5.56 is A-OK, per the army
Don’t tell some people but the army is happy with the 5.56 Nato:
The U.S. Army completed a study of current 5.56mm M855 round, in response to complaints from troops that this ammunition was in adequate in combat. Troops reported many instances where enemy fighters were hit with one or more M855 rounds and kept coming. The study confirmed that this happened, and discovered why. If the M855 bullet hits slender people at the right angle, and does not hit a bone, it goes right through. That will do some soft tissue damage, but nothing immediately incapacitating. The study examined other military and commercial 5.56mm rounds and found that none of them did the job any better. The study concluded that, if troops aimed higher, and fired two shots, they would have a better chance of dropping people right away. The report recommended more weapons training for the troops, so they will be better able to put two 5.56mm bullets where they will do enough damage to stop oncoming enemy troops.
The study did not address complaints about long range shots (over 100 meters), or the need for ammo that is better a blasting through doors and walls. The army had been considering a switch of a larger (6.8mm) round, and the Special Forces has been testing such a round in the field. But a switch is apparently off the table at the moment. The U.S. Marine Corps is doing its own study, but has not finished it yet.
Seems if you’re using two shots, you may as well use ammo that gets it right the first time. Now, you say, Uncle, I thought you dug the 5.56 Nato, being the AR nut that you are? I do in fact, if you use hollow point ammo. Ball ammo, which the military requires, tends to ice pick (which this report confirms by stating If the M855 bullet hits slender people at the right angle, and does not hit a bone, it goes right through) and is not effective unless you use big heavy ammo. Smaller rounds are effective if you use ammo that fragments or expands. It’s also why 9mm ammo is adequate in a civilian gun but the military version lacks oomph.
Via Granted.
June 26th, 2006 at 4:09 am
Coincidentally, so does .308. Or .30-’06. Or 7.62×39. Or… well, any FMJ rifle bullet.
June 26th, 2006 at 7:52 am
Tam: But they leave bigger holes and transfer more momentum and energy to the target. 7.62 (.30 caliber) is about twice the cross-sectional area of 5.56 (.223).
June 26th, 2006 at 8:06 am
Gee, why don’t they just instruct the troops to shoot the enemy right bewtween the eyes every time, and we can start shipping over crateloads of .22’s.
And, dropping people “right away”, in my book, means taking them down on one shot.
You’re right, don’t tell Kim. He doesn’t need this to start his week.
June 26th, 2006 at 8:44 am
We practiced for Camp Perry last weekend at the Panola County Gun Club. I shot my AR out of a custom ransom rest and shot a six shot three inch group…..at 600 yards. (80gr Sierra Matchkings w/24.2gr Varget wLC Case and CCI 450 Magnum primer) At 200 and 300 we shot rapid fire strings with lots of Xs and no nines. It’s an unbelieveably accurate and reliable design.
For PAPER target shooting that is. For any game larger than coyotes, .223 is too small. I hunt and shoot a lot of deer and have killed them with every rifle in the safe-except a 223. I’d NEVER consider using it for combat.
Some of the units are trying 77 grain Sierras instead of the 62 grain m855. It’s better, they think, but still not enough.
June 26th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Dangit, Bruce.
I was gonna say that!
June 26th, 2006 at 10:22 am
If they’re fighting irregular combatants (non uniform members of a military) over there then arguably the Geneva Conventions’ restriction against the use of expanding bullets does not apply.
Bring on the BTHP’s & SP’s!
June 26th, 2006 at 11:01 am
Doesn’t the Geneva Convention, or some other international treaty. prohibit the use of hollow points because our military should kill people humanely?
Talk about moral obtuseness.
Also, don’t our military 5.56 rounds have some type of tungsten or similar heavy core?
As for me, I like the 5.56, the 308 and the 7.62 x 39, or, for that matter, pretty much anything that goes bang.
June 26th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
The Comedian Says:
Hell, yea! Why worry about full metal jacket when they are chopping people’s heads off?
Bring on the depleted uranium, boat-tail, PETN tipped, hollow-point, moly-coated, Teflon .223 caliber bullets with the tungsten nitrate penetrator!
June 26th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
The M855 round was designed to offer improved performance over the M193 round against enemies wearing body armor-and those enemies were imagined to be (relatively) well fed and beefy(er) Russians and Eastern Europeans. As such, it does penetration very well. I’ve been on a live fire range and seen 8×8″ timbers thoroughly shot full of through-and-through holes.
