AR-15's are NOT designed to kill

a reply to: DJW001

Actually, your phrasing was quite ambiguous. Though the meaning was pretty clear in context.

a reply to: Phage

Thank you.

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: 00018GE

As far as I know the .223 is used because it's a combination of power and rate of fire not because of its wounding capacity. That may be an extra benefit .

The shell is a mixture of power and size which means magazine size and how many shots available before changing.

That may not be good for the current dialogue with gun control folks

I can't believe nobody has said this already.

I said it many, many pages ago. It has to do with the idea in Vietnam that cyclical full auto fire was necessary. They had to have lighter weight ammo to achieve that. Then they realized the fault in their thinking but already had the ammo made and the contracts done and logistics handled so they kept it.

5.56 is the least effective ammo that could be used. Ask our soldiers what they would prefer. 7.62 is so much more effective at actually killing your enemies than 5.56.

a reply to: sputniksteve

Obviously 7.62mm is the more effective killer. It's simple physics that a larger, heavier bullet travelling fast is going to do more damage than a much smaller, lighter one going just a bit faster.

However anyone who says that a 5.56 doesn't do much damage obviously hasn't seen the wounds it inflicts.

5.56 gets its bad rep from users firing it from short barrels. The SS109/M855 relies on high velocity to be effective. Anything less than a 16" barrel cuts the effective range to less than 100m. The M4 has a 14.5" tube, meaning the effective range is around the 85m mark. Combine this with people who don't like to admit they may have missed a target and you suddenly have a 'rubbish round'.

Strangely enough you don't tend to get these complaints from units who use weapons with 20" barrels.

a reply to: PaddyInf

Paddy this isn't actually true.

Just because a bullet is larger does not make it a better killer. That completely discards things such as round construction, and the needed velocity and energy required to make the round dump it's energy within the target.

Also 5.56 ammunition in mk318 mk262 and M855a1 all have the capability to be effective out of shorter barrels.

Personally though I very much prefer 5.56 rifles with 18-20 inch barrels, of which I own several. Like you said, the round just flat performs better out of longer barrels.

But, this is due to some very foolish compromises made in how the round was designed.

5.45x39 for example has no trouble pushing bullets to 3000 fps + from 16.25 inch barrels. It's actually one of the most effective service rounds available and in use with infantry. Hands down in a real situation a weapon chambered in 5.45 would be my pick. It's small, light, high velocity, and very very potent across it's entire 500 meter range!

7.62x39 and .300 blackout aren't impressive at all to me. You're lucky to get 300 meters from them and they have an arcing trajectory which makes proper range estimates beyond 100 meters absolutely vital.

7.62x51... Unfortunately has exactly the same poor design choices built into it as the 5.56. There are rounds that have a better design and can frankly do a good job of matching or exceeding it's performance in much smaller packages. One example being 6.5 Grendel which can deliver slightly lower performance from 0-750 meters and BETTER performance from there to 1000 + meters.

Why should this shock and appall you?
Because Grendel does this from an AR15! which BTW actually degrades substantially it's true capabilities through too short maximum cartridge length because of the magazine. It's also not able to be loaded to it's actual operating pressure because of weak bolt lugs in the AR15.

a reply to: roguetechie

You misunderstand me. I was referring to the M855 vs M80 in an effort to compare like for like. The M855A1 is a totally different beast. The M855A1 was designed specifically because of the failings of the M855/SS109 from a short barrel. In the UK we're still stuck with the SS109 which needs speed to be effective. Luckily we use the SA80A2 which has a 20" barrel.

Much of bad image of the 5.56 comes from anecdotal evidence from the use of M855 fired from short barrels. A perfect example of this is from the book of Black Hawk Down. One of the Delta guys makes comment on the inefficiency of the 'new green tip' round. They were using M4s. Full size M16s just aren't seen an sexy anymore, so bullet design is paramount.

a reply to: PaddyInf

Yeah Paddy I understand the implications with green tip. Lucky for me I run mostly 20 inch barrels with 1:8 twist when I use 62 grain M855.

However it's not impossible to make a better round of the same bullet diameter and overall length that will perform quite excellently out of 16 inch barrels. The Russian 5.45x39 does exactly that. It uses a finer bullet shape with a longer bullet that can still manage 2900+ feet per second using less powder that's still accurate to 500 meters.

5.45 is also preferred by the Syrians over 7.62x39 and 5.56 because of it's performance and ability to do it's job in combat.

We had a very similar round in the early 70's called the 5.56 FABRL. It could have been an extremely good round and at half the weight of the current round, much easier on the ammunition burden, and with only 39,000 peak psi easier on guns to boot.

originally posted by: PaddyInf
a reply to: sputniksteve

Obviously 7.62mm is the more effective killer. It's simple physics that a larger, heavier bullet travelling fast is going to do more damage than a much smaller, lighter one going just a bit faster.

However anyone who says that a 5.56 doesn't do much damage obviously hasn't seen the wounds it inflicts.

5.56 gets its bad rep from users firing it from short barrels. The SS109/M855 relies on high velocity to be effective. Anything less than a 16" barrel cuts the effective range to less than 100m. The M4 has a 14.5" tube, meaning the effective range is around the 85m mark. Combine this with people who don't like to admit they may have missed a target and you suddenly have a 'rubbish round'.

Strangely enough you don't tend to get these complaints from units who use weapons with 20" barrels.

I didn't intend to imply I thought 5.56 wouldn't do damage or anything. Obviously it is capable of killing. I also am not trying to pretend I know more than I do, so I won't argue anything and have no problem ceding the point.

