RBCD, live game shot

Status
Not open for further replies.
L

lostdog

Member
Joined
Jan 27, 2003
Messages
91
Location
SC
First off, this is not to start an argument. I saw what happened to the other thread, and don't want that here. This is ammo, so don't envolve attacks on people in it. The website is www.RBCD.net NOT .com

A friend of mine, who is a distributor for this stuff, shot a 120+ pound whitetail with it, under controlled conditions, broadside with backup gun in case of wounding. The lungs were shredded, the heart destroyed, and the deer took a few steps and fell. The bullet fragments were found under the of-side skin. The gentleman who processed the animal, upon being asked about the damage, thought that it looked like a 25-06 did it. The deer was shot with a .223.

Do a google seach on RCD and IRAQ and you will find an armed forces journel articule about this stuff being used over there. The friends of the man who used this now buy it by the case. I know from friends in the spec-ops community that there is talk of a budget to test this ammo for use in the tactical arena.

Blackwater, who provides Gov. contract policing in areas of US occupancy has done extensive test on this stuff, and found it to work. They issue it to their people. I have wathched the video of side by side testing, and carry this ammo. I trust it with my life every day. I know there is much controversy surrounding this ammo, but I encourage you to test it before you write it off. You cannot see a bullets effectiveness by cutting it open. I have found it to be accurate, and destructiive in liquid mediums.

I am not affileated with RBCD in any way, I just thought it deserved defending.
 
Thanks for posting! I'd really love to see what it does in handgun calibers.

Maybe if I send Mr Camp some ammo he'll try it! :p I think I'd personally be leery of trying 9mm, 40 or 45ACP on deer-sized game.
 
Aren't US soldiers in the international arena strictly forbidden from using this along with hollow points? I'm pretty sure that NATO only allows ball ammo to be used in small arms by our armed forces. Do I just have that totally wrong or something?

brad cook
 
Yes, the ammo is not allowed for military use. The person who used the ammo was some sort of 'consultant,' if you will. The only description I have see of the ammo's use in combat was of a singular incident and it did sound impressive.

Then again, every use of super ammo always has an impressive story. We don't know how many other times it was used where it DID NOT work. Extreme shock used to market their ammo as being 'battle tested' or some such phrase and reading the print you find that what they meant was that they shot a couple Russian boars.

I liked lostdog's commentary reference, "I know from friends in the spec-ops community..." It may be 100% legit, but the vague reference to elite fighters is what is called an 'appeal to disembodied authority' if we were looking at the comment as part of argument construction for why the ammo needs to be looked at by the rest of us. And, that is exactly what lostdog is doing. This is a logic error as there is absolutely no way for us to verify comments by his elite fighter friends. I could just as well tell you that my elite fighter friends have found the ammo to be a miserable failure and my comment be just as invalid for the same reason.

lostdog, you were vague in noting we could find out more by searching the internet. The only valid reference I can recall was an online source for a US military e-magazine article and it was only of a single kill. You gotta wonder that with a year in Iraq just how it is that 'consultants' have only used this ammo once...or maybe it didn't perform as hyped except in the one test. I would be glad to hear of more and very specific online references if you have them.

FYI - many types of ammo are destructive in liquid media. Actually, pretty much all are.
 
I'm pretty sure that NATO only allows ball ammo to be used in small arms by our armed forces.
Click to expand...
News flash. Neither the UN nor NATO is the boss of us. Much to their dismay.

It is the Hague Accord (of which the US did not sign) is what determines what ammunition is acceptable for war.


Of course our involvement in Iraq is not a "war". There are some special ops that do use expanding ammunition.
 
Thanks for the info BluesBear. I was not under the impression that NATO is in charge of us. I thought that we had signed an agreement where we agreed to use ball ammo by some NATO request. Either way, thanks for the info.

brad cook
 
This is a re-hash of an old topic (which also explains the Hague Conventions and so forth...)

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51667&highlight=RBCD

The military will never adopt it for general use, even if it somehow works as advertised. The U.S. military has traditionally followed a very strict interpretation of the Hague Conventions when it comes to the laws of land warfare, regardless of its status as a signatory of the original 1910 treaty.

