Shell Casing Not Likely Evidence in Shootings (7.62mm, not .233)

Washington Post ^ | October 19, 2002 | Carol Morello and Allan Lengel

[John H K]

...The casing, found by a truck rental company and turned over to police on Friday, was for a 7.62 mm bullet, which is the equivalent of about .30 caliber, the sources said. In 12 shooting incidents attributed to the sniper in which nine people have been slain and two wounded since Oct. 2, authorities have said .223-caliber bullets have been used. Those are significantly smaller than .30 caliber....

[Blood of Tyrants]

Saboting would leave absolutely no markings on the bullet as it is simply a plastic jacket that goes around a smaller bullet.

The problem with saboting is that the rifling in a barrel is typically selected for a bullet of a specific weight to acheive maximum stability and accuracy. A .223 is typically rifled with one complete twist every 9 inches, called 1 X 9, while a .30 caliber barrel is typically rifled with a 1 X 12 twist rate.

A saboted bullet suffers in the accuracy department to such a degree that a head shot at 100 yards is about half as likely to be successful.

[Blood of Tyrants]

And it only took them two(?) days to figure out the difference between a .223 casing and a .30 cal. I tell you, them boys are as sharp as bowling balls.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Yes. And so do about 30 other rifles, military and otherwise, although there are many different case dimensions and none are interchangeable.

[ErnBatavia]

That makes it real, real hard to confuse with a 7.62 then.

[Blood of Tyrants]

A .223 Remington casing is about the same diameter as an ink pen and about 1 7/8" long, necked down to .224" at the end. Loaded it is about 2 1/4" long.

[Travis McGee]

I wonder how long it took the lab boys to figure this out?

Ballistic fingerprinting my Aunt.

[Travis McGee]

That's sort of the plot of the Steven Hunter novel "Point of Impact", one of the best 'shooters' books ever.

(Mine will be better.)

[Travis McGee]

My first thought. You can't fool those boys in the lab.

[JRandomFreeper]

There are several variants of 7.62. I just miked a 7.62x39 and the overall length is 2.145. I know the 7.62x54 Nato round is longer, obviously.

It doesn't matter that I can pick up a round and mike it, I can also read. The bottom of the case clearly indicates what round it is, and the manufacturer. Even if it's coded, I pick up a book and figure it out in a couple of minutes. Sheesh.

I don't know why it took the cops so long.

/john

[Travis McGee]

Will rifling be left on the discarded sabot parts? A shooter will not be able to recover his sabot parts; the police certainly will.

[Oberon]

It is .308. Thirty-aught-six refers to ".30 caliber, year 1906," and ".30 caliber" is .308. I think. I'm not super sure, though...

Yes, that's correct. .308 as in ".308 Winchester," which is for all practical purposes one and the same as "7.62x51mm" or "7.62 NATO." The number .308 refers to the diameter of the bullet's cross-section in inches. The .30-06 also uses a .308-diameter bullet. The caliber designation refers to ".30-caliber of 1906." The designation was intended to give supply sergeants a way of telling it apart from the previous U.S. standard infantry cartridge, the .30 US (or .30-40 Krag for us civilians).

The .223 number also refers to the diameter of the bullet's cross-section in inches. Anyone who knows this can tell at a glance whether a given cartridge is a .22 or .30 caliber.

[Blood of Tyrants]

The sabot parts could be anywhere as they become unstable after they seperate from the bullet, tumbling and flying off at random angles.

[toupsie]

Is it possible that the "sniper" can have more than one type of gun?

[rellimpank]

--or gently tap a .223 bullet through a short section of .22 barrel with a punch, protecting the base of the bullet with a wad, reloading it in a sabot---not too accurate but effective.

I was saving that for my novel, along with a few other tricks--

[sawsalimb]

You can read the case head to see what the cartridge is(or what it started life as,if we're dealing with a wildcat),and so can I,and so can just about everyone else on this board who's ever done any shooting or reloading.

But that's you and me,because we regard firearms as relatively simple mechanical devices that are a lot of fun to play with and that we might need someday.

According to the media,though,firearms are akin to voodoo. From what I can tell,the average reporter thinks that guns are to be placed in the realm of black magic-they're DANGEROUS!!!!,and everyone knows that unless you cast a very powerful protective spell on them,the things are liable to just hop out of the closet on their own and go do bad things.

And guns have all those numbers on them. Mysterious numbers like .223(and just why is that dot in front of the numbers???),and 6.5x55(must really be evil,since there's an "X" in that one...),and everyone knows that numbers are way too complicated for people like us to handle. Best that we watch television and let the really competent sorcerers do the firearms handling,lest someone get hurt.

