Armor P bullets

[J E Custom]

Here is another interesting Video on armor piercing bullets for those interested.




J E CUSTOM

 

[KyCarl]

Cool I have a question! I was watching a hunting show they were after Hippos
They were shooting "Solids" Well I have some AP military ammo for my 338 LM
Wouldn't they do the same thing? Punch deep without expanding?

 

[cohunt]

Cool I have a question! I was watching a hunting show they were after Hippos
They were shooting "Solids" Well I have some AP military ammo for my 338 LM
Wouldn't they do the same thing? Punch deep without expanding?

Yes-- BUT-- ap rounds are made with a fairly pointed nose to help pierce through light armor--- "African solids" are most often fairly blunt nose solid bullets-- these bullets not only penetrate deep but the blunt nose helps the path stay straight and not veer off course, it helps punch through and break bones and the blunt nose disrupts more tissue than a pointed one for a larger wound cavity.

Most "AP" ammo that civilians have are made with steel tips or cores-- like the video shows, new modern AP ammo are all made with tungsten cores.

 

[KyCarl]

A Marine friend got them for me. I have no idea what's in them?

 

[Laelkhunter]

The earlier Military AP rounds (308, 30/06, 50 bmg), had a smaller caliber Tungsten Carbide core shaped like a bullet but was inside the bullet projectile. They usually looked no different from other cartridges except the tip was painted black to indicate AP. They are still available, but are getting harder and harder to find and I don't think you can get 308 AP anywhere (legally).

 

[cohunt]

A Marine friend got them for me. I have no idea what's in them?

We wont go down that rat hole, it will bring up a whole new debate.

They will definitely punch through lots of stuff, but may not be ideal for hunting...they would work as long as you put them in the right place. If they are mil surp they may be incendiary tip also

 

[cohunt]

The earlier Military AP rounds (308, 30/06, 50 bmg), had a smaller caliber Tungsten Carbide core shaped like a bullet but was inside the bullet projectile. They usually looked no different from other cartridges except the tip was painted black to indicate AP. They are still available, but are getting harder and harder to find and I don't think you can get 308 AP anywhere (legally).

I'm pretty sure "black tip" are steel core not tungsten--- the tungsten core ammo is very pricey and hard to get a hold of, so e have never been released or sold to the public....In terms of "legality" that's the rat hole I was hoping to not see in this thread as its complicated. The feds have their set of rules (you can go read them directly on atf website) but each state has their own rules too-- also, lots of shooting ranges wont allow "AP" ammo either.

 

[Laelkhunter]

I'm sure you are right. I am going by what I was told in two Military Sniper Schools I attended while with the Police SWAT Team. We were told the AP rounds were very accurate, just by design, and were readily available (back then) in 30/06 for cheap. I seem to remember them saying it was a tungsten core, but I'm sure you are correct in the actual core insert being steel.

 

[J E Custom]

Cool I have a question! I was watching a hunting show they were after Hippos
They were shooting "Solids" Well I have some AP military ammo for my 338 LM
Wouldn't they do the same thing? Punch deep without expanding?

Solids maintain there diameter and are designed for deep penetration
There diameter decides how much damage they can do in addition to how deep they penetrate. AP rounds/bullets are designed for maximum penetration but the diameter is much smaller than the bullet and will do far less damage on soft tissue.

There will still be some expansion of the rest of the AP bullet, but the perpetrator that is small in comparison will do little except Penetrate and exit an animal.

The mono metal bullets are somewhere in between and don't always react the way you want if the right POI is not chosen to start the expansion process early.

J E CUSTOM

 

[Mach 1]

I don't know what the core is made of but I've got a couple thousand pulled ap 30-06 bullets. If you take the copper jacket off the penetrator core you will see that the core is lathe turned and if I remember right some where around 780 on the Rockwell hardness scale while my ar500 and ar550 hardens target plates are around 550 on the Rockwell scale. A year or so ago I loaded up a couple bullets with varget in a 308 win. I shot a 3/8 piece of ar500 steel a hardened bag of quickcrete and a tree stump. It Swiss cheesed the ar500 steel split the quickcrete and lodged in the stump. I dug it out of the stump and the point of the penetrator could still have been used as a center punch. The core make crack and break but it will not bend or dent. I would not advise shooting old ap bullets out of a good barrel as if the core ever came into contact with the lands of your rifling for any reason you'd probably ruin the barrel quickly.

 

[HARPERC]

I got .30-06 AP ammo for my 15th birthday-times change.

 

[MudMarine]

A buddy and I shot up an ar500 plate with some black tip ap pulls i loaded into 7.62 nato safe for use in an M14. They went clean through out to about 300 yards. We moved the target out a little farther and found a sweet spot where the plate caught two cores stuck mid way.

The penetrator tips were both still pointed and sharp to the touch. The lathe machine marks were plainly visible. Not sure of metallurgy, but the ap cores couldn't care less that the AR500 exists.

 

[crkckr]

The 30-06 and .308 AP I've played with over the years are definitely tungsten (ammo from back as far as the 50's). Also while out in Mojave near Edwards AFB, we found a few cores from .50 BMG rounds, which are also tungsten. You can tell by touching them to a grinder wheel, instead of the normal steel yellow/red sparks you get white 'sparklers' coming off the wheel. The 30 cal stuff has a 6mm core while the 50 cal has a 30 cal. core. Shooting AP is actually dangerous since it really is *hard* to stop! Wood probably works best, a good, thick (24"+) wet oak stump will *sometimes* capture an AP round. API and tracer is even worse since there's the danger of setting things on fire so extreme care must be taken. I speak from experience here, we almost set the whole desert on fire just outside of Tucson! A buddy fired a tracer out of an FAL at an old Vega sitting around rusting to death out in the weeds. The bullet lit, ricocheted around inside the car then popped out the roof, landing about 75 yds beyond the car. I went to check & saw small flames, called the others and by the time the 6 of us got there the flames were head high! Fortunately I had and old tarp in the back of my truck that we used to beat the flames down. Scared the beejeesus out all of us and we never used tracers again!

The new 'cold' tracers (strictly civilian) don't have that problem and are fire safe to shoot.

While out shooting in the CA desert (in another life time, it seems) a buddy shot a short piece of railroad track with an AP round out of his BM-59, which zipped right through the center section, making a tiny 6mm hole. Just for grins I shot it with a one of my .308 hunting rounds, a 165gr. Nosler Partition - which also went thru but which made a substantially larger hole! The AP round carried on long after but the Nosler was done, still, I was surprised it went thru (the section was fairly short & had be cut off with a gas torch so it may have been somewhat annealed).

Shooting hard stuff like that is dangerous and you can't give yourself too much distance & wiggle room, as shown in several close call U tube vids. That my crazy buddies and I survived all the stupid stuff we did back in the old days is more a testament to dumb luck than anything else!
Cheers,
crkckr

 

[KyCarl]

I checked mine with a Strong ceramic magnet nothing in the bullet area just at the primer?