Hey folks,
as the only real gun enthusiast in my group of friends, I'm always getting a lot of questions about guns and gun laws, etc. I'm happy to be the one to field these questions, and I'm always trying to lower the temperature of the discussion, especially with my buddies who are very anti-gun. Recently we were having a discussion (again) about why "no sane person needs an AR" and the ever-present myth about .223 bullets being designed to "liquefy organs" as they "tumble through the air" when fired by a "super accurate military rifle" came up. I can explain easily why no gun can be both "super accurate" and shoot "tumbling bullets" but the idea of the .223 (or 5.56) being more destructive to tissue than any other bullet is one I'm having a hard time with. I've shot lots of game with .223 bullets (from squirrels to hogs) and it's never seemed more destructive than anything else... if anything, it seems LESS destructive than, say, anything in .30 cal.
Obviously there's a difference between fmj and soft/hollowpoint ammo, but all things being equal is a .223 fmj more dangerous than a .308 win fmj?
Anyone care to clear up this myth, or put me in my place?
Crow

Tumbling bullets are salesmen bullshit from when the M16 was going through trials. Even if it was true, the bullet weight/barrel length/twist rate math would have to be so exact as to be coincidence or black magic and 99.99% of current firearm owners wouldn't be able to duplicate it. A 5.56 and a .222 will be just as destructive, all other variables being equal.

.223 is less powerful than .308. Both will kill something dead, .308 with arguably more wiggle room for shitty aim. .308 is approximately 2.5-3X more "powerful" than .223 (based on kinetic energy).

.223 will tumble after striking a solid surface, one of the reasons it is good for home defense. It hits a wall and begins to lose energy through the tumble. .308 goes right on through, then the next wall, then the wall after that and then the neighbor.

Here's a fun article. https://www.snipercountry.com/308-vs-223/#Ballistics

I’ve recently had the opportunity to think about ballistics effects inside the body. Larger bullets kill more effectively through hydrostatic shock and the blunt-force trauma that causes organs inside the body. However, the small .22 cal bullet does do a lot of damage by bouncing around inside the body when it strikes bone and changes direction, again and again until it loses kinetic energy and comes to a stop (or exits the body). Essentially the smaller bullet causes the animal to hemorrhage internally through many wound cavities until it bleeds out completely and dies. That akes longer to bring one down but it is a death sentence nevertheless.

Arguably the same could be said of the 22LR.

Without offering a basic course in kinetic energy and terminal ballistics, it'll be difficult to refute beliefs that aren't grounded in facts. Making some accessible metaphors may help.

Not an expert, but my understanding of the key difference in handgun vs. rifle ballistics is the 2000 fps threshold. Below that velocity, bullets wound primarily through penetration and blood loss along the cross-section of travel. Hence the importance of expansion - larger cross section.

Above 2000fps - YMMV - hydrostatic shock seems to play a larger role in wounding. Bullet placement is still important, caliber and cross-section are still important, penetration is still important, but that seems to be about the point where the temporary cavity overcomes the elastic strength of tissue. In theory, the shock from impact can affect the CNS even without a direct hit. However - this is important - this is not unique to .223 / 5.56mm ammunition. It may play a larger role than for, say, 45-70, where you're going to put a much larger hole in whatever you hit.

As for tumbling, again, not unique to 223 / 5.56mm - it's not a magic caliber. Under the impression that any long-for-caliber bullet is unstable after impact. 5.7x28 follows a similar design philosophy, depending on velocity and terminal instability to inflict injury while retaining some ability to penetrate body armor.

Of course, the entire point of defensive ammunition is to incapacitate or kill quickly. I mean, it's not softball. Which incidentally has greater kinetic energy. More people are actually shot and killed with .22LR, but they might have a better job of surviving transport to a trauma unit.

.223/5.56 was designed to allow people to carry larger amounts of ammunition. It's consistently been denigrated by people who use it to kill other people (members of our armed forces) as being under-powered.

Anyone who tries to tell you that .223/5.56 is a "murder round", that it "liquefies organs" or uses any sort of emotional false rhetoric like that, has no understanding of basic ballistics.

5.56 is an intermediate caliber rifle round. It does not have a tremendous amount of power behind it, but it will obviously be deadly in the right/wrong circumstances. That said, so is a .17HMR round or a .22 LR round or .25 ACP. The difference is that the .223 has a much larger amount of powder propelling it out of the barrel than those rounds, but MUCH less than a .308 or .30-06, and much much less a .338 LM or .300 Win Mag.

The 5.56 round was intended to make a soldier more efficient for less money. Battle rifles prior to the M-16 used larger bullets, but the general idea was that a less powerful round would be easier for follow up shots, and for new shooters to handle, and then the amount of ammunition that a soldier could carry. The M1 Garand which saw service in WW2 uses a .30-06 cartridge which is tremendously more powerful than a 5.56. It only holds 8 rounds and it's easily twice as heavy as 5.56, if not more.

