I think the first question was answered earlier, but if it wasn’t 5.56 or 7.62 is the diameter of the bullet in millimeters (in this case .223/.308 in SAE) What makes the 7.62 more powerful than the 5.56 is more than just the diameter of the round. The 7.62 is a heavier bullet (168 grains vs 55 grains for the 5.56) more kinetic energy on impact. The case of the 7.62 has a greater capacity than the 5.56 allowing it more range. There are other people here that can explain it better than I though. Here is a pic of the 5.56 (left), a 30-30 in the center (kicks like a freakin mule in a lever gun) and the 7.62 (right).
And missing from this line up of the famous .30"s is the 30/06 which fired through the the M1 Garand. Oh, the BAR etc. I vote for the NATO round .308, having owned service and aftermarket M14’s and shot the FAL.
My Father-in-law, with whom I will break bread tomorrow, swore by his .45. Anything else was a guess. How many springs in a 45 acp? I know the answer.
You telling me the WP cored fifty round dosn’t explode?? If it didn’t it wouldn’t work! Now I’ll grant you that it’s not much of an explosion, but there is one on impact.
Army used Winchester Mod 12’s all thru that conflict, and later switched to a modified Savage pump. Rarely saw one in the bush, but still there were a few. Used most for very close support as inside a village. I prefered the M79 with a can round to the shotgun. The problem with the shotguns the Army issued was that the barrels were too long, and kinda awkward. The stock was cut way too long, and all guns were choked wrong for buckshot. The Savage gun had a better stock, and a little shorter barrel, but still wasn’t choked right for buckshot. Also were found to not be so hot in dense folage. But I had one back in our base camp (we probably had thirty of them), and used it with an M16 slung over my back to run trench lines when the neighbors came to call. I guess it’s kinda what your comfortable with when it comes to shotguns and combat. The trick is to be able to shoulder the thing pretty fast, and be able to aim by instinct. The M79 can round was 40mm in diameter, and covered over twice the area a 12 gauge would. But you only got to shoot one round! Looking back I think the best shotgun we could have had was an old Winchester 97 trench gun with the bayonet lug and exposed hammer. Barrel was still alittle long, but you could live with it. Had a metal butt pad, but still about two inches too long of a trigger pull for a quick use. The other would have been the Highstandard trench gun with the bayonet lug (you soon run out of shotgun rounds) and the eight round magazine
I maybe saw five or six shotguns used by infantry squads in all my tour. But you saw MP’s with them and half the choppers had at least one onboard. They’re basicly a forty foot weapon at best. And like I said he who shoots first and best wins the game. Thus the 40mm shotgun round out of an M79 was king
Most of the stories told about M16’s go back to user’s error. M14’s failed too right along with just about everything from a fifty on down. It was just politically correct to knock the M16. The design has changed very little after they went to the heavy buffer and spring group in them. I had both, and never saw a problem. But on the other hand the CAR 15 was a problem just looking for a place to happen! They made two versions, and one had a barrel that was bout 12" long at best. Unburnt powder was always flowing thru the gas system and getting into the bolt carrier system and locking lugs. The above plus the fact that they looked different shortened your life span. You are right about the powder issue in that the gun was designed to use flake powders, but they used ball powders that would work best in a 24" barrel (burn time). Later I think they started to use IMR 4198 in the rounds to help this situation out instead of powder that was best in the 7.62 (we must that the GAO for using the wrong powders)
In Vietnam it was OK to carry your own pistol as long as it was registered. I carried a Jim Clark 45, and saw guys with everything from Browning Hi Powers to Superblack Hawks. Never saw a personal long gun
Ok then am I correct in thinking that the Army did supply shotguns to some soilders but some other procured them on their own making what my Vietman vet freind told me true? At least that is what I am putting together from reading all of the various thread so far.
Here is my favorite round Mauser 7.92 54mm. These are 150 grain rounds with a muzzle velocity of about 2400fps. I would like to get my hands on some 196 grain rounds but apparently the stupid police have decided yet agian that the American public is to stupid and might load one of these 196 grain rounds into one of the old 1890’s 8mm Mausers and blow the breach out. Apparently they can be easily found in Europe where the 8mm is still popular for hunting.
and a live 50 cal FMJ that was discared due to some light damage to the cartrige case. They make a great showpiece. Side by side with the 8mm mauser clip for comparison.
Cool. I like to know when I am repeating a story that someone told be that I am not misinforming someone who will then repeat that to someone else and so on.
well the term ignite, ignition (actually the act of iginte) is an action. In this case a chemical reaction due to the contact of WP with air. Now if you happen to lay that fifty caliber bullet on the ground for twenty years it probably will not ignite. Looking in Websters Dictionary the term for ignite can be to glow, set a fire, and excite! Now the same dictionary says that an explosion can be an outburst. Clap, bang, or even a reaction. Does deisel fuel burn or explode in a cumbustion chamber? Samething with gasoline? There is no fuse of a fifty caliber round as we already know, so there cannot be an explosion. Right? Look in the dictionary under explosion, and ignition
Gary I understand the point your are trying to make but I think the general accepted term for an explosive shell is one that throws its caseing as shrapnel and disinegrates. The fifty cal round I think you are talking about is a round that has a special tip that when it makes contact with metal it produces a brite flash but the rest of the bullet stays intact. You can see them in gun camera footage when they strike an aircraft they let of a bright flash. These rounds along with the tracers helped the pilot see where the rounds were going and then he could see the hits also by the brite flashes of the tipped rounds when the struck home. Mabye this could be considered a small explosion but the round itself does not explode to the best of my knowledge.
The Germans made a huge stink in WW1 about the morality of using the Entente troops using shotguns, but it was nothing more than griping. But then again of course if you are being shot at with shotguns and don’t have an answer of your own, your gonna gripe. [:D]
The truth is the shotgun has such a limited scope of use among the armed forces is because, expecially in this day and age of armor, it’s astounding performance is useless against anything but “soft” targets as well as it’s inherintly short range. Effective ranges with buckshot on human targets with little or no body armor is probably 25 yards at best. In comparison .308 and .30/06 cartridges (which both use the same bullet diameter) are used to drop soft targets at ranges of 1000+ yards (I THINK the record for a “kill” was recently made in the Iraq conflict and was over 1200 yards.) A .223/5.56 using ultra heavy bullets might reach out and make a kill at 1000 yards, but reasonably you can expect the “effective” range to be in the 300-400 yard range.
there are 2 8mm rounds. When it first appeared, it had a bullet size of .318". These were known as ‘J’ bores. Sometime before the First WW, they changed to a bore size of .323", and these were marked as ‘JS’. If you used a JS round of .323 in a rifle with a J bore, pressure would be increased drastically which could mean a testing of the excellent Mauser gas relief system, or a blowup. You have to know what bore you have for the ammo you want to use.