You can find exceptions, sure. But the U.S. military has almost always taken the legal stance that Article 23 prohibits the use of all small-arms ammo designed to expand or fragment on impact with the human body to increase injury to the same. The usually noted exceptions are for counter-terrorism (since they aren't fighting regular soldiers, the restrictions don't apply) and snipers (who use a "hollow-point" 168gr BTHP that doesn't seem to wound any more than the FMJ equivalent).

"In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden... To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;"

Vague as all get-out, no doubt. But again, the traditional U.S. military legal take on it is that almost anything but full metal jacket small arms ammunition is a no-no for that reason.
Click to expand...
 
why when testing do they use a rifle?? I mean, most people already don't have a problem dropping a dear sized target with a rifle, and damaging the meat more will not help hunters, so what exactly is the point of this test again??

I mean if you are going for a large damage area, show it in a defensive hand gun. Show me a 9mm drop a deer as fast....

*edit to add... and why is this posted in the hand gun section?? what works for rifles has nothing to do with hand guns.... If a test is to be a valid reason to look into using it for a carry round, it must be out of a hand gun, AND one of a resonable barrel lenght that people carry.
 
web links/info

I tried to link Y'all , but it didn't work. Do the google search on RBCD iraq
and read the "Airborne combat engineer" articule titled "magic, or magnificent" that should help.

The reson this is in the hanguns thread is b/c this ammo is for both hangun and rifle. I understand that a rifle will drop a deer, but the point is that this did 25-06 damage to a deer.

I recently found out a friend shot a doe with this in .40 s&w at 25 yd, and the deer fell in it's tracks. This was a lung shot, and damage was comparable to .45 magsafe(which i have seen used many times) These people are not being bad hunters, by the way...these are test of ammo during legal hunting season, with backup guns in case of wounding.

By the way, the m193 ball ammom is designed to frag along the canlure of the bullet at ranges under 75yd, so this is not a new idea to our armed forces.

My friends in the ops community I refered to consist of 2 former seals, 1 army ranger, an agent of Christians In Action(CIA), and a Blackwater operator. These people keep abreast of what is going on, and between them and the friends who are currently deployed, the general feeling is that this stuff should be caried if at all possible, both handgun and rifle.

I know it sounds odd, but some people don't trust ball in combat, and a few people have secreted this stuff over there. The US gov. doesn't check dead ragheads to make sure we use the right ammo.

I guy I shoot with here in college is doing a physics thesis on rapid decelaration due to non-compresible mediums(water). Like how a sub can go 5K feet under water, but shatter when dropped from 5K feet. This ammo works on that priciple, according to him, the metal is a little soft, like lead, but unlike lead it doesn't sheer off, it "splatters" and the little front end of the bullet slows down so fast that the big back end goes through it, thus creating a really unique wound cavity. Both deer were damaged way beyond the basic wound channel, leaving me to believe there is a large "strech" cavity. We are water, so it seems to work for chest and head hits. If you are not confident in your marksman ship, then carry somthin else. This stuff will probly respond the same as any soft point with an arm hit, just the higher speed will do more damage.

To me it seems that we are now using scientific methods to creat ammo, and I like the idea. Remeber that Jim Crillo is involved with this, and that is a lifetime of wisdom to apply.

You can't tell how a bullet functions by cutting it open, so let's not argue about laws, or what "any rifle will do to a deer" but ask "does ythis stuff work"? .......I thought mag-safe was phony when I first saw it, too :evil:
 
My friends in the ops community I refered to consist of 2 former seals, 1 army ranger, an agent of Christians In Action(CIA), and a Blackwater operator. These people keep abreast of what is going on, and between them and the friends who are currently deployed, the general feeling is that this stuff should be caried if at all possible, both handgun and rifle.
Click to expand...

Riiiiight. :rolleyes:
 
don't insult

Hey, if you don't believe me, then fine, but don't try to take this thread somewhere it's not going. I work SCDOT contract management, and quite a few former military operators make into leadership roles after serving. Also, my father is/was a vet and has introduced me to a few people. The CIA analyst is a former USMC, who worked around here between government jobs, running polygryphs for a local department, while on the list. The only reason I'm not giving details about them is out of respect.
 
By the way, the m193 ball ammom is designed to frag along the canlure of the bullet at ranges under 75yd, so this is not a new idea to our armed forces.
Click to expand...

