Cray74, if you know of any info regarding coefficients of friction between common bullet jacket materials, coatings and barrel materials, I would love to see it.
Full Version: Another Possible Stupid Question-Sliver Gun
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| As I said, there are pure mild steel bullets made for use in 50 BMG long range rifle shooting. My sources say it's a case of trading reduced fouling for hell on barrel life. |
Well, now he can get moly-coated competition bullets at pretty reasonable prices. And you do realize that the grade of "mild steel" (which is not an engineering term; there is no uniform specification for what alloyed quantities mild steel is actually made of) used to make his bullets could be (and most likely was) drastically different from the grade of steel used to make jacket material for a lot of the world's ammunition, right?
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| My only suggestion for proving the point now to you is to go buy yourself such a rifle with an extra barrel and do your own tests. You seem to be someone who has to see it for yourself. |
I have an AR-15 that fires only bullets with guilding metal jackets. At this point, it's had 540 rounds through it. It shoots better now than the first day I took it to the range. I have a semi-auto AKM that I do not believe has eaten anything but good ol' cheap-ass Russian steel-jacketed ammo. At this point, it's had damn near 5,000 rounds through it. Guess what? It shoots better now than the first day I took it to the range. (Both have chromed bores). Unfortunately, that proves nothing. I don't have the equipment or financing necessary to be able to separate what could be one of any number of factors causing accuracy loss from what frictional effects there are between steel jackets, copper-plated steel jackets, copper/zinc jackets and barrels.
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| For what it's worth, you're the only person I've ever seen who is making the claim you have. |
I just hope you're understanding what claims I'm making.
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| You're not getting to me at all. |
So you're being a dick because of...?
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| I simply didn't expect to see a word for word copied article on your website without immediate and clear links back to the original if online (or reference to a dead tree source with standard bibliography info). A name alone is not a proper reference nor is a different page with general source links. |
I see. Well, in Gooling the title of the article (which came up on several different servers), I did find a reference to the source, of which I was previously unaware. The biblio info has already been put on the page on my site. Hopefully this will relieve at least some of your distress.
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| You're not alone in such things on the net, and I'm not calling it a major foul. But I still consider it a sad state of affairs. |
Now that we have the single line of text on my page that makes everything okay, you can stop trying to discredit my opinion in the argument by suggesting that I'm taking credit for other people's work, which, in addition to being incorrect, happens to have absolutely nothing to do with the discussion at hand. You are also not alone in using this tactic. People tend to do it when they feel they're losing an argument, in order to draw attention away from the argument they're having trouble with.
| QUOTE (Eddie Furious) |
| We never used anything called steel jacketed. ... I guarantee you it is not a steel jacket, if it were, you would burn out the rifling and possibly warp the barrel in a matter of a hundred rounds. I know of which I speak. |
Pardon me for interjecting, but since this has something to do with the discussion I'm having with someone else at the moment, I feel I should mention something.
Gauranteeing someone of the outcome of something you readily admit you've never experienced does not tend to elicit much trust in your gaurantee. You'll really start to hose up a barrel firing a hundred rounds of anything through it without giving the barrel adequate time to cool down. Just like Fox1, you're overstating the case quite extremely.
IIRC, Toturi did not serve in the military of the same country as you. I believe he's about halfway on the other side of the planet from Canada. Different ammunition suppliers, different materials used in construction.
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| Me and some guys spent a half a day scrounging out all the tracer ammo once to play "STAR WARS" with the L7s on a night firing ex once. We almost burnt out five barrels and that was simply with tracer rounds*! |
Let's point out that this has absolutely nothing to do with the steel vs. copper jacket argument. What you're talking about here has more to do with the extremely energetic (read: hot) metal-based compound igniting in the bore and coming out of the back end of the bullets, as well as the suggested dumping of (might "a shitload" adequately cover it?) of them through the barrels at 850 RPM in a relatively short amount of time. Tracer /= steel jacket.
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| And as an aside, if you are dikoting rounds, which are put under a great deal of force (acceleration out of the barrel has to be akin to smashing it with a hammer) wouldn't the coating simply shatter or deform at certain points, causing spurs which would decrease their performance? |
I think that would depend entirely on how you dikoted the bullet and what you hit with it. Anyway, it would probably be more beneficial to dikote the bore, if anything.
| QUOTE (Fox1) |
| Remember, we don't know anything about this stuff except what's in the rulebook. Nothing of its design limits that could prove critical in cases such as this. |
You and I and the rest of us Shadowrun players may know nothing about how Dikote would work in a barrel bore, but I'm sure there are people who do, seeing as how CVD diamond coatings exist in reality, pretty similar to how it is explained in SR (at least the old Shadowtech sourcebook). It's used to coat drill bits and things of that nature where friction is a major issue, so I'm assuming the stuff is pretty tough. How it compares to chromium plating, I have no idea.
