What do you think of these small-bore, high velocity PDWs?

[DonP]

My son got to shoot the MP7 and other H&K toys

He was down at Ft. Rucker AL and the H&K people came down with a lot of goodies for the US Artmy Aviation units to test drive.

As PDW for a Blackhawk or Apache driver, a little tiny MP7 might be kind of handy and a lot easier to fit into a cockpit with a decent load of ammo than an M-16 commando model with a lot more firepower than a semi auto pistol.

I have all the brochures they left with him at home. (He's deployed now and had to clean things up before he left so he sent them to me to make me feel bad!) The MP-7 is only slightly larger than the Berretta semi-auto.

They had several flavors of the new toys, including a suprressed version that he was able to hold on target at full auto with longer bursts. One of their pilots down there cut the heart out of the target at 100 yards, like one of the carnival games where you have to shoot the star out. It was a wet surpressor and he said it was "quieter than a pellet pistol" for short bursts.

They also demoed it on body armor and the kevlar helmets. He said it went through all the stuff, including trauma plates at 50 yards. Small hole in and out though.

His overall impression was very nice hardware and it seemed pretty rugged. Of course the only souvenir he got for his old man was an H&K T-shirt and gimme cap. I suggested that he go back to the range and see if they left an extra MP7 around, but no luck.

Don P.

 

[Nightcrawler]

About these small-bore, high-velocity PDWs, with their itty bitty super-light bullets...yes, they'll penetrate soft armor and flak jackets, but they don't do as much damage once they get through as a 130 year old .45 Colt round. Obviously, it's a compromise.

Another pistol round that penetrates well is the 7.62x25mm Tokarev. Similar to the FN 5.7 round, but larger and not "armor piercing pistol ammo", the 7.62 Tok round will slide through many level IIA and II vests, and is also good for defeating hard cover. Again, a .30 caliber, 86 grain bullet is a bit on the small side for a handgun, and again it's a compromise.

So I've been thinking. Any pistol round that is designed to penetrate armor and hard cover is going to compromise terminal ballistics; it will, by design, have to be a non-expanding bullet.

However, a 9mm+ caliber bullet that doesn't expand is LESS of a compromise than a .22 caliber bullet that doesn't expand.

So I've been thinking. It might be less complex, logistics wise, to load existing pistol ammo to "AP" specs, instead of adopting an expensive round dedicated to that purpose and possibly of limited utility.

In order to better penetrate soft and hard cover, you need a few factors, as I understand it. The more mass your bullet has, the better, as it gives it more momentum. You also need as much velocity as possible. But there's more to it than that. You'd want a very hard bullet, possibly steel cored, or tungsten, or at least steel jacketed FMJ. (After all, tungsten bullets are probably expensive.)

In order to facilitate better penetration, you'd also want a sharp, pointy bullet, if at all possible. Of course, such bullets don't feed well in autoloaders, from what I've heard. So I'd start with a strong revolver.

.357 Magnum would be a good platform. First, you'd want the proper bullet; a pointy, super hard, steel-cored, steel jacketed 158 grainer, or maybe even a heavier one. But let's stick with 158 grains. You'd also want it to be a long bullet.

You'd want a hot charge under it, to propell it to at LEAST 1300 feet per second, 1500 if you can get it (you can, but you need a strong gun).

It could be done with .44 Magnum, too. .44 Mag has a much larger bore diameter, but it can also use much heavier bullets. So it'd be a tradeoff, but it'd probably be harder to get a .44 to go through a soft armor vest than a .357, oddly enough.

Just an idea. It'd be prettymuch illegal to load ammunition like this, so nobody try. Just musing over here. It wouldn't necessarily have to be "armor piercing", though. In one of his commentaries, Jeff Cooper suggested such a load, out of a .357, as backwoods bear defense, against the smaller breeds of bear. He said you'd have to be a good shot, but said that the tradeoff would be that backpackers would be more likely to carry a light .357 revolver than a huge, heavy .454 or something. A .357 in hand is worth a .500 Linebaugh in the safe, after all. Don't know much about bears, myself, but it'd certainly be better than nothing.

 

[Robert inOregon]

Read it twice now. I'll have to fire up another bowl.