No, it's not. The fragmentation that occurs is a side-effect of the projectile's thin jacket and its high velocity. It is not "frangible" ammuniton.

Unless you can produce a Department of Defense statement of requirement for the 5.56mm cartridge, saying that fragmentation of the bullet is one of the design requirements for the ammunition, then it wasn't "designed" to fragment.

Given our traditionally strict obervance of the Hague Accords, I doubt the DOD would find acceptable ball ammuniton that was "designed" to fragment as such. To the very best of my knowledge, 5.56mm fragmentation isn't mentioned anywhere in the various US Military FM and TM manuals regarding the M16 series of rifles and their respective types of ammunition. (Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong on this, and tell me which FM it's mentioned in. I'd be interested in reading up on that.)

Anyway, I'm glad that the ammunition you tried is working for you. The question is, does it work any better than a conventional jacketed soft point round?
 
NEXT QUESTION is:

lostdog - - Why did you post this particular topic in the Handguns: General Discussion forum?

Johnny Guest
Moderator
 
Given our traditionally strict obervance of the Hague Accords, I doubt the DOD would find acceptable ball ammuniton that was "designed" to fragment as such.
Click to expand...

The hague accords were specifically written to forbid early wood-filled hollowpoints (think cor-bon powerball but with wood), but were extended to include: "arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering." Its pretty vague. If the bullet fragments so that it wounds without killing, then its probably bad. If the bullet fragments so that it kills quicker then that is probably allowable.
 
From the link above:

so much for lead-free, programmable, heat sensitive “blended metal technologyâ€â€¦
Click to expand...

The only problem there is that nobody has produced evidence that RBCD claimed that their TFSP pistol bullet (as reported analyzed in the link above) was a "blended metal technology" projectile, as opposed to their APLP rifle bullets, which they HAVE claimed use some funky "blended metal technology" projectile.

Incidentally, this is probalby why the topic started here earlier about how RBCD was a fraud based on the link above got not merely locked, but deleted entirely.
 
I reply

This is a good articule on ball ammo. even id the US military does not "officially" make frangible ammo, then it is curios that it acts that way.
Also, Mr smith, if you do not like me making refrence to "friends" then it makes no diffrence to me, just ignore it. I've not lied to anyone on here, nor do I intend to, but I will not let this forum become an argument b/c someone doesn't want to believe me.

I hope this link works, it is a gret resource on RBCD- http://airbornecombatengineer.typepad.com/airborne_combat_engineer/2004/01/blended_metal_b.html


> According to Reports in Periodical Magazines, which conducted tests on
> the SS109 Ball ammo, it _will_ TUMBLE and BREAKUP! Actually it is
> referred to as "YAWING" and it was found to fragment upon penetration
> around the Crimping Knurl. So, while it was intended to make the SS109
> more "Human", it does still perform similarly to the M193 Ball. (The
> Swiss manufactured an entirely different 5.56 round for their Stg90
> which was extensively tested to be "Human".) As well their Technical
> Editor explained all the Twist Rates; 1 n 7": Tracer; 1 n 9": Ball, 1 n
> 12": M193 Ball. Target Match Barrel Makers equip their barrels with 1 n
> 9" Twists,(I know one). Colt offered AR15A2's with 1 n 7" (MilStandard)
> and 1 n 9" for those who did not intend to fire the (very long) Tracer
> Rounds, i.e. Target Shooters. (Ref: Peter Kokalis' many articles on the
> Subject, re SOF's Firearms Technical Editor and Publisher of Fighting
> Firearms.)

Mark is indeed correct here - the SS109 (or in the Oz case, F1) is
_still_ designed to UPSET (or "tumble") in a dense medium (such as
flesh) - as are all military "Ball" projectiles.

The mechanics are slightly diferent to those of the M193 which was
apparently too lightly constructed for its' velocity and spin rate.
(See "The Great Rifle Controversy" by E.C. Ezell for a lot of good
background on how the US Ordnance Dept ruined a fairly well designed
cartridge).

The SS109 and derivatives are loaded with a 62.5 gr (4g) projectile
consisting of a conventional jacket, a soft lead core and a triangular
hardened steel penetrator in the nose.