Problem is, our contemporary enemies for the most part don’t wear body armor, and they’re a lot thinner.
The Russians have had pretty decent success with putting different bullets atop their 5.45 rounds when fighting the Chechens-they have different types, one with penetration for bad guys with body armor, and another for unarmored folks. The one for unarmored BGs tumbles a whole lot easier, thus making a bigger hole and doing more shock damage, at least until it gets itself going ass forward and stabilized at that attitude.
It is probably possible to do this with the 5.56, if DoD wanted too.
June 26th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
Well, this sounds like a advertisement for the .45-70. Since most seem to agree that long shots aren’t the 5.56’s forte, and if most shots are under 125 yards, a 300-325 grain, .46 caliber truncated cone FMJ (or hard cast Keith-style semi-wadcutter) ought to do pretty well. Make it in a rimless case, push FPS to about 2100-2300, what’s not to like? Kinda like a 20 gauge with good accuracy.
I seem to remember a big-bore variant for the AR upper, .50 cal, I think, so .46 should be doable. Users would notice a difference in recoil between a 70 grain poodle-shooter round and 300 grains of .46 caliber, but mastering recoil has always been a character builder.
June 26th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
We used to shoot varmints, ground squirrels, in CA with a .223. We shot on a huge cattle ranch in the Sierra Nevada foothills. My close range (out to 250 yards or so) load was a 40 grain Nosler ballistic tip at 3700 fps out of a Remington 700. The effects on squirrels were spectacular. A hit at 100 yards sounded like a 22lr shot as the bullet exploded on impact. Squirrels were occasionally launched as much as 20 ft into the air when hit. One squirrel hit at 40 yards disappeared. I saw the tail flipping through the air but there was no evidence that a squirrel had existed except for a few tiny strips of meat smeared on the rock.
The experience brought to mind the writings of P.O. Ackley on the .220 Swift. He was a proponent of small caliber, high velocity rounds for all sorts of hunting. I don’t completely agree but the effect of a high velocity frangible projectile on soft tissue is nothing to be sneered at.
June 26th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
Problem is, alot of military recruits have zero experience with firearms. While one can overcome the negative effects of recoil, it takes time and practice. That’s where the .223 shines; pretty much anyone can easily learn to fire it accurately, even after hundreds of rounds. And since modern combat involves alot of burst and full-auto firing, the less recoil, the better.
Not to say the .223 doesn’t have problems, but every cartridge is a trade-off between hitting power, recoil, and weight. Increase the hitting power and weight and you end up decreasing accuracy because of the recoil.
June 26th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
The both leave insignificant, tiny holes.
Neither transfers bupkis unless it yaws or hits bone.
This is old news. Read any surgeons diary from WWI about what happens when .303 and 8mm bullets hit someone and don’t yaw or hit bone. Both those rounds make the mighty .308 look like the pipsqueak it is.
June 26th, 2006 at 3:11 pm
The 7.62 is undeniably a better round the 5.56. Softpoint or not, which state allows big game hunting with the .223?
As an aside, the DoD’s reccomendation for higher torso hits runs afoul of all current army marksmanship training. Rifle qualification on popups from 50 to 300 meters is now null and void, as is the Army’s 210 round basic load, based on the double tap reccomendation.
All of this is nothing more than political cover for the pentagon having pulled the request for proposal for OICW phase one implementation, AKA the XM8. More than likely for budgetary reasons although the DoD says it is re-evaluating the program based on recent lessons learned In Iraq and by the IDF.
While the rst of the planet moves forward with development and issue of advanced battle rifles, the Pentagon dawdles and puts our troops at risk with an inferior piece.
While not a fan of the 5.56 for combat use, I would submit that if we are to stick with it we field a weapon that will function correctly in all conditions.
June 26th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Homer, you’re thinking of either the .458 SOCOM or the .50 Beowolf. You can buy AR uppers in both calibers.
I fail to see the logic of this argument, at least how it is relevant to this discussion. The XM8 would have been fielded in 5.56 NATO, not any of the 6.xmm alternatives touted by internet gun gurus everywhere. As to why the XM8 was canned, there were a host of reasons, among them the fact that, when the OICW programs was separated into parts and the rifle/carbine part subsequently became a program to replace the M16/M4, it wasn’t properly put up for competitive bids, and FN and Colt, among others, rightfully protested. The fact that the XM8 for some bizarre reason used HK proprietary accesory rails, rather than Mil Std 1913 ones, was another reason.
