Are semi-auto 5.56's stupid In a real fight?

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You didn't read carefully. The yard sign is anything but loose.

And call me crazy, but if it can't get through a piece of plastic like that, I don't trust a round to penetrate light cover, or even clothing, well. You're certainly entitled to do whatever the heck you like with your 5.56. Mine is relegated to target duty or in really unfortunate circumstances my wife might end up using it. I'll stick to the .308.

Oh, and the wind difference is pretty dramatic - probably something like a 40% wind drift reduction by moving to .308 and more if you want to move to more exotic .308-type rounds of smaller caliber.
 
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Then Mark you should be happy to bet.

There's nothing "provocative" about reporting the truth about the performance of a given load. It's just physics. If you're finding yourself provoked, that may be a personal character issue on your end.
 
You are reporting something that is false, cloaked in your anecdotal "observation". Thing is no one believes you but you. If you want credibility, figure out what anomoly you have created that gives you an aberrant result.

I am not provoked (which is what you are trying to do) but amazed by your ignorance of the subject matter.
 
LlamaBob said:
Here's what I know: I load FGMM in my 16" AR, because it shoots well and I see no reason to change to some other load. I shoot it at targets backed by yard sign material strung between T posts with bailing wire. At 100-300y, the projectile always goes through the target backer. At 400 and 500y, it sometimes fails to penetrate.
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Fails to penetrate or fails to leave obvious signs of penetration in plastic? I've shot at plastic targets that look like they were barely touched; but you wouldn't want to stand behind one. The bullet goes right through the plastic and the plastic reseals itself, leaving barely a mark.
 
Llama Bob,

Unless you can explain how your yard sign setup is somehow a meaningful piece of data for the discussion, you should stop now.

Jimro
 
Mark, if you believe there's an "anomaly" then you should be happy to bet. And you can't have it both ways. Either you're provoked (in which case you need to examine what personal issues make that so) or you're not (in which case I'm not trolling) :D

And no, it's not magic self healing plastic. More powerful rounds of all diameters have no problem putting perfectly clear round holes in it.
 
Jimro,

if it can't punch through a yard sign I've got very little interest in using it on people. That's why it's relevant. You are free to choose whatever you want for whatever reasons you want, but failure to penetrate a soft barrier is disqualifying for me.
 
if it can't punch through a yard sign I've got very little interest in using it on people. That's why it's relevant. You are free to choose whatever you want for whatever reasons you want, but failure to penetrate a soft barrier is disqualifying for me.
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Then by all means sell your "yard sign body armor" claim to DARPA and make some money. Although I wouldn't invest in it.

Also, when you take your proof pictures, make sure you put a witness paper behind your yard sign and show us the recovered bullet. At 400 yards there should be jacket pealing and/or compression of the hollow tip on the SMK.

As far as "relevancy" goes, there are at least two combat vets in this thread who have been very polite to you so far, and you still haven't even tried to explain why you think your plastic yard sign has any relevancy on 5.56x45 terminal ballistics in human tissue.

Here is a hint, the human body doesn't do well with being shot at 400 yards with 5.56x45, and that is why 5.56x45 isn't stupid in a real fight.

Jimro
 
I don't believe it either.

I love people who claim something can't possibly happen, but then as soon as you offer to bet they want to change the terms of the wager because they know you're right
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It's not that you are right (you aren't) but that you changed the conditions up front. 5.56 is the round under discussion, not .223. Go read the title of the thread again.

However feel free to explain the mechanism of how a 77gr projectile traveling at 1000fps+ will NOT go through a plastic target backer. :confused:

It won't hit the target if it is going to slow. Now I have a pretty good idea of what may have happened but I am curious to hear what you think first.
 
I don't think there's really anything of interest going on - it just didn't penetrate. Faster, heavier rounds did. The round wasn't slow (or it would have been low).

The most recent example I remember wasn't a ricochet (the entire group was <3 MOA and far from the ground. The adjacent targets were unused and shooting .30 cal respectively, so it wasn't a ricochet from another shooter. I didn't keep that kind of info for all the times I've seen it, but I do happen to remember this time.

As I said, I don't think there's anything interesting going on at all, unless you happen to be a person with a lot of ego tied up in the 5.56 ;)

If you're hanging your hat on the ~100ft/s difference between FGMM and M262, then that's still a pretty sad commentary on 5.56.
 
Question for the OP. How exactly does semi auto give up any "range" of full auto. The cartridge still is effective at the same distance either way. And much greater accuracy in semi auto. I don't understand what your even talking about....
 
I think the cartridge is good all around when put into a warzone context. It has the ability to disable a combatant when hit, long effective range, low recoil, and the rifles themselves are more suited to clearing houses and tight situations than a full size battle rifle would be. Would you rather clear a small house with an M14 or an AR? Neither one is going to instantly kill your target, so you may as well have more, controlled, follow up shots available. Also I thought that the military's weapons had the three shot burst function available; I think the OP overlooked that.
 
I don't think there's really anything of interest going on - it just didn't penetrate. Faster, heavier rounds did. The round wasn't slow (or it would have been low).
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Well, the reason it is so difficult to believe you is I've shot 16" barrels to 600yds and I've seen 55gr, 62gr and 75gr penetrate wood, plastic and even steel at that range. In fact, it is really frustrating when people shoot the chains on the steel gongs.

So, I imagine many of us are skeptical when you claim to have found some combination of plastic yard signs suspended by bailing wire that stops the same bullet cold.
 
Yeah, I'm "trolling" you

I will happily wager that if we shoot 100 rounds of 77gr FGMM out of a 16" AR at a yard sign plastic target backer with a standard paper target on the front at 500y that at least 2 will penetrate the paper but fail to penetrate the plastic behind it leaving a "dimple" or hole substantially less than .22 cal. I'm willing to wager up to $50,000 at even odds, but not less than $10,000 to make it worth my time.

Here's an opportunity to put your money where your mouth is.
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What a stupidly outrageous bet. My take away from this is that you have no proof of what you are saying and so you are trying to bolster your position by claiming you are willing to bet an overly large sum of money.

Just put up the proof to support the claims you have made. Keyboard courage doesn't make your point any stronger.
 
I thought we started out fairly, but 2 pages of what will or won't go through a plastic sign at range is two pages too many. We're done here.
 
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