those of you who insist that bullets do not tumble in the air, you watch to many war movies and dont understand what tumbling really is. if they dont tumble in the air, why do we need rifling in our rifles? to stabilize the bullet....ding ding we have a winner. so, as the bullet exits the gun it spins(like a top) and as it slows down, the back which is will not slow down as fast as the front because its heavier and has less drag, it will create a wobble(like a top does as it slows down) and as the bullet travels farther away from the barrel and slows down(alot more than 10m) the becomes greater. if your shooting long range do you use boattail style bullets, yes cause they create less drag, therefore improving efficiency.

id say if you where shooting a heaver person "puffy" and you were aiming at a specific vital point and you hit the fat it would tumble and go off course.

Ok, when I was in the Marines, back in the early 80's the M16a1 came out. in boot camp we were told the rounds travel about 460 yards before tumbling begins, that's why, at the time, we shot 500 yards at man silhouettes and the object was to put the round in the belly. The reasoning, (at the time) was because a tumbling round would tear up the belly and need 2 people to remove the one wounded combatant. so, in effect one round takes 3 people off the battle field.

Whether this is still true or was true at the time, I do not know. That was the way we were trained. All I know is I cannot hit anything at less than 500 yards, 200 and 300, I suck, 500 Plus, I got ya!!!

bs on SO many levels, dude. No, bullets do not tumble in the air, if fired thru a barrel that adequately stabilizes them. Once a bullet tumbles, it has no accuracy at all, if it tumbles right out of the barrel, you can't reliably hit a man at a lousy 20 ft with it, I am not kidding or mistaken, either. If you can't hit at 200 yds, you certainly can't hit at 500 yds. A tumbling bullet has very little penetration, especially out at ranges where it has very little power remaining to it, as is the case with the 223 at 500 yds, with normal ammo, at least.

No, a fat person does not deflect the bullet, fat is easily pierced, even at very long yardages, by something as needle-like as the pointed, small diameter 223 military bullet.

The M16 was military issue as of 1968, the A3 upgrade came out in 85 or so, with the 1 in 7 rifling twist, for use with the new tracer that was created to match the slightly different trajectory of the new ball rd, the 62 gr, steel tipped type. 1 in 9 is the right twist for the 62 gr bullet, but tracers are much longer, due to the lightweight of the phosphorus core. A longer bullet requires a faster rate of twist in order to be stabilized in flight.

You need a bullet that causes enough damage to take the enemy out of action.

The 5.56 in all bullet weights does that plus due to the high velocity at shorter ranges it causes a lot of dead tissue around the wound track that requires debridement and corrective surgery.

Without the debridement of dead tissue minor wounds can easily become fatal due to infection.

no, the tumbling bullet was NOT "banned', either. Where do you guys get this bs, anyway? We are not constrained to the use of fmj bullets, anyway. We can use the brilliantly effective Nosler Partition softpoint, either in our own handloads, or in ammo loaded by Black Hills Ammo Company. The 60 gr Partitition is intended for use on deer, getting 2-3x as deep penetration in flesh as the typical varmint type hp or sp normally loaded in 223 ammo. The Partition makes the 223 as least as effective as 308 ball, which is so poora performer that it's illegal for use on deer in almost every state in the US. This is the case because it just pokes a .30 cal hole in the animals, letting them run 1/4 mile or so before they bleed out and die.