Originally posted by: Shockwave
Originally posted by: Mookow
Originally posted by: Horus
Oh, and 5.56NATO is more used than 7.62NATO because it's lighter, it has more hitting power, cheaper, and doesn't leave such big holes in the enemy. 7.62NATO will blow a rather large hole in Ivan Ivanovitch, Ahab the camel-jockey...whoever you wanna kill.
The 5.56 has more hitting power than the 7.62? Pass me some of whatever you are smoking.
Oh, and it might just be me, but if you are shooting someone, putting a bigger hole in them is almost always a good thing.
Well, when you look at wound channels characteristics, in an ideal situation 5.56 does perform a bit better then 7.62. But thats due to fragmentation and the 7.62 being the old ball ammo. But fragmentation isnt always assured in the 5.56, and the 7.62 carries more energy farther. I'd take 7.62 and use hollow points, which would make 5.56 look like a .22LR
In an ideal situation, yes the fragmentation should make a larger wound channel. But that isnt what I consider "hitting power". Hitting power is knocking the target down, something that the 5.56mm has never been praised for, prairie dogs excluded. But anyway, considering that the military has been going to shorter barrel lengths (standardizing the M4 carbine) and has switched to M855, fragmentation is going to occur less. And fragmentation is all the 5.56mm has going for it. I have talked to someone recently back from Iraq, and he is highly pissed at the performance of the 5.56mm in combat. You should not have to put five (or more) rounds into the targets chest to put him down. Back when 7.62mm was the standard, if you put five rounds into a man's chest before he went down, it was quite remarkable, even if you hit him at 400+ yards. With 5.56mm it is barely worth mentioning, even if you were shooting at him from under 150 yards.
Everyone wants a reliable weapon in a war zone. Shouldnt your ammo be able to do a reliable job, too?