Ductile Iron Bullets why not?

[oil pan 4]

The first M16 rifles used a 1:14 barrel twist and the bullets would tumble as they went transsonic some where beyond 500 yards.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Piotrsko

Why does it have to be ductile cast iron?

Presumably for safety concerns. After hitting the target, it could be expected to not go further and eventually hitting someone else.

[Xist]

The King of Random made his own lead bullets and said he needed to use a different barrel with them.

Of course, my only source for that is some dead guy.

[RustyLugNut]

Old Russian AK rounds. Came in a tin like SPAM would. Steel core with a copper cladding.

My son, who is in the Army, has steel tipped M855 ammunition for his AR.

I have machined soft steel rounds for 50 Caliber BMG. Long range target shooting. After machining, the rounds were put in the oven and stress relieved to make them dead soft.

I have cast bronze bullets for 45 ACP to meet minimum energy requirements for IPSC shooting. My cousin had a race gun tuned to provide minimum energy and thus almost no kick for speed shooting.

Lead is simply cheap and effective for most shooting requirements. Everything else must match the cost with the application.

[Xist]

People always rant and rave about AR-15s and, of course, they get all kinds of stuff wrong, like the civilian who insisted that my PT uniform wasn't a uniform, it was an outfit.

Civilians generally don't get to decide how the military does things.

When I was in the Army our M-4s and M-16s constantly malfunctioned. Whenever something goes wrong for me people always say "Obviously you were doing something wrong!"

All of our rifles malfunctioned, we cleaned them after every time we went to the range, and our Drill Sergeants inspected them.

I read a long history about the history of the AR-15 in the Atlantic and it explained that Eugene Stoner designed the weapon to use stick gun powder and an Air Force General adopted it in 1962, but the Army fought it for years, and when they finally agreed to use it, they insisted on changing it, and each of those changes made things worse.

They rigged tests to make the M-14 look better--and threw out data that made it look worse.

I read elsewhere that they altered the rifles they tested in Alaska so they failed that test. Stoner immediately flew up, inspected the weapons, undid the alterations, and they worked perfectly, but the Army said they needed to tighten the rifling to make the rifle work better in extreme cold, despite actively fighting in Vietnam.

They also insisted on adding a forward assist, which the Air Force fought, as well as Stoner.

The article says the Marines fought it, too, although I read elsewhere they didn't care.

One source said that troops found it to be helpful, but the Air Force ordered tens of thousands of rifles without it.

Also, the Atlantic said that the Army came up with specifications out of nowhere and would you believe that the gunpowder that Stoner specifically chose for his weapon, around which he designed his rifle, didn't meet the arbitrary standards, but gunpowder made by the manufacturer the Army used for decades did!

So, the M-16 rounds traveled just a little faster than the AR-15, but it also cycled much faster, got carboned up, and I believe there were other problems.

At first the Army said "No, that's too fast," but eventually said "This is fine," but cycling too fast caused all kinds of problems.

After Vietnam they modified the M-16 and the ammunition to work better together, but still not nearly as well as the stick gunpowder for which the AR-15 was designed.

I read elsewhere that the Army determined that a round needed to travel at a specific velocity in order to penetrate a US Army helmet and that was the velocity that the Army adopted, but velocity is only half of the momentum equation.

While I was deployed I posted a picture of myself in armor and a friend commented "You know our ACHes don't do any good, right? We shot one in the range and the bullet went right through it! "
"You know that my mom will see this, right?!"

[freebeard]

They also insisted on adding a forward assist, which the Air Force fought, as well as Stoner.

i always thought the forward assist was an unnecessary complication, until a young man in Kenosha WI, demonstrated that it can be a life saver.

[oil pan 4]

Stick gun powder is typically nitrocellulose only, or only a few percentage nitroglycerin. Ballpowder is always double base both nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin and uses up to 40% nitroglycerin.
Stick powder burns much cleaner but is lower density.
Ballpowder is dirtier but higher densityand appears to usually be cheaper than stick powder.
Also stick powder is much less temperature sensitive than ballpowder.
With some loads it gets to the point where you can't fit enough stick powder in the case to make it function properly.
I use AR15 with a silencer the silencer blow back with the ball power make the gun so dirty. 20 shots of ballpowder with a silencer is as bad as shooting hundreds of rounds with out the silencer.
I have cycling problems from adding a silencer, rifle length guns don't seem to mind, but shorter carbines cycle hard and fast when you add a silencer.

The constantly malfunctioning dot gov guns seem to have worn out magazines or are just worn out. If the gun is constantly short cycling, it's probably got worn out bolt carrier group parts. If it's trying to double or triple feed rounds, the mag is likely worn out or damaged.
If cases are getting stuck in the chamber the extractor is worn, rounds are over heating in the hot chamber before firing and over are pressuring, or there is most likely dirt on the ammo.

[Xist]

Originally Posted by freebeard

i always thought the forward assist was an unnecessary complication, until a young man in Kenosha WI, demonstrated that it can be a life saver.

Well, that changes everything!

Our rifles and magazines had been in constant use for decades.

This was in the article, but I think it is more succinct here:

Eugene Stoner, the man who designed the rifle, said it was utterly unnecessary and that, during the millions of rounds fired during the development of the AR-10 and the AR-15, he never saw a situation arise that would have been solved by the FA. The U.S. Air Force pretty much said the same thing. About a thousand Colt AR-15s without a forward assist were used by South Vietnamese troops under U.S. advisors in 1962 before the adoption of the M16 and they did not report issues that would have been fixed by an FA.

https://www.range365.com/story/guns-...r15-necessary/

His source (his own article): https://www.range365.com/story/guns-...eugene-stoner/

[freebeard]

What Would Stoner Do?

https://www.brownells.com › firearms › rifles › semi-auto › ar-15-kp-15-what-would-stoner-do-2020-rifle-prod132663.aspx
KE ARMS LLC AR-15 KP-15 WHAT WOULD STONER DO 2020 RIFLE - Brownells
The What Would Stoner Do (WWSD) 2020 Rifle is based on InRangeTV's series of videos that asked, "What would Eugene Stoner, the creator of the AR-15, do today if he had access to modern manufacturing and materials?" The WWSD 2020 is InRangeTV's solution to that question. Built by KE Arms, the rifle factors in lightweight materials ...

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Xist

Civilians generally don't get to decide how the military does things.

I wish the same could be said in my country, where weed-smoking scholars who had never worked as a LEO pose as "public safety specialists" whenever a bunch of drug dealers is killed while engaging in a shooting against the police...