| QUOTE (jervinator) |
| What about smoothbores? Many tank guns are smoothbores and fire (among other things) FIN-stabilized projectiles, as opposed to the SPIN-stabilized projectile of most small arms. And some Discarding Sabot rounds that can be fired from a rifled barrel allow the sabot to spin around the fin-stabilized penetrator making the rifled barrel undesirable at best. Anyone who fires flechette rounds from a rifled barrel is a moron. They would disperse multiple flechettes to a virtually unusable spread, and for a single penetrator, the small diameter would not allow enough rotational momentum for spin-stabilization to work for long. Flechettes are for smoothbores and if you shoot at any sort of range, will be fin-stabilized.... at added cost. Given a proper sabot, I see no reason to disallow Dikoted flechettes. If the players want to spend mucho nuyen on armor-piercing ammo that causes much less wounding than normal ammo. Let them spend 1500 nuyen per round on ammo that only inflicts 1 box of damage! |
This is how I've always envisioned the Ares Viper Slivergun.
I imagine that it's a smooth-bored pistol, designed to use flechette ammuntion only. As for the flechette ammunition, I've always imagined it as a tightly packed cluster of metal slivers, packed into the rough shape of a bullet.
As for it not penetrating armor, perhaps the slivers are so small and thin that they just bend or break on impact with armor, but can shred unarmored flesh pretty efficiently.
| QUOTE (Raygun) | ||
You probably meant to say JHP (Jacketed Hollow Point) there. Full Metal Jacket and Hollow Point are two mutually exclusive bullet types, at least when it comes to handguns, which is what I assume you're talking about considering "round-nosed ball ammo" and all. FMJ "ball" bullets for rifles are spitzer-shaped (pointed). Have been pretty much since 1906. |
Don't forget about Federal's fairly new "Expanding Full Metal Jacket" cartridge they now offer.
Pictures from The Gun Zone
Ballistics from Federal Cartridge
Now, as for the steel vs. copper jacket arguement, what about bi-metal jackets?
That should add some fuel to the fire...
| QUOTE (Shrapnel) |
| Don't forget about Federal's fairly new "Expanding Full Metal Jacket" cartridge they now offer. |
I didn't. EFMJ is not hollowpoint.
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| Now, as for the steel vs. copper jacket arguement, what about bi-metal jackets? |
Just copper bonded to steel somehow. Must be cheaper than guilding metal or electroplating, I guess.
[Edit]Nevermind, too slow.[/Edit]
| QUOTE (Shrapnel) |
| Now, as for the steel vs. copper jacket arguement, what about bi-metal jackets? |
They swing both ways.
Lemme get back to ya.
Edited for Eddie's edit.
| QUOTE (Raygun) |
| Edited for Eddie's edit. |
Good god you're fast!
Right place, right time is all. 
Okay, now where was I.... the steel jacketed ammo thing...
I have never seen a steel jacketed round, I have seen lots of rounds (mostly NATO, but quite a few BLOC and brazilian Manufacture as well), but never a steel jacket, FMJ is, from what I have experienced when talking about combat weapons, copper. Now, I am sure you can get steel jacketed rounds, hey, I bet you can get mercury loads if you're creative (never seen 'em, or if I did, I would never admit to it!). Would I be willing to put six hundred steel jacketed rounds down a pair of jimpy barrels, or even an assault rifle in an engagement? No. Why? The metal is too hard (in my opinion) to be put down range at a protracted high rate of fire. I bet there would be damage, even with the chromium barrels and the new minimal contact hexagonal and octagonal bore barrels we are seeing hit the market. If you can damage a barrel using heat (ala tracer) I bet you can damage it with those steel jackets.
Now on to the CAR-15 and AKM... (Seeing as I have a penchant for sticking my nose into public forums... ).
The weapons you have are intended for civilian applications (target shooting, maybe some varminting) not military applications, where a weapon will go through 20,000 rounds and be horribly mistreated in the first five years of its service life, have to be taken off line and refurbished and put back in the racks. When you are talking about that, you don't put steel jackets through it. Even though it is softer than the rifling, it will wear the rifling down significantly faster than the copper jacket will. When you are talking about budgeting to purchase and maintain upwards of 450,000 rifles, even ten percent knocked off the useful service life is a large amount of money.
As for those cheapass Bloc rounds, I have seen a few cans of old Russian 7.62 x 39 and they looked copper jacketed to me.
I apologize for being so rash, I was just a guy who used firearms as a job, not a hobby.
