Austere Emancipator raised valid points in the Full Auto/Burst thread that the weight and bullet design (spire point, boat tail, wad cutters, etc.) are extremely vital in the raw ballistics of any cartridges performance. That performance being measured as the energy that the bullet possesses, not only at the muzzle BUT ALSO throughout its trajectory. Performance should also include HOW that bullet reacts upon striking the target and the transfer of energy in creating a wound channel.

The importance of different powders, primers, and bullets when combined together can allow a hunter/target shooter to achieve a more accurate round for a SINGLE weapon. Let me give an example…

My father some years ago purchased six pre World War II Mauser 98K bolt action rifles. Having a professional gunsmith rechambered two of these rifles for the 7mm Remington Magnum. The modifications included free-floating heavy barrels (crowned) sometimes referred to as sniper barrels (with all of the NEGATIVE connotations that conjures up these days), adjustable fiberglass stocks, I forget which scopes he originally had mounted but after his death I had Leupold Mk4 Ultra x16 power scopes mounted. These two target rifles are EXACTLY identical and are rated at ¼ MOA (which is FAR more accurate than I could EVER hope to utilize). So one would imagine that you could shoot the SAME hand loads out of each rifle with the same results. Such is NOT the case. After much testing I found that a 150 grain Spire Point Boat Tail performed better in one rifle than in the other, which prefers a 175 grain Spire Point Boat Tail. And without boring you anymore then I already have, the powder and primers are different in each cartridge.

So have I found ballistic bliss with these two rifles?
No. For once I used up my lots of powders, primers, and bullets the process has to start ALL over again.
Why?
Because there are variances in each and every lot of powder, primers, and bullets. Those variances may not make not be noticeable when shooting at paper targets at 100 yards but stretch that distance out to 800 yards and suddenly they make a HUGE difference (the two aforementioned bullets can drop in excess of 40 inches at 500 yards!).

Can I point to any single factor as to the cause for the different tastes that these identical rifles have in cartridge preference?
Not definitively. There are probably minor variances in the barrels…although they have the same rate of rifling and were mounted by the same gunsmith.

Here is another point. In spite of my rabid love of the 7mm Remington Magnum cartridge it (or the two afore mentioned rifles) this cartridge is not suitable to all types of shooting. Those two rifles are great for long range target shooting (iron silhouette shooting in particular) but the thought of lugging one of those 19.7 pound rifles through the back country of Utah hunting elk makes my back ache at the thought! Different firearms and cartridges for different applications. Which may be why non-shooting enthusiasts here about so and so have a dozen rifles and think that they are some sort of survival nut. My best analogy is that most golfers don’t use one type of golf club for every shot that they take.

The importance of powder, primers, and bullets in terms of ballistics is that you want to stabilize the bullet as it leaves the barrel. Bullets that aren’t stabilized tend to tumble/keyhole. Imagine throwing a football without putting spin on it…and that is something of an exaggerated example of tumbling. Achieving a stabilized bullet is NOT always achieved with stock ammunition…although some firearms will do just fine.

Tumbling is also often used to describe the effect of what happens when a round like a 5.56mm military ball ammo does when it hits a target. Although I have one friend in the army that was describing how he was happy with his M16 because the range instructor showed him the paper target where the bullet had made a keyhole (hitting the paper other than point first). I didn’t have the heart to tell him that was NOT a good thing…since he needs to believe in his weapon. And I think more than likely he was using one of the older M16’s and not the newer M16A2’s which I believe addressed this with a different type of ball ammo.

In fairness to Austere Emancipator he is correct in his points concerning bullets and ballistics. My points would be FAR more relevant to precision shooting and NOT full auto/burst fire shooting. So thinking back it was NOT fair of me to include those points in regards to full auto/burst fire.

There are just SO many factors when it comes to making a ‘realistic’ ranged combat system. And even then…my idea of realistic may not be the same as yours.

In terms of Shadowrun, and even sniping, within the context of the game’s mechanics there are variances that need not be addressed. Any such rules would make the decking rules read like Amber!!!

I'm just going to say that, never having owned firearms, never having hand loaded them, never having fired anything but standard army issue rounds with them, I wish to minimize the impact things like primers have on ranged combat in my games.

That is to say, I do make my players re-zero their weapons when they change ammunition, if they wish to be accurate with them at extreme ranges (not just Extreme range, but long range in general). I do not, however, wish to include rules as to exactly how accurate the different weapons are with different kinds of rounds, even if that could easily amount to a +/- 1 TN at Extreme ranges, which can be quite important when sniping. I think I'm speaking for the majority of gun nuts here in this issue.

I think the unstabile 5.56x45mm problem occurs when firing the new SS109/M855 bullets out of an old NATO standard rifle, like the M16A1. The new NATO standard ball round is longer than the old, so it requires tighter rifling (1 turn in 7"), while the old only needed 1 turn in 12" rifling. Apparently, some manufacturers even produce 5.56x45mm weapons with 1 turn in 9" rifling, which doesn't work very well for either the old or the new standard. I'm not exactly sure, though, it might be that the older NATO standard also had stability problems.

These kinds of problems with bullet stabilization, if they are common, I could take into account. In fact, if they really are common, I certainly will. However, because it is so rarely mentioned, I have always assumed that it only happens in special, rare instances, like with the 5.56 NATO standard. Is it possible that you could pick up generic .308 Winchester ammunition from a gun store and find out that the rifling in your hunting rifle isn't tight enough to stabilize the bullet properly?

Raygun, as usual , is correct. There are SO many things that go into ballistics (hence the descriptor...Ballistics is bloody complicated) that the thought of micromanaging (in game terms) at this level would probably make most physicist's brains melt.

Raygun...a question though...

Has anyone come out with a better bullet design then the Matchking for big game hunting...i.e. elk or moose?

I latched onto the Matchking and really haven't used any other type of bullet for big game since.


For the record...
I use SR standard rules for 99.999999% of all issues. I was never advocating for people to actually TRY and figure out all of the variables. For me it just isn't worth the time and hassle to rework the mechanics when I really need to be working on adventures.

I understand that everybody has their own personal interests and that no given set of rules is going to please everyone. For example...a friend of mine as a hobby enjoys cryptography...he shakes his head when it comes to SR's rules covering decryption. And he is right. However...for the sake of telling a story and making the games more interesting I believe that the SR decryption rules work very well.

So on a tangent, what are the downsides of a fast twist? What reason is there to not just make the twist as tight as it can be on any given gun?

~J (A gun newbie, as is most likely obvious from the question)