.....you get the idea.....are not stupid.

They are usually intelligent, frequently successful in business and wealthy, quite possibly educated in the legal profession and totally capable of amazing chicanery in twisting the English language to their nefarious purposes.

They do however use the ignorant and uneducated to gain support for their agendas and using peoples feelings and passing laws that make blind followers "feel good" is one of their tools of oppression. Banning "cop killer" bullets is a classic example of pollys using emotional arguments to garner support for a law that makes those who lack rational capabilities feel good when its passed.

Banning AP ammo is a law, that like laws banning 50BMG caliber weapons, is merely a solution searching for a problem. Neither AP ammo
nor 50 cal weapons are, or have ever been, used in criminal endeavors in any meaningfull, measurable amount. That fact however is
not a deterrent to unconstitutional laws. The goal is total disarmament of citizens. Those with this agenda would like to do it wholesale, however till they sieze that much power they will settle for disarming us bit by bit in piecemeal fashion.

As for the law in question having no benefit....that depends on your perspective. Any law, no matter how minor, no matter how little it affects crime in reality has a benefit to a gun grabbing power hungry elitist. These laws serve as stepping stones to be used to drag us across the river of society from the free side to the enslaved side. As such they benefit evil politicoes, sometimes in small ways and sometimes in large ways.

 

[ArmedBear]

I have heard that an old 45-70 may not puncture a vest. However the vest itself wraps around the bullet and causes massive blunt force trauma.

Interesting. I've had the opportunity to do some postmortems while butchering buffalo hit with Black Powder .50-90, .45-70-405 and 520, all lead hardcast bullets.

What's interesting about them is that they tend not to stop, since the bullets really heavy. They don't mushroom, either, though they do deform if they hit a really big bone. Most of the time, they just pass in, through, and back out the other side, and keep on going. Exit holes and entry holes look remarkably similar, despite the size of the animal. Velocity is low, so there's little hydraulic shockwave. Looks more like the animal got hit by a remote-control punchpress, not a bullet.

I don't know exactly what it is that makes a bullet proof vest work and what will penetrate it, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to be hit by a 520 grain bullet that doesn't mushroom when it hits the vest.

 

[alan]

Given that the average center fire fire hunting ammunition (soft nose ammunition) will penetrate so-called bullet proof vests, which are designed to stop handgun rounds in the first place, when someone starts talking about "armor piercing ammunition" alarm bells start ringing in my head, as is the case when I hear the term "assault rifle/weapon" used/misused.

Someone has an agenda, and agenda's are usually the last thing they are willing to talk about. Hear the bells ring?

 

[thexrayboy]

Armor piercing ammo is just a buzz word, like "assault weapon", "high powered rifle", "stockpile of weapons", "arsenal".....etc. To an anti these words have no meaning and they have every meaning. They can be twisted and tortured and abused to mean whatever is needed or necessary for the agenda du jour.

Anti's have no need for facts or an understanding of the physical realities of arms and ammunition. In fact they don't want to know the truth about these things. The truth would just slow them down in their rush to spin words and
events to match their needs and desires.

 

[3 gun]

It's just a way to get the slippery slope tipped another degree down.

Define ARMOR. Level II? III? A wet t-shirt? Never mind that a normal solid hunting round will punch a hole in just about anything you could wear for more than a couple hours and you see the real problem.

It could be pointed out that every game animal in North America has been dropped by a .45cal or bigger blackpowder rifle with soft lead ball ammo. What happens if that power level is set as the MAX?

You can still have any firearm, any ammo as long as it is no more powerful than that "pulled out of the air" spec. They could even use our own words against us, "it kills'em dead how much more power do you need?"

How would that law break the 2nd?

As we have seen over and over, if they can't get it one way they will try something else. Making ammo more costly or illegal is just another attack.

Ammo is the 2nd's weak link.

Why do you think the push is on to ban lead? Can't get the ban you want? Make it cost more with steel shot or frangible ammo laws and claims it's for the environment.

Bottom line with any regulation is does it punish someone for a criminal act or does it create a new criminal?

 

[k_dawg]

To me.. "armor piercing" is synonymous with anti-armor/anti-tank rounds.

 

[alsaqr]

"Armor piercing ammo is just a buzz word, like "assault weapon", "high powered rifle", "stockpile of weapons", "arsenal".....etc. To an anti these words have no meaning and they have every meaning. They can be twisted and tortured and abused to mean whatever is needed or necessary for the agenda du jour."

You got it. Just more buzz words to get the sheeple stirred up as some breathless media panjandrum describes another an "arsenal" of a .22 rifle and a few airguns.

 

[Blackbeard]

Just market a suit of body armor made out of paper and presto -- all ammunition is illegal!

 

[RP88]

I think some people need to calm down with their conspiracy to power ideas. Granted, there is the threat of such things if we sit back and watch it happen, but we need to stop making every small thing point to such a thing.

Truth is, Democrats arent the only ones with gun control values; republicans do too, just like how there are Democrats that oppose the AWB. These contradictory politicians arent as rare as you'd think, either.

Truth is, alot of them, just like the average person, are rational and intelligent people, but just plain have no idea about guns because alot of them care about other things or just dont have an interest in them. Despite the fact that some are rabid agenda-pushers, I doubt that a conspiracy is on our hands. There are far worse groups or people that could arise to seize power, and those are the ones who we really need to be afraid of, not a bunch of people who are as irrationally afraid of the things they stand against as are the public they try to get behind them.

 

[orionengnr]

What's everyone's view on armor piercing bullets?

I don't know "everyone's" view, and judging from some of these posts, I don't really want to.

I'm done with this thread.

 

[Art Eatman]

You're done, orion? Just as well; the thread's half-baked.

, Art