Aussie medico on why he'd rather catch a 7.62x39 than 5.56

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WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES!

(And one will be staring you in the face the moment you click the link.)


Now that you've been warned: http://sofrep.com/45197/why-id-rather-b ... han-an-m4/

Along the way, he acknowledges that no two shootings are alike: "...I have certainly seen some horrendous AK-47 wounds over the years and some relatively minor ones from M4s. It all depends."

I think both are great rounds, and I shoot a lot more 7.62 Soviet than 5.56 these days, but I valued his take on things.
I carry for Kitty Genovese.

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Re: Aussie medico on why he'd rather catch a 7.62x39 than 5.

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WilsonLNU wrote:WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES!

(And one will be staring you in the face the moment you click the link.)


Now that you've been warned: http://sofrep.com/45197/why-id-rather-b ... han-an-m4/

Along the way, he acknowledges that no two shootings are alike: "...I have certainly seen some horrendous AK-47 wounds over the years and some relatively minor ones from M4s. It all depends."

I think both are great rounds, and I shoot a lot more 7.62 Soviet than 5.56 these days, but I valued his take on things.
Wonder why the article did not show a comparable Brass Fetcher video for 7.62x39?

Re: Aussie medico on why he'd rather catch a 7.62x39 than 5.

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nhaP wrote:Can the weak-stomached amongst us get an executive summary?
Certainly, although the explanation is no less morbid.

In a nutshell, ball ammo (FMJ) has limited wounding potential due to bullets that do not deform or expand while traversing soft tissue.

The M193/M855 ball round has the unique (and, surprisingly, not intentionally designed) feature of fragmenting in the same medium when fired at sufficient velocities by virtue of the cannelure used to facilitate a secure crimp to the casing. Once velocity drops below a certain threshhold, it behaves exactly like any other FMJ round.

Without elaborating on the actual terminal ballistics involved, the combination of high velocity and fragmentation is what makes an M193/M855 wound so nasty.

Re: Aussie medico on why he'd rather catch a 7.62x39 than 5.

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Hard to believe this is an accidental result and not an intentional outcome. I'm sure they did these gelatin tests while they were developing the ammunition.
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Re: Aussie medico on why he'd rather catch a 7.62x39mm

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SilasSoule wrote:Hard to believe this is an accidental result and not an intentional outcome. I'm sure they did these gelatin tests while they were developing the ammunition.
Easy to believe for me. Military arms are selected by far-flung committees based on specifications benchmarks, not performance benchmarks. The specifications are intended to ensure the desired performance, but a lot of the committee generally has no real idea what the relationship is between the two.

When the 1911 was adopted, for example, the req was for an autoloading pistol firing a .45-inch-or-larger projectile. This was based on the Thompson–LaGarde tests, which counted how many rounds of various calibers it took to drop live cows. Human corpses were also hung up and shot, so that each corpse's "pendulum effect" could be observed. Based on the incredibly unscientific results, the large-caliber rounds used were generally superior, but even if the results had been sound this did nothing to guarantee the effectiveness of any newly developed large caliber.

To make his pistol suitable for the resulting military trials, John Browning simply scaled up the .41-caliber round he was then inventing. I know of no terminal-efficacy tests performed on the .45 ACP round either during its development or adoption. (It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Browning did some; it would shock me to learn that the Army did.) For Browning, I believe it was more an engineering problem of making a cartridge and a pistol that worked well together - effective terminal performance of one kind or another was (reasonably) assumed from the fact that a big hunk of lead was moving at such speeds.

That's kind of the story of much engineering: There's rarely been a computer model to help develop something from the ground-up for any application. Much cheaper to look at what's available to work with and figure out what can do the job. The ceramic firearms enamels available today, for instance, are just car-engine enamels marked up for a niche market. And those car-engine enamels were an adaptation of existing industrial coatings, going back to 1850 when somebody noticed that materials-availability had made certain hard-baked art media cost effective.
Last edited by WilsonLNU on Wed Jan 27, 2016 10:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
I carry for Kitty Genovese.

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