On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 03:42:02 -0800, xray
wrote:

On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 06:31:27 GMT, Gunner wrote:

Thank god the 5.6 or .223 will be history on the battle field. After
they changed the bullet weights and the rate of twist..the ******* was
simply a hole driller..not a man stopper unless you let him hold a
couple or more. We found that out in Mog.

Sorry, where or what is Mog?
Maybe it's obvious, but I don't follow.

And what changed? When? By who?

Mogadishu, Somalia... Blackhawk down...Im sure you have seen the
various articlesa bout shooting the bad guys multiple times, and not
having them go down...nothing makes your asshole slam shut faster than
letting an armed and firing on you, individual a couple rounds center
of mass...watch the dust fly from the front of his shirt..and have him
keep firing on you.

The 5.56 Nato..aka the .223 Remington (in its civilian guise) was
originally a hip slick ad cool cartridge designed to be shot in a hip
slick and cool plastic and aluminum rifle for the Air Force. Not a
lot of ground battles fought by the AF...

Over the years...it gained something of a following...the weapon
itself morphed several times..and the cartridge did also. As someone
is bound to mention..it killed a lot of US troops in Vietnam when it
first came out...there was an issue with the wet, humitity and the
fouling left by the gunpowder. It rusted the weapon into imobility.
The first fix was to chrome plate the bore and bolt..helped but not
much..it wasnt until someone way way at the top was, as I understand
it..taken aside and told that they and their entire family would be
murdered slowly..was the problem resolved. A different gunpowder was
used..which made the weapon reliable in those conditions,

The bullet..which is the crux of the matter, has undergone some morphs
as well. Originally your basic 55grain full metal jacket over a lead
core, exposed base bullet, with a cannalure (that knurled band you see
around some bullets) about 2/3 the way back from the point (this band
is used to crimp or seal the cartridge mouth around the bullet..often
a bit of sealer is used to keep em oil and water proof)

The original rifle/cartridge/bullet combination launched that bullet
at rather high speeds and the rifling inside the barrel would spin the
bullet in such a fashion..that it was marginally stable..ie..it would
keep flying point first until it hit something that disturbed the
balence..then it started to tumble. Given that its about .75
long..having that thing tumbling through your guts at 3200 feet per
second tended to **** up your whole day and make you forget whatever
it was that you were doing..that caused you to get shot in the first
place. Nasty bit of work..though very legal under the Hague
Accords..and everybody does it. (The Swedes some time ago lodged a
protest about the "inhumane tumbling bullet"..but when it was pointed
out to them...that theirs was one of the best at tumbling..they
shutup)

But in the jungle..hitting leaves and blades of grass etc on its way
to the target would cause the bullet to tumble also..and at that
point..the bullet could frisbee off in all directions. Not good.

So they changed the rate of twist of the rifling, the cannalure and a
host of other things over the years until the bullet became largely
stable..with the added bonus that after it penetrated about 4" of
meat..it would start to turn sideways..then break in half at the
cannalure..and both pieces would go their merry way, ruptureing organs
etc etc. Pretty effective in making the bad guy stop really really
fast.

Then the bad guys started wearing body armor..and the ranges got
longer. The bullets were being stopped by the armor. So they added
length, changed the rate of twist again..and added a steel penetrator
to the center of the bullet. This would penetrate armor..but..it made
the bullet into something of a drill, with no where near the tumbling
action..though if things were just right..it still turned sidways and
broke apart. Sometimes. Occasionally. Hopefully.

Which at this point resulted in the latest and greatest SS109 ..a 62
grain bullet which works well on armored dudes..but tends to make tiny
little puncture wounds through both sides of your enemy if he is not
wearing armor. Oh he will likely die..but it may take a while before
he understands this and falls down..in the mean time he has cut off
your head with a machete, then limps home to bleed out.
Mogadisu Somalia..the Sandbox....

I generalized the developement of the weapon, the ammo and such
above..as I could bore you to tears for hours on the subject....the
chance of barrel diameter so it wouldnt bend as easily when you
bayoneted someone..the change from full auto to 3 shot burst...etc etc
etc.

So anyways...the ranges we are now engaging the bad guys mean the
weapon/ammo combination is no longer as effective as it should be..so
the search has been on for quite a while..for a more effective round.
Since we have manufactured a gazillion M16s in its various
incarnations...it was the goal to find a round that would work in the
existing weapons and only require modification, rather than
replacement of an entire mature weapons system.

With the 6.8 SPC or the 6.5 Grendal..one only has to change the upper
half of the weapon..basicly the barrel and gas system and voila..you
have a much farther shooting, harder hitting and very effective
cartridge/rifle that punches body armor, or takes the wind out of
unarmored opponents rather quickly. This saves lifes..and more
importantly to the bean counters...it costs much less than a new
weapons system. Much much less. Either of the cartridges are what
SHOULD have been the original..shrug.

Recoil, full auto rise etc etc are nearly identical to the original
5.56 (with some caviats) and are easily fired by men or women troops
while terminal effectiveness is increased by over an estimated 100%
and nearly doubles the effective range of a stock rifle. This means
you can shoot and hit em much farther away, and they stay down when
you hit em. Which is veddy veddy importante when we are adventuring
out in the wide open spaces such as the Sandbox.

If you are interested in the gazillions of details Ive left
out...google
" Eugene Stoner + AR15"

Here are a few links..

http://www.ar15.com/content/articles...evolution.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/lis...Fencoding=UTF8

http://www.military.com/soldiertech/...ition,,00.html

http://www.demigod.org/~zak/firearms/6.8SPC/faq.php
http://www.65grendel.com/

You may wish to read this report....

http://www.bob-oracle.com/SWATreport.htm

http://www.defensereview.com/modules...rticle&sid=600


Personally..I lean towards the 6.5 Grendel..having shot both rounds in
both bolt action and self loading actions..but either would be a vast
and much needed improvement ..and the differences are really only
noticable only to a purist or highly skilled shooter.

Gunner



"Deep in her heart, every moslem woman yearns to show us her tits"
John Griffin