5.56 x 45 Wound

Very nasty.  You’ve been warned.  Lots of discussion from both medical and ballistics points of view, so I thought you’d be interested.  It’s here on the Philippine Defense Forum.  I found it as a link off of GunRightsMedia.  Femur was not hit but was broken by shock wave, they say.  M193 Ball at close range.

For comparison; a fifty caliber (.495″) soft lead ball at ~1000 to ~1500 fps on impact will not do anywhere near that much damage, and I can say that with some authority having necropsied four deer shot with same from various angles.  The slower round pretty much digs a straight, caliber-sized hole through anything it touches (though I haven’t seen a 50 ball hit a femur.  I have seen a 7 mm 168 gr match HP hit a femur, on the way out of a deer, having struck initially at ~2.5Kfps and passing through much of the animal, and that broke the heavy bone into several pieces).  You learn a few things about terminal ballistics when hunting, so you don’t have to listen to much of the talk.  The phrase; “Your pistol is the weapon you use to get back to your rifle” comes to mind, only the rifle should be putting lead on target at over 2Kfps according to these chaps.

Now clean up your lunch.

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6 thoughts on “5.56 x 45 Wound

  1. Pretty impressive, and to think that the military isn’t allowed to use expanding ammo.

  2. Ouch.

    I did get to see a 12ga to the foot in the ER last month. Pretty nasty, although there was no lead or shot in the foot, only blown apart soft tissue.

    The lady was screaming about the “pistol grip mossberg.” Lol, the ER docs didn’t know what that was. Typical inner city morons.

    I also got to see a 32acp shot through a heavy winter coat. Not to knock the P32 but carry something larger with more fps if you can.

  3. I’m wondering about what grain bullet and barrel twist rate the gun in question has. I have heard that the old 1:12, 1:15 twist rates with 55gr get shot in the shouder it would rip your arm off. Definitley not a 55gr in a 1:7 barrel. Or this could be a 1:7 with a 62gr bullet.

  4. M193 Ball is some nasty stuff. Out of a 16″ 1:9 barrel, I’ve had some very good results on critters. Don’t waste any money buying the more expensive M855 “green tip”.

  5. Shawn; the M193 uses 55 grain bullets. Estimated impact velocity; 3Kfps. They said it was an “M-16″ so I assume the bbl was rifle length. I don’t know if the twist is all that important here. Maybe someone can point us to some side-by-side terminal ballistics tests using the M193 wherein the only variable was twist. That would be interesting come to think of it. All I can tell you from experience is that M193 sure plays hell with water jugs out to 350 yards, from a full length 7” twist bbl. I haven’t used anything in 5.56 on critters as has Bill. Just looking at the photos, even the ball ammo would be dynamite on coyotes, inside 300 yards anyway.

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