Combat Arms 2869 Grove Way Castro Valley, California 94546-6709 Telephone (415) 538-6544 BBS: (415) 537-1777 EXPLODING AMMUNITION The following text was extracted from the FIREARMS Echo and is written by Ed Harris. Ed was formerly with the NRA and also worked for Ruger. He is very knowledgeable. If you have technical questions about firearms or ammunition, please communicate with Ed Harris via the FIREARMS Echo. He is very friendly and will try to help you. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Most of these have been similar to the 7.7 Jap Observation bullets or the WWII German B-Patrone. These are more for observing impacts and directing fire than for explosive effect. I have tested some of these in the 7.9x57, 7.65x54 Argentine, 7.7 Japanese and 7.62x54R Russian, all WWII vintage, and while I wouldn't care to have one strike near me, they are pretty pathetic as a military round. Penetration is poor. I have disassembled (with proper safeguards in a lab - DON'T TRY IT!) the B-Patrone and USSR observation bullets and these are constructed with a gilding metal-clad steel jacket and lead base filler, with a tube down the center. At the nose end of the tube is a percussion cap, and inside is a small cylindrical firing pin like a short pencil about 1/4" long and 1/16" in diameter with 45 degree point. The space between the tube and jacket is filled with incendiary mixture which appears to be a mixture of potassium chlorate and powdered magnesium! Upon firing the firing pin is carried back to the read under its own interia, safely away from the percussion cap. Upon impact (or upon tapping the round in an interia puller!) the firing pin runs forward and blows the works up. The charge of explosive mix is less than 1 gram., not much to achieve any real military purpose, but enough to make a small framentation bomb of the jacket and take a finger or eye with it! For military purposes these small caliber rounds are far inferior to later API or APIT rounds. I believe the Navy interest is primarily in the cal. .50 for the special application sniper rifle or SASR, using the Raufoss GP round. This, if I remember correctly has a tungsten carbide core and a charge of about 2 grams of RDX which is initiated upon impact, so you get the dual-purpose of fragmentation and a good visual indication of the impact, plus the AP effect of the heavy metal core. The penetration of this round probably isn't much better than the WWII era API M8, but the explosive effect is pretty good, and you can distinctly see impacts with the naked eye on a sunny day to 2000 yards. Added bonus is that you don't need tracers to adjust your fire, so you reduce that source of risk of revealing the gunner's position.