Some of you may think I am being a shite, but it's true, the hobbyists knew more about our weapons and ammunition than everybody in my platoon except one of the snipers, who made his own ammo.
I have put many thousands of rounds down range from a large variety of weapons from numerous countries, never once has one of them been jacketed in anything else besides copper.
Say, weren't we talking about sliverguns...?
By the way, Raygun, I have seen your site, I think you did a pretty good job.
I have never seen a steel jacketed round, I have seen lots of rounds (mostly NATO, but quite a few BLOC and brazilian Manufacture as well), but never a steel jacket, FMJ is, from what I have experienced when talking about combat weapons, copper. Now, I am sure you can get steel jacketed rounds, hey, I bet you can get mercury loads if you're creative (never seen 'em, or if I did, I would never admit to it!). Would I be willing to put six hundred steel jacketed rounds down a pair of jimpy barrels, or even an assault rifle in an engagement? No. Why? The metal is too hard (in my opinion) to be put down range at a protracted high rate of fire. I bet there would be damage, even with the chromium barrels and the new minimal contact hexagonal and octagonal bore barrels we are seeing hit the market. If you can damage a barrel using heat (ala tracer) I bet you can damage it with those steel jackets.
Now on to the CAR-15 and AKM... (Seeing as I have a penchant for sticking my nose into public forums...
).The weapons you have are intended for civilian applications (target shooting, maybe some varminting) not military applications, where a weapon will go through 20,000 rounds and be horribly mistreated in the first five years of its service life, have to be taken off line and refurbished and put back in the racks. When you are talking about that, you don't put steel jackets through it. Even though it is softer than the rifling, it will wear the rifling down significantly faster than the copper jacket will. When you are talking about budgeting to purchase and maintain upwards of 450,000 rifles, even ten percent knocked off the useful service life is a large amount of money.
As for those cheapass Bloc rounds, I have seen a few cans of old Russian 7.62 x 39 and they looked copper jacketed to me.
I apologize for being so rash, I was just a guy who used firearms as a job, not a hobby.
Some of you may think I am being a shite, but it's true, the hobbyists knew more about our weapons and ammunition than everybody in my platoon except one of the snipers, who made his own ammo.
I have put many thousands of rounds down range from a large variety of weapons from numerous countries, never once has one of them been jacketed in anything else besides copper.
Say, weren't we talking about sliverguns...?
By the way, Raygun, I have seen your site, I think you did a pretty good job.
| QUOTE (Raygun) |
| I just hope you're understanding what claims I'm making. |
Oh I understand. And I think they are wrong.
And I also think we've reach the point where there is nothing further to be gained on the subject. I'll stick with my sources and experience on the matter and you can hold on to your opinions as tightly as you wish.
| QUOTE (Eddie Furious) |
| Okay, now where was I.... the steel jacketed ammo thing... I have never seen a steel jacketed round, I have seen lots of rounds (mostly NATO, but quite a few BLOC and brazilian Manufacture as well), but never a steel jacket, FMJ is, from what I have experienced when talking about combat weapons, copper. Now, I am sure you can get steel jacketed rounds, hey, I bet you can get mercury loads if you're creative (never seen 'em, or if I did, I would never admit to it!). Would I be willing to put six hundred steel jacketed rounds down a pair of jimpy barrels, or even an assault rifle in an engagement? No. Why? The metal is too hard (in my opinion) to be put down range at a protracted high rate of fire. I bet there would be damage, even with the chromium barrels and the new minimal contact hexagonal and octagonal bore barrels we are seeing hit the market. If you can damage a barrel using heat (ala tracer) I bet you can damage it with those steel jackets. |
You definitely can. You can damage a barrel using ammunition with guilding metal alloy jackets as well. It doesn't matter what the jacket is made of. Eventually, you're going to have to replace the barrel.
As Fox1 pointed out, the issue is not necessarily the hardness of the jacket (as steel alloys can be made relatively soft), but its coefficient of friction against dissimilar metals (i.e., the bore). Copper happens to be relatively slippery against steel, which is why we tend to use it as a base for bullet jackets. However, copper is not readily available in some parts of the world, which makes it really expensive, so it doesn't make sense financially to use copper as a base for literally millions of bullet jackets. Instead, they plate steel jackets with a little copper rather than using a lot of it (95%) to make the jackets out of.
Bullet jackets can be alloyed with other metals, including iron and carbon (which gives them the name "steel"), as well as nickel, manganese, silicon, sulphur, molybdenum... Hey! Molybdenum is really slippery stuff. In fact we use it (molybdenum disulfide, that is) as a coating for competition bullets these days because it helps keep the copper it's coated on from fouling the bore, which reduces the coefficient of friction, which has the effect of increasing velocity very slightly. I wonder what would happen if you just alloyed it with steel...
