#Experiment

Through the Modern Calibers series of posts, we’ve covered 40 different rifle and pistol calibers, ranging from the diminutive .22 Winchester Magnum to full power calibers like the 7.62x51mm NATO. The series was intended to give readers a baseline picture of how different calibers compare to each other in performance, but its biggest limitation has been that it is entirely theoretical. The ballistics graphs in that series were created based on numbers spat out by a conventional calculator using nominal muzzle velocity and static ballistic coefficient figures – and while this is accurate enough to give us an idea of the performance of different rounds relative to one another, it is imperfect. Well then, it’s time to get empirical: Introducing the Big Freakin’ Cartridge Test.

Is the US Army pushing for a new high-powered 6.Xmm caliber with their new NGSAR program? Recently, the listing for the NGSAR industry day in December was updated with a document describing in part the agenda of the second conference. Scheduled for 9:45 in the morning in the document is a 15 minute long presentation on “Ammunition Data – Surrogate Projectile and Specs”, presented by Todd Townsend, David Charowsky, and Mark Minisi. Minisi’s name may not be well-known, but it will be familiar to astute students of recent wound ballistics literature: It was Minisi who developed the finite element analysis-based tissue damage model, which has been refined over the past decade at ARDEC through PM Maneuver Ammunition Systems (PM-MAS). Mr. Townsend is also likely representing PM-MAS, now under the leadership of Colonel Hector Gonzalez. 

Vortex Optics has released a video where they test a couple of customer-returned scopes that have been shot! One of the scopes (Viper 4-12×40) has an all the way through hole behind the objective lens. Next one (Viper HST) has a damaged lock ring, the part that holds the objective lens in place. Folks over Vortex mounted these scopes on rifles and tried to shoot at 100, 200, 300 and 400 yard targets. Let’s watch the video and see what results they had.

In the coming decades, it is likely that one of the biggest challenges facing small arms ammunition designers will be solving the problem of how to deal with advanced body armors. The problem is already percolating to the surface, as Level IV body armor – which is immune to virtually all general issue rounds below .50 caliber – becomes more available and less expensive. Already, an individual can equip themselves with a full set of Level IV plates and a carrier for less than $1,000. As armor improves, it will only get lighter, cheaper, and more resistant to fire.

The traditional wisdom goes: Lightweight or “pencil” profile barrels can shoot great – just so long as you don’t get them hot. After a mag or two of heat is dumped into your lightweight build, your point of impact (POI) will probably shift by several minutes of angle. If you don’t like it, then you’d better go for a thicker profile or learn your holdovers, because that’s just a fact of life with pencil-thin tubes.

At the 2017 National Defense Industry Association’s (NDIA) annual Armament Systems Forum in April, Mr. Howard Kent of Armor Development Group, and Dr. Jeffery Widder presented a concept for a caseless grenade system which allows the user to aim by changing the muzzle velocity of the round itself. Their grenade design would allow a grenadier to fire on targets at varying ranges while maintaining the same firing angle as well as approximately the same impact angle.

At the 2017 National Defense Industry Association’s annual Armament Systems Forum in April, representatives of the US Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) presented a new method for measuring and quantifying gas blowback with suppressed firearms. The testing was conducted in the service of creating a new standard test procedure for gas blowback, for the Army, NATO, and the industry. Importantly, the test procedure involved mounting air inlets in locations corresponding to the shooter’s face when firing the rifle, which gives accurate measurements for what quantity of toxic gases reach the shooter’s face during operation.

Does pointing your gun up or down affect its accuracy? The answer is “maybe” according to a recent US Army Armament Development, Research and Engineering Center (ARDEC) presentation released at the 2017 National Defense Industry Association small arms conference. The presentation covers a study conducted by ARDEC which examined the effect of ullage (free space in a loaded round) and orientation on the consistency and velocity of small arms ammunition.

The First World War was a nasty conflict. It’s slaughter is something we often fail to comprehend if only on the sheer scale. Working to avoid direct trench assaults, the Entente developed the first tanks, which when employed struck terror into the German troops. Despite being slow, they pondered on through withering fire that no man could have survived.

Today, a variant of the Heckler & Koch HK416 rifle is the standard squad infantry automatic rifle (IAR) of the United States Marine Corps, as the M27. At one time in the mid-2000s, though, companies from Colt to LWRC competed against each other in a competition to see which weapon would be the the Corps’ choice to fill the role, supplanting the belt-fed M249 as the squad’s automatic fire support capability. These weapons took a variety of approaches to meeting the USMC’s needs, from the constant recoil Ultimax MG, to the heat-sink equipped Colt IAR, to the open bolt full auto, closed bolt semiauto LWRC IAR. Ultimately, simplicity won out, and Heckler & Koch’s quite unambitious HK416-derived entry was selected to be the M27.

Its all too often that those of us even halfway interested in learning self defense tactics are presented with one of the various myths that never seem to die. Perhaps most egregious is the advice that one should run in a zig-zag line when attempting to flee an active shooter. The operating theory is that the intended victim will be harder to hit by changing their direction often, almost as if running from an alligator.

What if there was a caliber that was suitable for everything from coyote to brown bear, kicked less than your whitetail gun, fit in a micro-length (2.25″/58mm) action, and cost a quarter a round to shoot? That would be a pretty awesome caliber, wouldn’t it? It turns out that this caliber might already exist, if the industry can fulfill its potential: It is the Russian 7.62x39mm caliber used by the infamous AK-47 rifle.

In a recent post, I discussed four ballistics myths that I’ve heard over the years, and why they are just that – myths. One of these was the myth that the momentum of a projectile is equivalent or otherwise indicative of the stopping power of that projectile. I have for several years now been arguing that it is not, and the subject comes up again and again in my comments, so it’s high time I directly addressed it in a post. The short answer is “no”, as I wrote in “4 Ballistics Myths”:

What happens when you shoot commercial ammunition through an M1 rifle? No, what really happens? Take a look at InRange TV’s video on the subject, embedded below. Ian and Karl go one step further than the average “let’s find out” video, and shoot the M1 against a measure with their high speed camera, so take a look:

Do piston guns handle heat better than DI guns? If so, why? If not what shortcomings do they have? The video from the popular YouTube channel IraqVeteran8888 embedded below doesn’t quite answer these questions, but it’s still very interesting: