We killed the plate today

Any .308 AP rounds available for a side by side?

Nice drill.

I have some of that. My dad picked it up in the sixties. There are only thirty rounds...I think. I'm glad to know what they're like!

Mark

Death to the plate!!! I am hoarding a couple hundred rounds of the stuff. Mine is headstamped "FN" and it is mostly 66 and 67 vintage. I was lucky enough to get a couple of Armor Plate door inserts for a Humvee a few years back, when the Rock Island Arsenal was retro fitting the vehicles for use in the sandbox. It was 1/4 " and it was damned heavy!

It was no match for the Belgian ammo. Zipped right through at fifty yards. Didn't try it at 100. For comparison, a green tipped M-855 round barely dented it. An m-193 left little more than a smudge, ditto for 7.62X39. A 7.62 147 gr NATO bullet left a small dent.

I think the FN ammo might have real tungsten cores. They don't want to stick to a magnet. Years ago I shot a bar of 1018 steel that was 3/4" thick. The penetrator almost made it through. The nose was sticking out of the off side to a distance of about 1/4".

And It was still needle sharp.

Have to ask: how many years do you get in the whooosgow for "killing the plate?"

Hanzo581 said:

Any .308 AP rounds available for a side by side?

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It would do almost exactly the same thing as M2 AP. Getting 308 AP ammo legally is the problem...no such issues with M2.

Great photo.

When I was a kid, my father used to pull the black tipped AP bullets from surplus 30-06 and load them full steam into Grandpa's 300 Weatherby

Ignoring the holes, IMHO you've got potentially dangerous creators that can focus the splatter from a second impact back at you -- especially at only 50-100 yards!

Was that mild steel or ar500?

I've got two cans of that black tip in Garand clips and bandoleers.

got a welder?
and a grinder?

I knew someone would say this but look at the hole clean through. Nothing ricocheted here.

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The rounds making a hole going straight through is not going to be a problem, its when a round the won't penetrate hits a creator that the creator can deflect (focus) the splatter straight back at you -- instead a zillion small pieces fanning out at a shallow angle to the face of the plate, you can get a rather large piece heading straight back the way it came! If you think its a non-issue, keep shooting pockmarked steel plates and eventually you will learn the hard way and I'll say I told you so.

Wally is right.

When a new bullet hits an old crater, there is a significant chance that the bullet will come right back at you.

Our club has to routinely weld and grind our steel plates to prevent this.

7.62 X 54 R with Albanian steel core did the trick for me.

Went through like it was cardboard. Nasty round.

wally said:

The rounds making a hole going straight through is not going to be a problem, its when a round the won't penetrate hits a creator that the creator can deflect (focus) the splatter straight back at you -- instead a zillion small pieces fanning out at a shallow angle to the face of the plate, you can get a rather large piece heading straight back the way it came! If you think its a non-issue, keep shooting pockmarked steel plates and eventually you will learn the hard way and I'll say I told you so.

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Even supposed 'experts' who know this play it stupid. I read online of someone shooting steel at 12 inches and showing his shrapnel & blood-spattered hand in a pic. He was really lucky but never did explain why...knowing better...he decided to shoot that close. (I and others asked)

The best ammunition to use for steel plates is cast lead. The bullets simply flatten themselves against the plate, and are found at the bottom of the plate rack.

The best ammunition to use for steel plates is cast lead. The bullets simply flatten themselves against the plate, and are found at the bottom of the plate rack.

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I used to think that, but with true AR500 or harder plates there is no significant difference between jacketed and cast if the plates are not cratered. Cast lead will likely be "easier" on marginal plates.

Fact is the only time splatter has drawn blood on me was shooting .22lr at 10 yards, it barely broke the skin and hit my middle finger knuckle right below the trigger guard. But if you shoot handguns at true AR500 steel plates at generally safe distances like 10 yards minimum you will eventually get hit by splatter, but with good eye protecting its nothing but a minor inconvenience, but its crucial that everyone on the firing line wear eye protection even bystanders.

I've never been hit with splatter shooting rifle rounds, although I shoot literally hundreds of times more rounds at steel plates with pistols compared to rifles and never shoot at cratered plates or distances less than 50 yards with center-fire rifles.

Here is a nice bonded jacketed HP I found at the base of the rack one time, I thought it "artistic"

Anyone have any input on frangible for shooting at steel? From what I understand it basically turns to dust when hitting something like steel.

Although not cheap it seems like it would be extremely safe???

Big7 said:

7.62 X 54 R with Albanian steel core did the trick for me.

Went through like it was cardboard. Nasty round.

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I doubt your plate was AR500 that steel is harder then the steel core on that surplus stuff. I pop mine regularly and now issues....I actually have more problems with small bullets going super fast. 220 swift will tear up a plate fast...No matter how thick

fpgt72 said:

....I actually have more problems with small bullets going super fast. 220 swift will tear up a plate fast...No matter how thick

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Yeppers, I don't know why that is, but I've heard it before. Back in the '80s, the wife and I were heavily into IHMSA (International Handgun Metallic Silhouette Association) shooting. We shot steel all over Idaho, and back then there were a lot of us Idaho silhouette shooters that had experiences with what we called "The Boise Pig." For some reason, I don't know why, the steel, 100 meter "pig" targets were set "hard" over in Boise. That is, the IHMSA club in Boise set up their pig targets in a manner that made them hard to tip over, even with solid hits. And if they didn't tip over, they didn't count. I saw my wife dead center a "Boise Pig" once in a state championship shoot with a full house, 220 grain, .44 Magnum load. And all the hit did was shake the dust off the pig, and push him back a little. But he didn't tip over, so my wife didn't get that point.
Anyway, getting back on topic - I remember listening to a ticked off silhouette shooter once who had just returned from a shoot over in Boise. He was vowing to take his .221 Fireball to Boise the next time he went just to "poke holes" through those, "blankety-blank Boise Pigs."

denton said:

The best ammunition to use for steel plates is cast lead. The bullets simply flatten themselves against the plate, and are found at the bottom of the plate rack.

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Not in my experience. Cast bullets that are anything harder than dead soft, going anything faster than 600-700fps, splatter heavily against steel plates and create a safety hazard in the form of high velocity lead splatter debris. My plates have trenches in front of each one dug in the ground by nothing except lead splatter. Objects such as woody debris to the side of plate targets show heavy damage from lead splatter if left anywhere within a few feet. I have a bullet trap and if you pin paper targets onto the mouth of them, you can see hundreds of holes in the target from pin prick to pencil eraser size after a few shots from where splattered lead particles have penetrated them from behind.

From a durability standpoint, they will give your plates the best longevity, if cast pretty soft and velocity is kept fairly low.
But a hardcast .44 magnum SWC will dimple an AR500 plate a surprising amount.

fpgt72 said:

I actually have more problems with small bullets going super fast. 220 swift will tear up a plate fast...No matter how thick

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I have trouble believing that.

The one friend I have that has his own range that we shoot at steel at uses 8x11" plates that he gets from the railroad. They are 1" thick and my buddy says they are made from "high carbon" steel but I'm not a metallurgist so I don't know how that rates in terms of hardening.

What I do know is that the only thing to ever make it through one of those plates was a 50BMG, and believe me when I say we've shot just about everything below that caliber at them.