Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: BTW, the 7.62x39mm in ballistic gelatin essentially replicates the performance of .38 Special, a round not known for its superior terminal effectiveness. The .38 enters, yaws and leaves base first. Marshall and Sanow rate that caliber at 50%. So even they do't like it. However, there is no denying that a LOT of people have been killed with that caliber. Also, energy transfer is BS. All that matters as a wounding mechanism is the amount and type of destroyed and damaged tissue, the amount of blood loss, etc. Too bad Combat Jack is too young to have gone to SEA with me. I'd have loved to have given him a .38 and told him " Don't worry, Those Commie guns are no more effective than a .38. Every Jello test proves it!" I think he is about 19.  It just shows you not to take everything as gosepel that is said here, that said their is abundant amounts of useful info to be had.

I'm 19? This from someone who obviously doesn't have any responsibilities. I don't have time to do 3000+ posts in just over a year. I have to work.

Quoted: Quoted: The bullet design of the 7.62mm is the reason why it has such deep penetration, and why the bullet does not yaw earlier. With less velocity the bullet will be prone to yaw earlier: therefore causing more damage. Again, what are you basing this on? Doesnt 5.56 fragment, because it yaws? Same with 5.45, the high speed and sudden change in density causes it to quickly yaw (along with the weight bias to the rear). Its possible that less velocity could cause it to yaw less. You cant really say for sure without tests of the rounds out of shorter barrels.

5.56 fragments because it has a thinner jacket, combined with velocity.  Check out the Ammo Oracle for info on this.  Most 7.62x39 rounds have a relatively thick jacket, which is why they don't fragment.   If one were to make a 7.62x39 round that did fragment or consistently expand, however, it would most likely be one of the most effective military rifle rounds on the planet.  I wouldn't worry about it being obsolete; .45-70 Govt is "obsolete", too, and how many people want to get shot with one of those ?  

I have some steel plates I use for targets.  I fired at them with three rifles, my AR, with a 16 inch barrel, my 7.62x39 AK, and my FAL, which is of course, .308.  From the AR I was shooting 55 grain jacketed bullets, Wolf from the AK and South African surplus from the FAL.  All rounds were fired from about 10 meters.

Where the .308 bullet struck, the front side of the plated was significantly cratered.  Displaced metal was pushed towards the direction of fire in a raised ridge around the crater.  A bulge could be seen on the back side of the plate.

The 5.56 bullet created a crater similar in configuration to the .308 impact, including the bulge on the back of the plate and displaced metal, but proportionately smaller.

The AK cleaned the paint off, and left no dent, damage or displaced metal.  When I repainted the plate, I was unable to tell where the 7.62x39 had hit.

I own many AKs, and am a fan of the platform, but if you think the 7.62x39 is on par performance wise with more modern cartridges, you are on crack.  It proliferates merely because of the volume in which the weapons were produced, and the number of countries that produced them.

That is all.

Quoted:  I wouldn't worry about it being obsolete; .45-70 Govt is "obsolete", too, and how many people want to get shot with one of those ?

+1, no round is obsolete when it's being fired at you.

5.56 fragments because it has a thinner jacket, combined with velocity.

I understand that, but it happens when it starts to yaw, putting more stress on the bullet. Its going to yaw anyway, the velocity determines if the jacket can handle the stress. Looking at diagrams of 'wound channels' through gelatin, just before it fragments it starts to yaw.

My main point there was that 5.56 and 5.45 still yaw quickly and have high velocity, in regards to the notion that slower velocity would yield faster yaw. That may or may not be the case, i dont know, i just brought up a couple high velocity rounds that quickly yaw, then the discussion turned to bullet design and all that..

No, basically Jack I agree with about 90% of what you have said. The "problems" that you addressed in your first post are essentially the problems I saw couple with the issues that Dorsai discussed.


The 7.62 even with a substantial velocity reduction would still be prone to over penetration on interior walls, thereby making the cartridge more dangerous to the non-bad guys (whom ever they may be).  Moreover, I would highly doubt that shooting a standard lead core 123 gr FMJ out of a Krink would cause such a decrease in velocity that the projectile's penetration would be limited to the degree of staying inside a torso at CQB distance.  A 7.62X25 out of a CZ52 will zip right through a torso; granted this is a round nose 90 gr pistol style FMJ, but the 123 gr 7.62X39 is denser and obviously has more mass. Consequently, even if it tumbles it should display more penetration.

Quoted: IIRC the 7.62x39 round is inherently a very accurate round.  More so than the 5.56 if i'm not mistaken.

And where do you get this from?

Now, you can have a decent argument on said subject WRT 7.62x51, or 7.62x54R, but the x39 has nothing about it to indicate this would be the case...

It would be nice to see an experiment on the subject, maybe out of a 20" AR (yes, this is the AK side, but we can all settle that a 20" AR is a more inherantly accurate platform than the 16" AK), or a bolt gun (IIRC, ruger makes a bolt-action in x39)...

Absent firing a large quantity from the same gun using the same shooter, all we can speculate on is general characteristics...

In that area, it's known that:

1) 5.56mm is accurate out past 600m. 7.62x39 is generally limited to 300m

2) 7.62x39 has a far more severe trajectory than 5.56

3) In most cases, 7.62x39 performs like a conventional cartridge: it makes a .30cal hole straight rhru, with some shock damage to surrounding material... The concept of a high-velocity fragmenting round was discovered 'by accident' with early 5.56, and later reproduced (in some sense) with the 5.45...

Also, it should be noted that the 'prolific' nature of the 7.62x39 is primarily confined to ex-Soviet client states and 3rd-world nations, where the cost per round is the primary factor in ammunition selection...

P.S. Since the AK, AR, and a great multiplicity of weapons come in both 5.56 and 7.62x39, I would not consider this to be an issue, other than .30 AKs are far more common than 5.56 ones...

I still may be crazy but I think a great CQB rifle would be this img138.imageshack.us/img138/7708/fnminimispw5az.jpg

As long as you're the one carrying that sucker...

It's no MAG58, but the Minimi (aka M249/SAW) and associated variants are still heavy-ass weapons...