A dum-dum is a poster who still insists that there is a mystery where the extra dollar went that the bellboy kept and didn’t give back to the guests at the hotel.
A hollowpoint is an argument raised by someone who has no clue what they’re talking about.
That clear it up?
Yarster, you raise a good point. International laws aren’t usually enforced, as such. They are usually just adhered to by the signatories as a matter of tradition. The kind of ammo an army issues on a large scale can not be a secret; if so-and-so issued prohibited bullets to their troops it would be public knowledge and probably bring criticism. Not that simple criticism is a huge deterrent, but I still don’t know of any country which issues anything other than full metal jacket to its people.
The only exception might be special forces units. If a special forces unit were captured with weapons loaded up with prohibited ammo types, I think they could be tried for war crimes. Also not a big deterrent, since said unit could be tried for war crimes anyway, and special forces units don’t get captured that often.
As to the tumbling bullets question, Padeye and Johnny have pretty much answered this one. I’d just like to elaborate: modern M16s (starting with the A1 or A2 I believe) are designed with a fast rifling, for use with a heavier, more stable bullet (the 69-grain SS109, I think). The first generation used a slower rifling with a small light bullet (55 grains). This caused this instability which allowed the bullet to yaw and tumble after hitting its target. Modern M16 bullets are more likely to fragment partly because of the faster rifling needed to stablize them (1 twist in 7", IIRC, compared to 1 in 14" for the first gen). Centrifugal forces help to break the bullet up after it hits the unfortunate individual downrange.
JB
Lex Non Favet Delicatorum Votis
Sorry about that…I really did post a reply but the system mangled it.
Bullets containing mercury were used in “The Day of the Jackal” (the original film, not the remake.) The book this film was based on gives a little more detail about how they are supposed to work: - on impact, the mercury droplet smacks into the front of the bullet and bursts it apart.
I seriously doubt this would actually work. Apart from anything else, mercury reacts with lead to form a solid amalgam so you have to fire the bullets shortly after making them.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/lawofwar/dec99-03.htm
There’s a link to the Hague Declaration, signed by “Signatures”. That is, they don’t enumerate who signed the thang (I remember my last search results being similarly vague). The text is all there anyway.
Also, don’t confuse the Hague Declaration with the St. Petersburg Convention of, IIRC, the 1860s. That one prohibits exploding bullets (up to a certain size).
Hopefully, I can convince you to accept “hopefully” as a disjunct adverb.
Frankly, I would be lying if I said I were confident.
Perhaps this subject is simply too complex for me to explain.
Unfortunately, I would be lucky to explain my way out of a paper bag.
I accidentally hit the “send” before I was done. Pardon me.
Bullet weight x bullet velocity = stopping power, so they say. It’s easier to make the bullet go faster than to make it heavier, and it’s easier to carry more gunpowder than more lead. So the theory says a smaller bullet going faster is at least as good if not better than a heavy slow bullet. For sure, the faster bullet will fly flatter and so be easier to shoot. It puts more bullets on the battlefield and in so doing increases the chances that someone will hit something somehow, so I reckon it works at least partially.
On the other hand, in the early 1980’s the FBI did this fancy computer study that told them throwing a lot of 9mm bullets at the bad guys would be just fine, and they found out in practice that it was not so. Turns out that they had a flawed key assumption: that a given bullet would always expand the same way each time. Not so in reality. Being the statistical geniuses they are, they never actually tested a sample of real bullets. Tests show a surprising degree of variability in bullet expansion, even when bullets from the same lot are tested under the same conditions. I believe they worked with Hornady bullet manufacturers to make a consistently expanding bullet.
Note also that real-world experience has shown that some people can soak up a lot of hits from 9mm bullets and keep on going. There have been a few notorious cases of this which have unfortunately cost police personnel their lives as part of the learning experience. A lot of agencies around the US are now going over to .40 caliber or back to the good old .45 on account of this.
Well, maybe I didn’t hit “reply” and just lost the first part.
What I meant to say was that years ago the NRA did a bit on the same question that is posted here. Seems in the mid 1800’s, a few people patented exploding bullets, and fewer still made them in some numbers. They didn’t work because they wouldn’t work reliably. Baiscally, the schemes revolved around a primer and sometimes and additional charge in the bullet itself that impact or inertia would supposedly detonate. As previous respondents have pointed out, they’re better off to leave the lead in the bullet as the effect of the kinetic energy of heavier bullet impact is much greater than whatever minute amount of posion or whatever might be in there.
The military uses full metal jackets because they feed more reliably in automatic and semi-auto weapons.
Yarster, the SS-109/M855 bullet also has different construction than the old M193 55 grain bullet. The core has a steel tip inside to help penetration and a thinner jacket that tends to fracture at the cannelure (the crimping groove around the middle). IIRC from the IMI bullets I’ve loaded it’s 62 grains. The only 69 grain .22 bullets I’ve used are match hollowpoints.
The heavier bullet was adopted so it would be ballistically simliar to the long bullet in the tracer round. In a given caliber heavier, hence longer, bullets require a faster spin to be stable but a lot of people think the 1:7" twist went way too far. Depending on how much velocity is left the bullet can be spinning at 200,000 rpm or more when it hits, causing all the bits to fly off in unpredictable dirctions.
Uh…thanks Padeye,
Although I’m not sure what question you were answering. I asked what the logic was of why anyone trying to win a war would follow the Hague Convention when the whole idea of a war is to kill the enemy presumably by whatever means necessary that doesn’t either come back to kill your troops too (i.e. chemical weapons) or cause mutually assured destruction (i.e. nuclear weapons)
I read the same post, Yarster, and I think Padeye was replying to me. He gets us mixed up because we look just alike. I think Padeye was elaborating on why modern M16 bullets fragment instead of tumble.
Yarster, there’s another side effect of using the jacketed bullet: A wounded soldier ties up more ressources than a dead one, at least in a civilized army.
A British officer complained about this faczt in one of the colonial war: Where a “civilized” soldier would, upon being wounded, lie down and wait for the stretcher teams, some of the warriors they found themselves facing would in fact continue the fight even when severely wounded. (Sorry, no cite, posting from work).
I was told this was the rationale for making anti personnel mines with smaller charges as well, but that might as well be an attempt to vilify the producers.
Norman
In a “real” war, the last thing you want to do is KILL your opponent. A nice, clean wound, that puts him out of action, plus requires expensive hospitals & medics, plus requires 1 or 2 of his buddies to carry him back, is far better than just killing him.
Also, fmj bullets penetrate better, increasing your chances for such a wound.
NOTE: there never was such a thing as “cop-killer” bullets, this was made up by anti-gun politicians.