Anyone know what type of steel is used for ap ammo

O

oberkommando

New member
Seen one 06 ap shoot through 1 1/8" steel plate and core was lodged into tree stump and was completly intact and point very sharp. There are concentric circles around the steel core, is this from machining the cores? This seems to be very durable steel how bout making firing pins and extractors out of it? A second shot was trapped in steel with one half the steel core sticking out the back of the plate and point is almost tack sharp.

BTW if you ever shoot steel plate dont get to close as pieces will fly back as my buddy can tell you. We were using his rem 700 behind a stack of tires to shoot steel, he hasn't put scope on it yet, and there in no sights, I left my 700 sighted gun at home, so we had to get fairly close. On final shot I went up to plate (about 15 feetaway) and shot final ap at it, he had shot the previous soft poin and stuck ap and told me to go ahead and shoot the last, as I did not have any sights I figured get close and it will be easier to hit and it was. Problem was the piece of steel plate that imbeded itself in my buddies arm after the shot. I know this was very stupid and it wont happen agin but thought I should warn anyone experimenting with ap or any ammo on steel targets. We did some minor home surgery on his arm when we got done shooting and were at home. Wouldnt want to go to hospital they would probably take police report now days.
 
The AP bullet jacket is normal steel or gilding metal, same as ball round. The core is carbide steel, which is very hard but rather brittle, which is why gun parts are not made out of it. Actually, you might get better penetration at a slightly longer range, when the bullet gets a chance to stabilize.

Jim

[This message has been edited by Jim Keenan (edited November 26, 1999).]
 
I've shoot my Mosin with regular steel rounds at 1/2 steel plate. Goes right threw it. Ap rounds do also, but I really need a thicker piece of steel. I'm guess 1 in steel is about the max it will go threw.

One thing I noticed is that steel core rounds shoot higher than lead core rounds.
So a rifle sighted in with lead rounds will shoot high with steel core rounds.

If your going to shoot a lot of AP rounds, it would be better to get a military rifle with a hard chrome bore.

Although there is no practical application for steel core rounds, it's fun to see what you can shoot threw.




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The new guy.

"I'm totin, this pistol because my dang SKS won't fit in my holster"
 
As Pete80 said, the military uses depleted Uraniam for AP purposes. It's extremely heavy, dense, and is the toughest metal on earth. This is what the 25mm guns on the Bradley and main Sabot round in the M1A1 use to kill tanks. It is also used in the .50 and I think the .308 to some degree.

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Don't trust anything that bleeds for 5 days and doesn't die.
 
I don't have a definitive answer to this question, but here are my thoughts.

Jim mentioned carbide steel. I've never heard of carbide steel, but we do use quite a few carbide cutters here in the shop. Carbide is very hard, but quite brittle. I don't believe a piece of carbide could pass through a piece of steel without shattering (have seen plenty of broken cutters around here, it doesn't take much to chip or break them).

Pete said depleted uranium. I know this is used as a penetrator, but probably not in 30-40 yr old surplus AP rounds (which all the AP I've seen is old, corrosive surplus).

I spoke to a gentleman at the range over the summer who had the same experience with the 30-06 AP as Oberkommando, shoots through heavy steel plate and leaves core intact with a very sharp tip. This person, who also works in a tool shop, told me the cores are Rockwell C 63. This puts it right in the range of a high speed tool steel (probably M-2 since I think it's the least expensive). High speed tool steel is very hard and tough, just what you would want in an AP penetrator. It's most commonly used in drill bits and milling cutters just to give you an idea of its hardness.

This site may be of interest to a lot of you, although it doesn't specify a steel type for the AP rounds.
http://www.ar15.com/books/TM43-0001-27.pdf
 
DU is used for 120 sabot, 30mm AP (A-10) not sure if the 30mm for the apache has it. 25mm AP (bradley, LAV 25) 20mm (think it is still used for vulcan gun on the CIWS, can also be used in by aircraft vulcan, but they normally load HEI) The 50 and 7.62 have a Saboted Light Armor Piercing (SLAP) that uses a DU penetrator, but this is a special round not seen as often. The standard 50 and 7.62 AP is hardened steel, have read carbide in many sources, also have seen a tech sheet that said tungsten carbide, but that seens expensive. A new 50 cal round that is coming into the stock pile has a penetrator, backed by a C-4 capsule, so once the pentrator heated up enough they explode, suppose to be great against light armor. There is a new 9mm round that I believe FMV is trying to sell that is designed to go through body armor, great for troops wearing body armor. The new "green" enviro safe 5.56 has a tungsten filler, not for penetration but so to reduce lead hazards
 
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