Pages, some stolen, some original

Wednesday, October 16, 2002

Musketeers

What isn't mentioned is bullet velocity. It is very high. Geneva convention outlawed mushroom bullets (because to the huge wounds they caused?). Mushroom bullets, otherwise known as hollowpoints, expand on impact, tending to cause the bullet to remain in the body and causing massive damage, instead of just going straight on through. Hollowpoints are called that because the tip of the bullet has been cut off and a small hole is drilled in the tip.

Hunter's use hollow point bullets. Warriors use ball ammo (ball just means it isn't hollow point, the bullets are still bullet shaped, not ball shaped).

I don't know what we they were thinking when the developed the 223. It uses a very small (basically the same caliber as a 22), light bullet fired at extremely high velocity. Typical high powered rifle bullet leaves the muzzle at 2500 fps. I don't know how much faster the 223 is. Anyway, the combination of very high velocity and very light bullet makes it very susecptable to interference. Hitting a leaf will cause it to start tumbling. Hitting a body will cause the same effect. Which gives you the same result as a hollow point bullet. So we got around the Geneva convention.

Maximum effective range for a 30-06 (WW I & II standard infantry caliber): 1000 yards. Not all guns are accurate at this range, but they still pack a leathal punch at that range. But they are heavier than the M-16 and the bullets are heavier.

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