New AP bullet for 300 BLK

[Nelson_2011]

It's not a steel tip, it's a steel core. Around which they have put a brass jacket. It's the steel penetrator core that makes it illegal.

Is there a cutaway view or a drawing of this bullet available somewhere which would show a feature of construction that we would all agree is the "core"? (IOW how would you define "core")?

*edit* And it actually isn't the core that makes it illegal. It's the fact that it is an armor piercing bullet in a pistol caliber.

I think that's not correct, as it begs the question: What do you mean by the phrase "armor piercing"? Because the phrase is not easy to define, federal law attempts to define it strictly in terms of bullet construction. From 18 USC 921:

"(17)...(B) The term “armor piercing ammunition” means—
(i) a projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium; or
(ii) a full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile."

Note that the official definition doesn't explicitly say anything the bullet's "tip". Nor does it explain precisely what is meant by the term "core". Thus as I see it, bullets like the one used in the M855A1 do not seem to be "illegal".

[ScottB70]

Note that the official definition doesn't explicitly say anything the bullet's "tip". Nor does it explain precisely what is meant by the term "core". Thus as I see it, bullets like the one used in the M855A1 do not seem to be "illegal".

From what you posted, I would imagine that since 5.56 isn't a pistol round, and also since it is not larger than .22 caliber, are the reasons why it's not illegal.

[Nelson_2011]

From what you posted, I would imagine that since 5.56 isn't a pistol round, and also since it is not larger than .22 caliber, are the reasons why it's not illegal.

Actually 5.56x45 mm ammo has long been deemed "pistol" ammo by BATF; that's why you can no longer buy Barnes' "banded solid" (solid brass) bullets in many calibers, including .223, for example.

BTW, with regard to the jacket weight clause, the bizarre "larger than .22 caliber" phrase seems to be a gaffe, IMO; proof that many if not most "gun laws" are written by self-absorbed, low-information people, mainly as a form of harassment.

[Springfield]

I guess I'm not very hung up on this bullet only being available to the government/military as I can not think of any use for it. It is going to be very expensive, there are more accurate bullets out there for targets, it obviously won't expand for supersonic hunting and doesn't look heavy enough to be used subsonic. There are conventional barrier blind bullets out there that will zip through walls, car doors, windshields, etc with little trouble and still offer good on target performance. Most rifle bullets will already go through soft body armor. Decent rifle plates are rated for 7.62 AP and I don't see this bullet out performing that at blackout velocities. This is the reason why heavy regulation of "armor piercing" ammunition is just plain dumb.

As someone else already stated, rounds like this do one thing very well and basically suck at anything else. I don't see myself or most people finding it useful for anything other than a curiosity. l would rather keep a bunch of black tips handy and practice failure-drills for that one in a million situation I find the need to shoot a bad guy wearing body armor and conventional rifle loads won't get the job done.

[Nelson_2011]

I'm hung up on the apparent fact that our Masters seem to be violating the spirit of the 2nd amendment - with the clear intent to negate its purpose - by any means possible, including arming themselves with the latest body armor and the latest AP ammo, while denying it to the peasantry. (After all, from our Masters' tyrannical perspective, it's not "dumb" to try to limit the effectiveness of our ammo against their armor).

Anyway, my primary interest in this particular bullet (aside from its performance, e.g. against hard armor, which we'll probably never know) is: What features of its construction, if any, would make it "armor piercing" (in a legal sense)?

Edit: I wonder, how effective would "black tip" (165 grain M2 AP bullets?) be at 300 Blackout velocities against level 3 plates? (I know it won't do much against level 4 ceramic plates).

One performance issue with M2 bullets seems to be the useless parasitic mass. IIRC the penetrator's mass is only about 50% of the bullet's total mass, thus about half of the projectile's kinetic energy is wasted.

Because of this, and because of the way the "law" is worded, I'm thinking that maybe bullets with steel tips would be useful. I've been hoping to come across some empirical information as to how effective the new M855A1 ammo is against various types of hard body armor, but this information seems conspicuously absent (from the public domain at least).

[0uTkAsT]

Can't say that I'll ever do business with a company that won't sell a bullet to private citizens regardless of the nature of the round. That's a bummer because some of their pills looked really good and I was going to try some once I start reloading. If they change their mind I may of course change mine too.

[N2130N]

& why everyone should have an old 30-06 boltgun with a few boxes of M2 AP.

[Nelson_2011]

One of these days I'm going to do an experiment. I'm going to take about 0.75" of 0.25" diameter round rod S7 tool steel (a relatively shatter-resistant alloy) turn it down to 0.224", put a 60 degree cone on one end, harden it, put it into a sabot from eabco.com, load it into a 300 blackout cartridge, and see how it fares against level 3 and level 4 armor (if I can get some for a test).

Being that the plastic sabot only weighs about 6 grains, or something like that, most of the energy will manifest in the steel penetrator, not the parasitic mass, so with this arrangement it might be possible to defeat rifle plates at 300 blackout energy levels.