Mike Venturino, has an excellent article ( as usual, I really like his writing) on Sniper Rifles of WW II. He mentions the Germans & Russians were using explosive bullets, when sniping each other.
Anyone here, hear of exploding bullets before?

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Oh I thought you were talking about ballistic tips...........

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My first thought was Ballistic tips too!!

Thanks Alf. I figure they'd be good for a Bubba Shoot

Yeah, I can see BT's getting confused, but I suspect the "real Maccoy" will make a bigger wound channel.

And...there were the idiots who would put primers in the nose of hollowpoint pistol bullets (oh, and .45/70s, but we're not supposed to use that word) to see them "explode" when they hit a rock or something.

And don't forget the bullets John Hinckley, Jr. used when he tried to assassinate Pres. Reagan. .22 LR exploding bullets (often advertised in the backs of gun magazines of the day, iirc). The cartridges were called Devastators, again iirc.

I've heard of guys taking primers and glueing them into hollow point pistol bullets for the exploding effect on impact. Don't know if that works and it sounds kind of iffy to me.

The primers in hollowpoints work if the target is strong enough. That's why the targets were usually rocks, metal signs, etc.

I made quite a few of them back in the early 80's.
I got them to explode every time by puting a number 9 shot under the primer. I also put a grain or so of very finely ground black powder under the primer and shot.

They expand rapidly would not go threw a gallon jug. They would go off on twigs one could shoot them in the woods and hear them pop when they hit something.

A 357 mag 125 gr at around 1400 wouldn't go through a 2x4.

I shot several dogs, porkupines with they killed fast but they would lack penatration on any thing big.

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20 mm to 40 mm HEI rounds use a slightly different system. Metal case filled with essentiall a direvative of TNT that is not impact sensitive. Fuse screws into nose of the bullet. Fuse consists of an eccentric shapped ball inside a round sphere.

Upon firing, the rifling imparts a spin to the eccentric ball. Fuse requires certain amount of revolutions per minute to get the eccentric ball to have the detonator train align with an opening that allows the the fusing charge to go into the HEI mix in the main body of the bullet.

Only after the bullet exits the barrel and begins to slow down can the fuse explosive charge/eccentric ball drop into the opening.

This allows the HEI bullet to not be "armed" until it gets beyond a minimum safe distance from the gun and/or aircraft.

Bullet then explodes on impact with a primer at the head of the fuse explosive train.

Airburst HEI bullets work under totally different mechanisms. The US and NATO designed their airburst HEI rounds from different approache than the Soviets took.

That is another story!

Barstooler

Exploding projectiles in calibers small enough for use in small arms (anything under 20mm) are pretty ineffective, because such bullets can't hold enough explosive compound to do a whole lot of damage. Even HE ammo for the .50 BMG was never made, for this reason. The smallest U.S. HE round ever made in quantity was for 20mm cannon.

Sir, I respectfully disagree with you on the .50BMG. The U.S. is currently using a .50BMG projectile that uses a small amount of PETN in the nose which detonates upon impact with the target.

I will try to get more information on them today.

quote:

Originally posted by JLarsson:
And don't forget the bullets John Hinckley, Jr. used when he tried to assassinate Pres. Reagan. .22 LR exploding bullets (often advertised in the backs of gun magazines of the day, iirc). The cartridges were called Devastators, again iirc.

Which incidentally FAILED to explode.

quote:

Originally posted by Barstooler:
Airburst HEI bullets work under totally different mechanisms. The US and NATO designed their airburst HEI rounds from different approache than the Soviets took.

That is another story!

Barstooler

Awwww Geeeez... I'd LOVE to discuss spin decay fuzes as used in antiairfraft projectiles....

But for the 20mmHE projectiles when did they go to a sophisticated fuze?
All the one's I've even seen had a relatively crude impact fuze with no safety system whatsoever... mainly because ANY safety provisions took up too much "payload" volume
which is understandable limited in a 20mm projectile.

a minimum range fuzing device for "small bore"
projectiles was first used on the 40mm grenades
for the M79 and M203 grenade launchers.
(This addition was unfortunatly a bit belated)


While US WW2 aircraft were uniformly armed with 50cal M@ machineguns the germans used a similar bore diameter on some of their aircraft... the difference was that the german 12.5mm gun was a machine cannon using ONLY explosive projectiles.

They were actually a bit more effective than the 50cal machine guns even though they had a somewhat slower rate of fire.

It can be safely said that the 50cal APIT projectile won the air war in europe, by simple
weight of numbers.


AllanD

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quote:

Originally posted by Allan DeGroot:

quote:

Originally posted by JLarsson:
And don't forget the bullets John Hinckley, Jr. used when he tried to assassinate Pres. Reagan. .22 LR exploding bullets (often advertised in the backs of gun magazines of the day, iirc). The cartridges were called Devastators, again iirc.

Which incidentally FAILED to explode.

A fact for which I am VERY grateful.

DeGroot, the same fuze (M505A3) is used in both the 20mm and 30mm.

Barstooler

Where is the Mike Venturino article found?

some sources say that the Nez Pierce used/made some exploding bullets in the battle of Big Hole. I believe that this involved large caliber rounds and rimfire cartridges.