[BlueDragon]

It is .308. Thirty-aught-six refers to ".30 caliber, year 1906," and ".30 caliber" is .308. I think. I'm not super sure, though...
7.62 x 51 = .308 Winchester = 7.62 Nato (used in the old M14 infrantry rifle, and M60 Machinegun) 7.62 x 64 = 30-06 Springfield (used in the famous M-1 Garand, and many others...)
7.62 x 54R = well, the same! The "R" designates "rimmed", as in a rim that protrudes from the case wall proper, instead of the more modern recessed extraction groove used in most other military weapons. (The old "30-30" still popular in this country, has a bit of a "rim" at it's base.) 7.62R was adopted by the Czar, then used by the Soviets for a long time...they may even have some weaponry that still accomodates the round.
From photos, it appeared to me this cartridge was still in use in Afghanistan, for I saw a belt-fed automatic weapon that appeared to me to be using 7.62R in some of the footage and photographs of the "Northern Alliance".
Many thousands of bolt-action rifles using this caliber have been imported from ex-Soviet block nations in the last dozen years or so...
There are a few others designated .30 (thirty caliber) ---like .30 Carbine, which is shorter, and less powerful than all the above. More a super jacked up handgun round than a rifle round, but it worked ok in semi-auto.
Finally,
7.62 x 39 = what one feeds an AK-47! (and at least a few other rifles, too, like Soviet/Chinese SKS, or the "Type 53"...this round can also be had in a fairly common american made Ruger Mini-30)
Stubby little round, noticably fatter than .308, and .308 cases are a little fatter than 30-06.
Short cases can cycle easier in "automatic", or semi automatic modes, which helped lead to their wider adoption by military forces...and there is a nearly brand-new "sporting", or hunting round which is kinda' short in overall case length, but fatter yet! Short fat cases seem to get more punch for the same amount of powder compared to the longer variants---well, as long as one is using modern smokeless powders. Black powder might like longer cases, i dunno, but we do know that black powder likes longer barrels. Some of those old mountain-man rifles had 48 inch barrels. A short one was 32 inches. For "modern" hunting rifles, 26 inches is considered about as long as practical, in that much longer than that actually slows things down. I myself have hunting rifles of 16, 21, 24, & 26 inches, differing calibers...
I think there is another 7.62 rifle round, but I can't remember what it is right now...there are a few 7.62 projectile firing handgun rounds, and to confuse things even more (!) there are both rifle and handgun rounds whose bores are made for 7.65 (seven-point-six-five). HA! and 7.7 MM, and 6.5 MM, etc., the list is quite long for all the stuff at "about" thirty caliber, particularly when one includes all those of a little more, or a little less! The reporter for the story which quotes "7.62", obviously doesn't know much what he's writing about. Although when it's spoken that way, seven-six-two, what comes most readily to mind is 7.62 Nato. Well, that was up until Norinco flooded the market with all those $100-$250 SKS's semi-autos that fired 7.62 x 39. If one is looking for a rifle of that nature get the Soviet block SKS's, milled from a billet, (if you can find one for sell cheap enough) for they're a bit better, I'm told...
But the reporter can be forgiven for not knowing beans about firearms. Let's face it. There are a seemingly bewildering array of "calibers" and types...
It's the cops who really need to know what shell cases they are finding, to match 'em up with possibles. But I do hope it doesn't come down to "just" shell cases. If the fellow (or fellows) could be STOPPED---that would be nice!

[cpdiii]

7.62-51 = .308 winchester = Nato Round for the M-14
and other rifles and machine guns. Which would really be the prefered round for a sniper, if shooting at long range. It is also an excellent hunting cartridge.
7.62-54 = The round the Russians fire in their long guns
7.62-39 = The round for the AK-47
30 06 = Thirty Caliber slug used in the American Long Guns
in WWI and WWII and Korea i.e The Springfield and
MI-Garand (the finest rifle ever made)

All of the Above are 30 caliber. None of the above can be interchanged between the rifles they are designed for.

.223 is the round the sniper is using and is the round used in the M-16 (the armys current main battle rifle), it is also used in many sporting weapons. At less than 150 yards it causes devestating injuries as the slug will fragment and
tumble upon impact, causing massive internal injuries and bleeding. It is still effective out to 300 yards but has lost a great deal of its energy at that distance. At that distance it will incapacitate the enemy but probably not kill him which in battle is good, as it will take other soldiers to care for him.

[Neophyte]

The casing, found by a truck rental company and turned over to police on Friday, was for a 7.62 mm bullet

I remember one of the first reports on the Sniper mentioning the SKS carabine... it's a Russian rifle exactly of calibre 7.62 mm.

[El Gato]

Well, I guess people can start spinning elaborate "sabot" theories; but the truck seems pretty irrelevant.

What's elaborate about a "sabot"? The use of one might tend to lend more credence to the "right wing militia gun nut theory" than the "Islamofascitic terrorist" theory, but not much.

[El Gato]

they may even have some weaponry that still accomodates the round.

They do, their standard sniper rifle for example, and their medium machine guns. The Finns also used 7.62X54R (and later 7.62x39) for quite some time, I don't know if they still do or not. They killed lots of Russians with the former.