8mm Mauser penetration (wow!)

O

oktagon

Moderator
This weekend I was bench shooting my Persian Mauser and just for the heck of it I placed 1.2cm thick heat treated steel plate at 100 meters. I expected dents and scuffs, but in reality I made a swiss chees ot of the plate. The holes looked like they were made with the drill.
The ammo was a surplus Belgian with silver tipped bullets.
I did magnet test, and it was negative, so not a seel core.
May be tungsten carbide, may be not. I did not have any other ammo to do a side by side comparison.

Oh, by the way, those old Persians are suprisingly accurate for a 65 yo. gun.
 
oktagon, I have a Turk in 8mm and have seen that kind of penetration also. My buddies range I shoot at has railroad ties for a backstop and at 100 yds it didn't slow the round down. We walked back in his woods and found holes clean through 15-18" trees after going through the backstop at about 250 yds. Needless to say we have plans on re-enforcing the backstop with tons of dirt before shooting that mean ole nasty round there again.
 
That old 8MM will penetrate now, but then again so will the 30-06 and the 7.62 in FMJ or AP configuration. Once I fired a 7.62 Ball at 2 -12"X12" fir timbers. It entered one with a .30 Cal hole and exited with a silver dollar size hole. It entered the 2nd timber with a perfect sideways imprint of the bullet and exited with a fist size hole. The timbers were about 15 feet apart. That is not AP just FMJ penetrating 24 inches of solid fir. One has to be careful using this ammo as with any other.
 
Steeken.22

The standard 55 gr, fmj .223, out of a 20"AR, will go thru 3/8" steel plate like a hot knife through butter.
Funny, but it will break into pieces in soft tissue, under 150 yards........GO figure.
 
I've seen an AR shoot at 1/4in of steel with M193 and it bounced right off at 50yds. Then we tried SS109 and it went threw and made a nice crater. I told the guys to stop because I didn't know where the bullets were richocheting:rolleyes:
 
It was a 16inch Barrel. I don't know what kind of steel it was but it was 1/4 of an inch thick. We measured it and M193 bounced off of it. SS109 went straight threw it. I'm sure a few hundred fps more might have made a difference.
 
SP

The difference was the 4" less barrel length............an AR, needs ALL 20''s to be a total burn 100%.
The SC made the diff on that piece, if you have a chance try the 193 on the same piece out of the 20"er'
 
I once witnessed an 8mm, from a Yugo M48, at 100 yards, almost go through a full 1" steel plate. It only left about 1/32", created one heck of an indentation from that and quite a satisfying backsplash pattern on the steel. Oh, and it was standard FMJ, not AP. Else I have no doubt what the result would have been.
 
and now the military want to trade in it's tanks for lav's with a couple inches of aluminum armor, well i guess it'll work as long as noone with anything bigger than a 22 poodleshooter walks up. hate to run into a third worlder who has a fal though.
 
Tshoes I"M NOT GOING TO TRY TO SHOOT THREW STEEL AGAIN UNLESS I"M IN COMBAT!!! One of my Aunts Co-Workers is a gun collector and reloader and several years ago I went over his house to learn how to reload. Well I just found out last week that he accidentally shot himself. He had a gun Jam with a live round in the chamber and he put it in a vice in his basement (He's also a Gunsmith) and the gun went off. The bullet hit the wall then the ceiling and right into the top of his head. I don't know what kind of gun it was that did that but it sounds like a .223. I'd do it with steel core ammo or AP but I'm not going to risk shooting lead at steel and hope I don't get smacked upside the head. I Believe you on the 4 inches making the difference.
 
When my Dad's boss was in Germany following WW2/Korea, they were doing cleanup of German war infrastructure, and his job was to find old bunkers and whatnot. While on the way to one site in an APC, some idiot with one of the then-new M14s had an AD inside the packed APC. They later determined that it bounced some 60 times, yet miraculously the only one hit was the guy that had the AD, and he managed to live somehow. I think it hit him in the stomach.
 
that's why the WWII gi's would stick there tommies and 1911 's in the gunports and driving slots and fire a few rounds the hard core 45's would bounce around forever. nothing much lived through it. (also why tanks held togeather with rivets never made it big)
 
Almost all German armored vehicles of any seriousness had all ports covered with very thick and strong layered glass. Some of these ports could stop an 8mm Mauser round, it's serious stuff.
 
Following WWII, I knew several vets who had been wounded by 9mm pistol bullets. I never knew any who had been shot in the torso with an 8mm.

Jim
 
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