The penetrator serves a couple of functions - firstly it enhances
penetration on steel targets and body armour etc - an impressive
secondary effect is a large shower of sparks often generated by the
interaction of the penetrator with the target which can ignite
flammables such as fuel tanks - what I call a pryoriffic effect! In
this case the lead core acts as a hammer, driving the penetrator into
the target.

Secondly, when penetrating a softer medium, the lighter nose tends to
decelerate, whilst the (much) heavier base tends to continue pushing.
Combined with the rotational velocity, this results in a yawing or
upset, where the projectile completes a 360 degree rotation on it's
longitudinal axis - typically over about 200 mm in 10% ballistic
gelatine, compared to around 400 mm which the 7.62 mm Ball takes for
the same manoeuver.

Wound cavities tend to be similar to those of the M193 round, however
as noted earlier the SS109 tends to either stay intact, but bend around
the junction between the penetrator and the core, or fragment into two
or three large pieces, usually the core, penetrator, and a portion of
the jacket, instead of many small fragments as does the M193. Such
larger fragments tend to create greater tissue disruption, leading to
better incapacitiaton.

Unfortuantely (or possibly fortunately, depending on your point of
view) we have little practical (operational) experience as yet of this
round, at most a couple of instances such as during our troop
deployment to Somalia indicated that the round tends to act as
advertised.

What it does do, especially combined with our optical sighted F88 Steyr
rifles, is make otherwise poor shots, adequate shots. When
demonstrating the weapon to troops in the early days, I often received
the comment - "it makes it impossible to miss now!". My response was
always " No, but you now will have to work a little bit harder at being
a bad shot". ;-)

Greg Sheppard
Weapons Group
Army Technology and Engineering Agency
Australian Army
 
Mark is indeed correct here - the SS109 (or in the Oz case, F1) is
_still_ designed to UPSET (or "tumble") in a dense medium (such as
flesh) - as are all military "Ball" projectiles.
Click to expand...

Designed to?

All bullets will tumble after changing mediums. It's because they're not round. Some bullets, such as hard cast hunting types and armor piercing projectiles, are designed to minimize this, to ensure maximum penetration.

However, to say that they were "designed" to do this is not technically correct, as it is something that all bullets will do whether they are "designed to" or not. It's because the back end of a pointy bullet has more mass than the front end. Upon meeting more resistance, the back end, with its higher mass and more momentum will decellerate at a slower rate than the skinny, light pointed end, and the bullet with thusly "flip" and often exit sideways or backwards, depending on how long it's in the medium.

An example of this can be by taping a weight to the bottom of an empty soda bottle. Drop it off of a roof, and the heavier end will orient itself to towards the ground, because thanks to its higher momentum, air resistance affects it less.
 
MOVING - - -

- - -Over to RIFLE forum.

Please, guys - -

When you get wind of the newest "Miracle Bullet Technology," try running a SEARCH to see if it has been "announced" and discussed previously.

Best,
Johnny
 
I still haven't read from any of you whether I'd be wasting my money to buy this over Golden Saber for self defence, when I get to carry in a few years. Is there undeniable evidence that this stuff works all that much better than other JHPs?
 
Is there undeniable evidence that this stuff works all that much better than other JHPs?
Click to expand...

None that I've seen.

But...undeniable evidence is nigh-impossible to obtain in this area. The only way to test it would be to shoot identical people (clones, perhaps?) in the exact same spot, at the exact same angle, and at the exact same range, with different loads.

And even then, there are unaccounted for variables. Then, on top of that, all six billion people in this world are different.

So, no, you're not going to get any solid evidence, I don't think. I'd stick with regular stuff, since it's cheaper. *shrug* Hell, I don't feel underarmed with .45ACP FMJ.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

E
  • Locked
1-shot killer
2 3 4
Replies
75
Views
5K
Jeff OTMG
J
J
  • Locked
Cool new ammo tested in Iraq
Replies
4
Views
606
Correia
C
Matthew Clark
  • Locked
30-30win Usefull jacketed bullets from Sierra Bullets
Replies
15
Views
955
Matthew Clark
Matthew Clark
troy fairweather
  • Locked
old mauser 98 bluing
Replies
8
Views
714
troy fairweather
troy fairweather
R
  • Locked
new ruger 17mach2 test, plus a super lucky shot!
Replies
2
Views
460
kcmarine
K
Back
Top