The military is now reversing course, and going back to larger bullets, but in a necked down cartridge, and they are also experimenting with polymer casings to deal with the weight.

Basically, the 5.56 is seen as underpowered for combat by most people who make these sorts of decisions.

NegativeApproach wrote: Tue Oct 27, 2020 1:09 am Anyone who tries to tell you that .223/5.56 is a "murder round", that it "liquefies organs" or uses any sort of emotional false rhetoric like that, has no understanding of basic ballistics.

See this makes a lot of sense to me- I teach rhetoric at a university, actually, and I'm always telling my students that objective arguments based on observable facts are best... I've shot enough things with a .223 round to know what it does, and my observation is that it's not doing any more damage than a .30 cal bullet... this all seems to boil down to the fact that my friends (like many dems, unfortunately) don't understand caliber and firearm history.

NegativeApproach wrote: Tue Oct 27, 2020 1:09 am Basically, the 5.56 is seen as underpowered for combat by most people who make these sorts of decisions.

Yeah I've read this in various places. Thanks for the confirmation.
Crow

Since all of my firearms have the primary purpose of home/self defense, and the secondary purpose of fun shooting at a range (something I haven't done since January), and a tertiary purpose of possibly hunting if we really got to a SHTF dystopian chaos, I didn't really see .223 fitting into that. AR-10s are, AFAIK, pretty much the same only they are slightly heavier, but shoot the more powerful .308 round, can be used for hunting, and with wood furniture don't look like "scary black military-style assault weapons". (note the sarcasm).

YankeeTarheel wrote: Wed Oct 28, 2020 9:08 am Since all of my firearms have the primary purpose of home/self defense, and the secondary purpose of fun shooting at a range (something I haven't done since January), and a tertiary purpose of possibly hunting if we really got to a SHTF dystopian chaos, I didn't really see .223 fitting into that. AR-10s are, AFAIK, pretty much the same only they are slightly heavier, but shoot the more powerful .308 round, can be used for hunting, and with wood furniture don't look like "scary black military-style assault weapons". (note the sarcasm).

Well, as far as self-defense goes I'm probably not going to throw .308 down my hallway... or .223 for that matter. I've said it elsewhere on this forum but I have a loud-as-hell dog who sleeps in front of the door and a shotgun in case someone gets by her.
Not gonna lie, I really do love shooting my AR15 at the range and plinking around out in the field. Ammo is cheaper too esp if you roll your own.
But I agree that an AR10 is going to be a better hunting option, though we do shoot a lot of rabbits, coyotes, and even hogs (70+ grain .223 hp will drop a hog with good shot placement.)
Basically though I prefer my WASR (wood furniture!!) for an all around SHTF / hog+deer gun. And the .270 for anything bigger.
Crow

I figure 9mm JHP from a handgun is probably a better HD option than ANY rifle option.

featureless wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 2:17 pm .223 is less powerful than .308. Both will kill something dead, .308 with arguably more wiggle room for shitty aim. .308 is approximately 2.5-3X more "powerful" than .223 (based on kinetic energy).

.223 will tumble after striking a solid surface, one of the reasons it is good for home defense. It hits a wall and begins to lose energy through the tumble. .308 goes right on through, then the next wall, then the wall after that and then the neighbor.

Here's a fun article. https://www.snipercountry.com/308-vs-223/#Ballistics

This was my understanding of the differences between the .223 and a more powerful round like the .308.

there's history behind all of this. originally, just about all rifle bullets were .45 cal and up, of soft lead and would mushroom on impact. when smokeless powder and the higher velocities that made possible came along, bullets could be smaller (in the 6.5 to 8mm range) but still impart the same force. in 1899 at the hague convention, in order to "reduce" the cruelties of war, the major powers agreed to ban military use of expanding and "dum-dum" bullets which is why they're all fmj now.

at the same time, the US in cuba and the phillippines noted that in the case of "uncivilized" enemies (the indian wars had been over since the 1880s) hopped up on drugs or religion, they would take hits and keep coming until they dropped dead. us response to this was to up the power of the service cartridge, from the 30-40 krag to 30-06. even so, the assumption was that if a "civilized" enemy was merely wounded (rather than killed outright), he would stop coming. not only that, but two of his friends would stop to help him off the field, sort of a three-fer.

so that's where things stood until the assault rifle, with its voracious appetite for ammunition. a soldier can carry a lot more 5.56, but despite the increased velocity it lacks the "stopping power" of .30 cal, so it's fortuitous that it doesn't easily penetrate bone and is prone to riccochet around inside the body. it's a convenient way to get around that pesky hague convention. it also explains why it's not universally acceptable as a hunting cartridge.

isn't history marvellous?

It takes energy to cause damage.

Energy is one-half the mass times the square of the velocity.

When we run this calculation on several calibers, weights, and velocities, we find out the physics of the damage.

Accuracy is a different thing. The best is the proper twist rate, weight, velocity, barrel quality, with a skilled shooter.

CDFingers