Stay safe; stay armed.
Posted on 12/20/2002 3:11:35 PM PST by 45Auto
Soldiers who fought in Afghanistan have some hard-earned opinions about the rifles on which they relied to stay alive. Mostly, they want more firepower.
The standard-issue ammunition compounded the problem, they said: The 5.56 mm round shot — a bullet equivalent to that marketed in the States to shoot small vermin — wasn’t effective in stopping al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. “Should be a 7.62 mm, so it will drop a man with one shot,” wrote one soldier.
Not all soldiers’ reviews were negative. Pat, a Special Forces soldier who is serving in Afghanistan, wrote the military watchdog group Soldiers for the Truth that “the M-4 with optics and the newer hand guards tends to be a pretty good weapon. Guys can change the optics out depending on the mission, and misfeeds don’t happen too often with good weapon maintenance.
The adjustable shoulder stock and assault sling, front pistol grip works well with body armor and different sized guys also,” the soldier said.
Army Lt. Col. Robert Carpenter, project manager for the small arms section of the report, said: “Somewhere between the trigger pullers and the maintainers is the ground truth.”
Also a factor, he said, are the rounds soldiers use today.
Soldiers now use the M-855 ball round, a lighter bullet designed during the mid-1980s with a steel penetrator designed to pierce body armor. But soldiers now find themselves shooting at al-Qaida, an enemy that doesn’t use body armor.
Some soldiers who fought in Afghanistan said the small, current-issue 5.56 mm rounds just lack needed punch.
The commercially available equivalent to a 5.56 mm round is a .223-caliber — marketed as a vermin round, for killing small game such as rabbits or coyotes, said John Bloodgood, a 19-year Air Force master sergeant with 11 years in tactical units, who also is a private firearms instructor.
More effective are .308 bullets — commonly used for large-game hunting and similar in size to bullets used up through the Korean War, he said.
“A .308 bullet has almost twice the frontal area of a .223,” he said.
It’s not the size but the type of round the military’s using, and shot placement, that determines a bullet’s stopping capability, said Ken Cooper, director of Tactical Handgun Training, a New York state certified law-enforcement pistol-training facility.
“The military uses hardball rounds and the effect is less than if soldiers were shooting expansion rounds,” Cooper said. “You can penetrate the human body with little to no effect.”
Cooper teaches law-enforcement officials to shoot low, for the pelvis. He said the human torso is like a sponge; it easily can absorb the impact of small pieces of lead, especially non-expanding jacketed bullets that leave small, clean holes that close quickly.
Shots to the pelvis, Cooper said, increase the likelihood of breaking the pelvic bone or severing the femoral artery, resulting in an immobilized attacker at a minimum or one rapidly losing blood at a maximum.
“The military teaches people to shoot center mast, in the middle of the body,” he said. “But if you hit people low, they will go down quickly. That’s what we want, both in civilian law enforcement and in military combat.”
When you want to reach out and touch someone:
454 ... 308 in a pinch for me.
But , but the media said the D.C. shooter was using the .223 "sniper" rifle!
Stay safe; stay armed.
Just curious, but why? 100 yd is certainly beyond effective pistol range for 99.9% of shooters. Why not transition to rifle?
Duplex bullets were in fact developed for the M14 in NATO 7.62 caliber. I used to have some- probably illegal to own now.
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It dependens upon terrain and type of operation. In heavy jungle 300 yard emphasis is foolish. In clearer areas with sniping and suppresive fire it's a different world.
You may remember a post here last spring where Taliban were laughing and throwing rocks at our ground troups in defiance from about a couple hundred yards. Try that with someone thoroughly trained with an M1 Garand and the next time they bend over to pick up a rock they'll get a second asshole. From accounts I've read of recent operations, our people simply can't shoot and don't have the equipment to do it. What I'm seeing is dependence upon air strikes and fancy technology to handle what any good country boy used to be able to do with a decent rifle. What I'm seeing is pitiful.
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A high school kid whose name was Schuster was shooting in matchs with them at 1,000 yards and hitting.
I think you are right about the barrel length being the problem.
I'm pretty sure the M4 barrel is 14.5 " w/ a flash eliminator that takes it to approx 16".
From what I've read, the SS109 is effective, breaks into 3 pieces, at around 3000 fps and above. The 20" barrel develops enough velocity to give an effective range of 150+ yds. but the 14.5" barrel cuts that range down to 50 - 75 yds .
As velocity drops much below 3000 fps the SS109 just drills a 1/4" hole
The Hague Convention. We don't use nerve gas either.
The M16A2 and M4 have a 1:7" twist. They had to be that fast to stablize the M856 Tracer round which is even longer than the M855 Penetrator round. The M855 is essentially over-stablized during its flight to the enemy, but is still stable while passing through them. It leaves a much smaller permanent cavity than did the M193 round when it went unstable and sideways while passing through VC in Vietnam.
No, it was a spewcific basis in the design criteria of the 30 M1 Carbine round developed early in WWII.
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