As for the rest of the world moving on with advanced rifles, which ones are you referring to? The German G36? Israeli Tavor? India’s FNC version? All of those are 5.56. The Russians continue to drive on with the 5.45, and while they’ve exhibited some interesting concepts, I have yet to see them export any rifles that aren’t variations of the Kalishnikov. The Chinese have their new 5.8, along with new rifles for it, but their 5.8 is still basically the same concept as the 5.56.
Oh, and the Army put out a solicitation for a new carbine and LMG back in February. Pay attention. Still 5.56mm, but they’re not standing pat.
June 26th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
The XM8 fixed everything that wasn’t wrong with the M16A2.
June 27th, 2006 at 7:13 am
Georgia and Alabama, which is two of the three states whose hunting regs I know off the top of my head.
Neither, incidentally, will let you hunt deer with FMJ .308.
It’s not assured a to be a quick, humane kill with a non-expanding bullet.
Hunters know this.
City kids who face their first Hadji often don’t.
June 27th, 2006 at 8:34 am
Thanks, HL, I looked up the .458 SOCOM data. While I agree with Captain Holly that not everyone is capable of adapting to substantial recoil, some are, and I don’t think that the tactical advantages of an effective cartridge should be dismissed because a certain segment of users are incapable of using it effectively. Not every trooper or Marine is issued a bolt rifle, or, for that matter, a shotgun, because everyone’s task within the squad are slightly different. Restricting everyone to a light round because only some can handle heavier rounds is lowest common demoninator thinking. In which, of course, the military excels, for obvious reasons. I do not doubt at all that marksmanship skills among recruits, regardless of branch, are a whole bunch lower that they were a generation or three ago. But, that’s what the loud-voiced guys in the funny hats are paid to fix.
I’m sure logistics issues are a factor; getting the right ammunition, in the right quantities, to the right place, at the right time, becomes a lot more complicated the more different types of ammo that must be handled.
I don’t think something like the .458 is the total answer, and I concur with Tam: 223 or 308 won’t matter unless it hits something at least semi-solid. One of my late uncle’s friends had a through-and-through shoulder wound from a 7.7MM Arisaka which he described as “real damn painful, but not crippling.” Had it hit bone I’m sure the effect would have been substantially different, although he did suffer lifelong effect from it. Still, something larger in diameter than ..224″ with a flat nose stands a better chance at transferring energy.
As for double-tapping, I seem to remember the adage “keep shooting as long as the threat exists” being mentioned somewhere. Back In The Day the M-16 had a 20 inch tube, today’s versions have 16 inch or shorter, and that may be where much of the problem resides: velocity drop. Give up several hundred feet per second and the opportunity for “system shock” from hydrostatics disappears (notice I said “opportunity,” not “guaranteed result”).
I believe I might pursue this further; I think Tam’s Mr. Housegun begs to be done in .458, and since an upper will drop onto my M4gery, why not? That might turn out to be the big-bore urban carbine I’ve been hankering for.
June 27th, 2006 at 11:41 am
I carried the M-16 for four years. In a combat environment, it’s unreliable.
The XM-8 in testing fired thousands of rounds without stoppage. We continue to use a rifle that is inferior in every way to every modern battle rifle in service today. That we use an inferior but popular round is the other half of the debate.
Fans of the M-16 make a lot of excuses and set a lot of preconditions for it’s effective use, all the while digging deep for anecdotal cases of 7.62 failures, blindly refusing to admit the ballistic inferiority of the 5.56mm.
The XM-8 DID fix one key defect in the M-16:
It goes bang every time you pull the trigger.
Go to the orinial link.
Yes Murdoc, it DOES look fishy, very fishy, and if accurate, it looks like we are about to field another inferior rifle.
June 27th, 2006 at 7:32 pm
L1A1. 7.62Nato. The only battle rifle that might make Patton revise his opinion of the “best battle implement ever devised.”
June 27th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
Look. Call me a hypocrite if you will. I own an AR-15, and enjoy it. In my environment, with my ammo, I’m happy with it. As a soldier, I was very concerned it would let me down in combat as it let me down in training live fire.
It’s a decent weapon, but not a great one. not one I would trust my life with. And there in no way i would wish it upon any eleven bravo or anyone else in a combat situation. If we are going to stick with the 5.56. the we need something better ASAP, and doctrine and training to match the 5.56’s capabilities and shortcomings.