Survival Ammo - armor piercing?

Originally posted by EyesWideShut
...anybody know where I can get my hands on some thermite?...

Didn't you read my previous post?

The .22LR is a great all around rifle. Penetrate a car door? Absolutely. A strong pellet gun can nearly do that........may actually be capable of doing that.
The .22LR is capable of killing any animal on earth.....including man. Its all a matter of proper shot placement. Would I risk my life trying to kill a bear or something with a .22LR? Not unless I had no other choice but it could certainly do it.
The .22LR is one of the most under rated rounds. 22 mag is even better but the cost isnt really worth it.

Think about this the VT shooting and two in Finland were carried out with .22lr pistols.

I'm not a genius when it comes to HP or AP rounds but I saw a guy shooting his own ammo he modified to be hollow points.

He was shooting them from a rifle they were 30-30 rounds. he would put them in a vise and core out the tip and then he would back fill the tip with plumbers putty. The bullets never seemed to harm the gun when he was shooting them or misfire or mess with the receiver or ejection process. but who knows what that gun looked like once he got it home and took it apart to clean it.

though rifle rounds that were HP were a little out there. but they seem like they would be vicious if they hit something unarmored. the guy was probably a gang member or something. never saw him at that range again.

if you are going to go through all of that trouble and risk of messing up your gun get Winchester Ballistic silvertip

first an for most in a sitx people wont even bother with body armor unless they are staying put where they are and defending, but remember like the other people said that it would be taken off a officer or guard member but dontcha suppose that if someone already lost their armor that it probably already took a couple of shots and would not be 100%, better than nothing but anit gonna help that much. Now you also have to take in to account people bugging out, these people if they know what there doing wont even bother with BA to heavy to be lugging around the country side especially if your walking after out of gas, so no worries at all with these folks, except they probably know the area and wont take likly to strangers, i guess it depends on the people.

as for using AP bullets in SITX dont bother, you wont find any, you wont have any material to make your own, so dont hold your breath, the best thing you could do to be prepared is be smart, it really comes down to what you will do, do you bug out to nature, or stay put and defend your family/property?, get books you will need for medial uses, local plants ect.. get good medicial supplys, stock up on food reserves, canned, dehydrated, get seeds for gardening in spring, get flour/salt/spices, get plastic, maybe some fuel/generator, tools. liquor or items to home brew. and of course get ammo and reliable fire arm, classic bow and arrows. probably at least a sidearm and a rifle, take in to account weight if your buggin out. dont forget a good knife and shapening stone, fishing/traping materials, maybe some camoflauge depending if you go all out or not. do some research if you dont know how to field dress hunted animals, and of course water or use a filter or iodoine or vapor method for steril water, and use water traps. and dont think your ever too good to eat bugs/roots to survive, this is why people die in nature from exposure they dont do everything they could have to survive, last but not least get some fire, flint steel, 1million bic's what ever, 3 rules for survival for the minimalist, shelter fire food.

A few years ago some friends of mine got a vest that had been damaged in the back and we used it for test with the trauma plates in the front.

We put the vest on a manikin

Most pistol round were stopped. One round did go through and that was a .455 casull hollow point with a small steel bearing glued in the hollow point.
the bearing went through but only a small amount of the bullet followed the bearing through.

Many of the rifle rounds non AP did major damage to the trauma plate but did not penetrate the vest.

Rounds made from oil impregnated bronze bearing rod machined to bullet shape and fired from a 30-06 went through the vest.

One last test i did was fire a .525 gr .58 cal miniball from a hawken muzzleloader
the .58 hawken flipped the manikin completely over. with no penetration

If this had been a person wearing the vest and hit with the .58 hawken i believe he would have been severely injured.

Originally posted by ANNED
A few years ago some friends of mine got a vest that had been damaged in the back and we used it for test with the trauma plates in the front.

We put the vest on a manikin

Most pistol round were stopped. One round did go through and that was a .455 casull hollow point with a small steel bearing glued in the hollow point.
the bearing went through but only a small amount of the bullet followed the bearing through.

Many of the rifle rounds non AP did major damage to the trauma plate but did not penetrate the vest.

Rounds made from oil impregnated bronze bearing rod machined to bullet shape and fired from a 30-06 went through the vest.

One last test i did was fire a .525 gr .58 cal miniball from a hawken muzzleloader
the .58 hawken flipped the manikin completely over. with no penetration

If this had been a person wearing the vest and hit with the .58 hawken i believe he would have been severely injured.

Interesting results ANNED.

But would you say that in a SITX gathering and fabricating them would be even possible with basic tools to hand?

My grandfather used to reload ammo before he passed away, I'm not in any way advising this but he would use an allen wrench/drillbit type tool to hollow out the hollowpoints, get a good bit of the lead out (only seen this done on a 44 mag), then take a undetermined amount of very fast burning powder (I think it was called Black Cat) and pack it near the top, leaving a few mm's, then put a pistol round primer on top to cap the bullet and seal it with clear fingernail polish.
I wish I still had the pictures but in a approx 2inch JC Penny catalog from the 80s-90s, it would be a hole in the front the size of a pencil or so.
Then you flip it over....the last 200 pages was absolutly shredded, the hole would of been bigger than the size of the book..

Just hollowing out the center of bullets is somewhat safe, as long as you don't go too far and don't leave edges sticking out, just use common since with the force of the powder expanding, pushing on the now weakened hole, it gives good results on pumpkins and water filled milk jugs

I inherited the said ammo after his passing and kept a few around just in case but if something drastic happened like the topic of the thread, I would rather pull out the 12gauge pump or the ole trusty 22lr, with shims and a nice scope, you can knock walnuts out of a tree at ~75 yards and it's been known to kill several deer in it's time with 1 hit to the lungs.

I have some links on armor-piercing bullet legality, but I don't think I'm allowed to post them here.

From several references, it appears that certain "armor-piercing" bullets ARE legal.
5.56 SS109 and M855 NATO rounds are reportedly legal, as is .30-06 M2 AP ammo.

The key parts of the law are that it applies to ammunition intended for Hand guns, not rifles. Since hand guns have been made that can use 7.62x39 ammo, armor-piercing ammo in that caliber is illegal.

Regarding the 5.56 (.223) ammo referred to above, a specific carve-out was made for that caliber.

There's a good 2-page explanation of this at a site called "recguns" (which is part of the web address) by a man named James O. Bardwell. The section of Federal Law pertaining to this is 18 USC sec. 921(a) (17), which gives the Federal Government's definition of 'armor piercing ammunition.'

The explanation is consistent with other references I've read on the subject.

While I can see the wisdom in armor piercing rounds (pretty likely that post SHTF marauding bands will have at least SOME armor), it's hardly a key necessary prepper point.

Any firearm can pretty much kill. It's all about placement. And yes, the .22 is highly underrated. Perfectly lethal, and you can carry so much ammo that you'll outlast in a firefight.

(Are you not going to duck from a .22 whizzing nearby? Of course you are. You won't care whether a .38, .44 or .22, you're still going to be pinned down).

a reply to: Jesssmart

Mate did you really just resurrect a 3 and a half year dead thread with a 1 word post that means nothing?

Nice.