Armor-piercing Bullets?

[chuckels59h]

I'm no expert, but I put a 7.62 by 39 round completely thru a 4 by 4 post with fmj. These and the 308's are feared for there body armor piercing capabilities. I always wondered how far one of these rounds would go shot at a car motor.

[fredj338]

Originally Posted by JRH

From what I've read the two robbers actually did have armor piercing rounds loaded. But because of this they actually did less injury to the police officers that they hit because the bullets did not expand when they struck.

Not true. They used ordinary FMJ ammo. The media sees a bullet go through a car body & it's "armor piercing". There are steel penetrating bullets for the AK but those BGs were using FMJ ammo. Just about any FMJ round @ 2400fps+ is going to penetrate alot of what ever it runs into. Grandads's old 30-30 will go thru a typ. LIII vest w/o ceramic plates.

[setabkcin]

I was just looking at a catalog and saw some "armor piercing" .50BMG ammo. It made me laugh a little. Aren't all .50BMG rounds armor piercing? But I also found some cool .50 incendiary rounds. Something about seeing a bullet catch fire when it hits would be pretty cool. Unfortunately, I'd never use it.

[XD 9 Loaded Sub-Compact]

Originally Posted by setabkcin

I was just looking at a catalog and saw some "armor piercing" .50BMG ammo. It made me laugh a little. Aren't all .50BMG rounds armor piercing?

That was pretty much the thought I had about any large caliber high-velocity bullet.

[Jack the Toad]

Originally Posted by dsr30

There are specific armor piercing bullets out there, they've usually got a tungsten or steel core. But any bullet from an AK, AR or any center fire rifle for that matter will pierce the armor of a typical bullet proof vest. The narrator was most likely trying to make the AK sound more evil (as is usually the case) , like when they say a semi automatic rifle that can fire 600 rpm in the same sentence.

I was recently shooting at 1/4" steel with my AR from about 75' with 55gr wolf ammo and it punched right through with no problem.

I'm not sure what it is called , but my SKS with Wolf Hollow points shoots right through the steel plate that rail road rails lay on that the spikes hold to the ties. It is VERY hard and about 1/2 inch thick. My .41 mag. won't even dent them. I used to shoot them as swinging targets. Now that they are tearing out Rail Roads you can find alot of them laying around where the tracks used to be.

[Timmy44221]

By AP they just meant steel cored. ALOT of surplus is steel cored.

Now becaused we cannot have AP ammo for pistols... Some idiot made an AK pistol and now 7.62x39 steel cored is illegal... That is in the present, not nessisarily at the time if the shootout.

Actualy you can still get 7.62x29 steel cored, they just cannot import it. If you find it it is super expensive.

Now for normal rifle ammo, stell core is very common, especialy milsurp. I know for a fact that alot of 7.62x54r is steel cored.

[Raptor1956]

As Fred implied, velocity is key! The sabot round from the M1A1 tank has a muzzle velocity of nearly 6000 fps and it's particularly effective against armor even though it does not have an explosive warhead.

For us XDers the 357 sig round fired from the 5" Tactical is going to be the best choice for penetration as a number of police and government agencies have determined.

Of course, a 1200-1800 fps or so handgun bullet isn't going to compete with a rifle bullet travelling as much as 2000 fps faster but this is a handgun forum so...

The sabot round perviously mentioned is usually formed from depleted Uranium but I believe it can also be made from Tungsten.


Brian

[nateroach]

The FN FiveseveN Pistol chambered in the 5.7mm x 28mm. This round was developed for better penetrating light body armor.

Ballistic performance
Bullet weight/type____________Velocity_________________Energy
32 gr (2.1 g) SS190 AP FMJ____ 716 m/s (2,350 ft/s) ______529 J (390 ft·lbf)
55 gr (3.6 g) SS193 FMJ BT ____305 m/s (1,000 ft/s) ______163 J (120 ft·lbf)
28 gr (1.8 g) SS195LF JHP _____701 m/s (2,300 ft/s) ______393 J (290 ft·lbf)
40 gr (2.6 g) SS197SR JHP _____594 m/s (1,950 ft/s) ______461 J (340 ft·lbf)
Test barrel length: 263 mm (10.35 in)

Obviously the test barrel being 10.35 in the pistol will be slightly slower.

nateroach

[rogerxd45]

my 17 hmr will shoot right through a 1/8" steel plate a 45 leaves a big dent.

[vraygodlike]

i was thinking of taking an ordinary round, drill a hole in it and stick a core in it. the core would have to be a hard material and i would solder or glue the thing to fixate.
doing this would that not create an armor piercing round?

it doesn't look like there is much to it, how hard could it be for homemade armor piercing rounds?