Copper is likely intended to have the same effect when plated on a steel jacket, but from what I've actually seen of copper-plated steel jackets, there's really no plating left on the contact surfaces with the barrel after the bullet has passed through the bore. In all possibility, the copper plating is completely stripped from the jacket as it enters the rifling. Therefore, it is my assumption that the copper plating doesn't actually accomplish much as a lubricant (it does keep the jacket from rusting in storage), and that any difference in friction between guilding metal jackets and the alloy of steel used for steel jackets is trivial.
| QUOTE |
| The weapons you have are intended for civilian applications (target shooting, maybe some varminting) not military applications, where a weapon will go through 20,000 rounds and be horribly mistreated in the first five years of its service life, have to be taken off line and refurbished and put back in the racks. |
Both of the rifles I'm talking about are made to military specification. As a matter of fact, the AKM I have differs from the military model only in the that it's missing parts that allow fully automatic fire. Otherwise it is exactly the same rifle as is issued in the Romanian Army.
I used all mil-spec parts to build the AR-15. However, I did use a national match barrel (Bushmaster) with a heavier profile than government issue, so it does handle heat a little better. But it's chambered and chome-plated to mil-spec. I also used a rail handguard as opposed to standard, so there is better airflow around the barrel. Still mil-spec, but not government issue.
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| When you are talking about that, you don't put steel jackets through it. |
Some militaries do, I'm afraid. The ones I know of are Germany and Russia. I believe South Africa also uses steel jackets. I believe Toturi served in the military of Singapore, and he assures us that the ammunition he used was steel-jacketed. I don't doubt the truth of his statement.
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| Even though it is softer than the rifling, it will wear the rifling down significantly faster than the copper jacket will. |
And here's where we get to the point that Fox1 and I were also disagreeing. Is that a guess, or something you have factual evidence to back up? Because again, I don't think it's going to make all that much difference if any at all, depending on the alloy used. This is why I would like to know what grades of steel are used to make the jackets for countries that don't have access to a lot of copper.
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| When you are talking about budgeting to purchase and maintain upwards of 450,000 rifles, even ten percent knocked off the useful service life is a large amount of money. |
I agree with that completely. But do we know for a fact that it makes that much of a difference? No, we don't. So far, we're guessing.
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| As for those cheapass Bloc rounds, I have seen a few cans of old Russian 7.62 x 39 and they looked copper jacketed to me. |
Could be. I'm sure it depends on the manufacturer. Most Russian ammunition I've run across (Barnaul, Tula, and some stuff I have no idea where it came from), has been either copper-plated steel or bi-metal (that Shrapnel mentioned earlier). In either case, after firing, you're likely to see bare steel where the rifling has rubbed off the copper, if you're lucky enough to find a jacket afterwards (say, after digging it out of a soft clay backstop). If you leave those jackets exposed the environment, they'll rust. Guess how I know this.
| QUOTE |
| I apologize for being so rash, I was just a guy who used firearms as a job, not a hobby. Some of you may think I am being a shite, but it's true, the hobbyists knew more about our weapons and ammunition than everybody in my platoon except one of the snipers, who made his own ammo. |
Yeah, that happens. If your interest is relatively limited when it comes to firearms, you'll only learn particular things about maybe six or eight different firearms in the military, mostly because you don't need to know everything about them in order to use them effectively. The real bonus is that you get to learn about how automatic firearms work and are used. But even then, most people deal with them for four years and they're done. Many never touch a firearm again.
Hobbyists are generally very deeply interested in firearms, learning everything they possibly can about them. They tend to shoot and learn a lot about a very wide variety of firearms, and they tend to get interested fairly early on. They're definitely going to have an edge when it comes to using them in the military. But if they never go through military training (like me), they tend to miss out on a lot of interesting stuff.
And you're not being a shite. You just disagree with me and that's fine. I could be wrong. I don't think I am, but the possibility is certainly there.
| QUOTE |
| I have put many thousands of rounds down range from a large variety of weapons from numerous countries, never once has one of them been jacketed in anything else besides copper. |
Traditionally the jacket is guilding metal, which is 95% copper, 5% zinc. But if you've ever fired ammunition from Germany, Russia, Singapore, or maybe South Africa, you've likely fired copper-plated steel jacketed ammunition without even knowing it.
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| Say, weren't we talking about sliverguns...? |
Yes, but this is much more interesting.
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| By the way, Raygun, I have seen your site, I think you did a pretty good job. |
Thanks, Eddie. Very nice of you to say.
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