Having said that it is my understanding that the reason we use it today is basically just logistics. It is also my understanding from what I have personally read of soldiers recounting shooting people and either having it go straight through a leg or arm with the enemy barely noticing or just simply failing to stop them when it was the soldiers opinion a 7.62 round would have. Those particular soldiers said they would much prefer a bigger round regardless of weight difference.

I probably said it in much too broad of statement but obviously that is a subjective topic and since I don't have personal experience with shooting or getting shot by either round I was just deferring to their superior knowledge. I don't want to give the impression I know any of this from experience or that I am some kind of civilian bad ass. I most certainly am not. I do have quit a bit of experience with fire arms and it is a topic that greatly interests me but that is truly where my direct knowledge ends.

a reply to: sputniksteve

A 7.62 leg or arm hit is just as likely to zip through doing minimal damage unless bone or major blood vessels are hit directly. This is plain fact.

Where 5.56 shines is in it's high velocity and low recoil allowing you to quickly put out strings of multiple aimed shots with minimum time spent recovering and regaining aim from the previous shot.

So basically if those soldiers did have 7.62 chances are good that instead of making a quick recovery and firing again he may have been hit while still attempting to regain his sight picture

originally posted by: 00018GE
I get tired of hearing the news media talking heads saying that AR-15's are designed to kill. AR-15's and the like AND military rounds in general are designed to wound NOT kill. Wounding an enemy soldier takes more soldiers off the battlefield than killing enemy soldiers. These kinds of weapons are designed to wound. I don't understand why no one calls them on this more often.

That's not true having spent 15 years in thr military I can say your wrong. That was something started when m16s first came out during vietnam. Many soldiers thought the smaller rounds only wounded. Reality is the lighter round does much more internal damage. In combat I have actually seen someone hit in thr arm and thr round exited there neck. With a higher caliber it would have just hit the bone and continued thru him.

The round is designed at high velocity to tumble upon enteeing a body and is far more lethal than say an AK.

To support the original posting, the .223 round used in Vietnam was designed to tumble in flight, making a wound similar to a hollow point, but illegal by geneva convention.

originally posted by: darkstar57
To support the original posting, the .223 round used in Vietnam was designed to tumble in flight, making a wound similar to a hollow point, but illegal by geneva convention.

The round does not tumble iN flight in fact that would be useless. Rifling prevents this what does happen on striking a target thr round will start to tumble. And yes it's a way of getting around thr use of holow points.

originally posted by: Bybyots
a reply to: VivreLibre

No true American is anti-gun, but any reasonable American must be against military weapons being available to civilians.

Military weapons and ammunition should be segregated from civilian life.

All hunting rifles were military weapons at one time or another,the lever action,the slide action and the bolt action.

a reply to: dragonridr

This effect is very velocity dependent though. This is part of why M855A1 has much higher peak pressure, and I suspect uses a powder blend designed specifically to hit this pressure faster and hold it longer than the previous round. This and the tool steel penetrator tip has contributed to the greatly reduced service life of the M4A1.

Going to replaceable steel feed ramps rails and et cetera like the Sig mcx uses could partially solve SOME of the issues.

As far as the designed to wound crap... The only people who believe this and spout this are people who know absolutely nothing about the actual early history of the M16!

What I'd ordinarily suggest is that they pick up a copy of the first volume in the black rifle two volume set. It covers everything about the development, theory, and early use of the M16 in great detail. For people like me who wanted to know more the bibliography contains everything you need to look up huge amounts of data and individual papers using the free dtic.mil website search engine.

But since the OP isn't about to actually do research and find out the facts... Here's the cliff's notes version.

Originally the M16 as provided in limited numbers to early advisors in Vietnam used a 1:14 rifling twist rate and was coveted by everyone who had a chance to see how insanely effective it was. At the ranges combat was happening the little round was causing horrific wounds and killing men with one shot with a regularity neither the M14 or M1 garand / carbine could hope to achieve at ANY RANGE!

Even after the rifle switched to a 1:12 twist to make it perform reliably in the full range of operating climates it was still a very lethal weapon.

Comparatively I don't think it can be established that 7.62 could or did perform any better on a one for one basis. The difference being that while both could and did zip right through enemy combatants, as did 7.62x39, with only minor injuries resulting...

You could carry a hell of a lot more 5.56, make followup shots much more quickly, and be a high double digit percentage more likely to score a solid hit at any range between 0 & 300 meters!

I'll say it again and again... In order to kill or incapacitate with a gun you must first HIT THEM!

As far as civilian ownership of the AR15 is concerned, it's a very reliable fairly light and durable safe and easy to operate platform for the vast majority of users between 12&90. It can easily and safely be operated maintained modified and serviced by users with only a manual and a very small selection of tools.

Realistically it's as popular and prolific as it is boils down to the same reason Volkswagen beetles Honda civics and Toyota trucks have been popular. They're affordable, easy to maintain, cheap to personalize, and readily usable with minimal practice to achieve respectable performance.

It has nothing to do with government overthrow or zombie apocalypse fantasy and certainly not with gunning down police or the public in murder sprees. They're just affordable simple platforms with tens of thousands of readily available parts for one to adapt the platform to their needs preferences and personalize to express their individuality while maintaining a group identity.

In other words, the AR15 is a product of consumerism not mental imbalance or malicious intent...

TL;DR: the AR15 is the iPhone fitbit Honda civic of the gun world, not a dangerous military weapon.