Is It Safe To

[Jim K]

AP rounds are often a bit hotter than standard loads because of the way an AP (rifle caliber) round works, but they would not be hot enough to damage a gun. No one ever said the Germans were stupid and it would be pretty dumb to issue ammo that would damage or disable a firearm in combat.

FWIW, an AP round does not penetrate armor from sheer energy, like punching a hole in a tin can. What happens is that when the bullet strikes the armor plate, its kinetic energy is converted instantly into heat*, which softens and often actually melts the armor at that point, allowing the bullet core to penetrate and do damage to what or who ever is behind the armor.

If the armor is thick, the melting/softening will not extend far enough in to let the core penetrate, and the core will stick in the armor. IIRC, there is a German tank at Aberdeen with a dozen or so .30 cores stuck in its turret armor. Apparently some GI believed that AP mean AP and kept trying.

*The same conversion of kinetic energy to heat is what bulges barrels when a bullet meets a barrel obstruction. The barrel is not bulged solely by the pressure; it is softened by the heat first.

Jim

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Alfred]

Well theres quite a safety margin in the Model 98 design and not that much of one in the Krag single lug design.
http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust5.htm

On rereading the above it would appear that the round I fired may have been the even heavier charged later version of the Bright Trace round.

The hard core rounds ceased production in 1942 and were hard enough to come by that its not likely many were used in rifles. From the data it was probably close to proof test pressure levels for a rifle.

This sort of bullet may be why US troops found that the German LMGs could penetrate the armor of our halftracks in North Africa. That was a major suprise at the time.

[Jim K]

I can't imagine why the Americans should have been surprised at the ability of German bullets to penetrate that light armor. Except for the engine louvers, the M3 Personnel Carrier (half-track) had only 1/4" armor and the standard U.S. AP round will penetrate (up to) 1/2 inch of standard armor plate and 3/10 inch of face hardened armor at 200 yards.

Jim

[Alfred]

I can't imagine why the Americans should have been surprised at the ability of German bullets to penetrate that light armor. Except for the engine louvers, the M3 Personnel Carrier (half-track) had only 1/4" armor and the standard U.S. AP round will penetrate (up to) 1/2 inch of standard armor plate and 3/10 inch of face hardened armor at 200 yards.

Jim

Till they ran up against this sort of AP round the .30/06 AP , which was not considered suitable for the Garand BTW due to feeding issues and over stressing the op rod, was considered to be far in advance of anything the Germans had.

The US AP rounds were meant for use in MGs and the BAR handled it well.
I've used AP in Garands before without any problems, but the Garand was the new kid on the block so use of AP was not considered entirely safe early on.
Later versions of the Garand have more robust receivers than the early production model, and a radius cut in the op rod to prevent fractures from heavy ammo.

Ability to penetrate at extended range is another factor, the German LMGs were able to penetrate at ranges where the Half tracks should have been far beyond effective range of machinegun fire.

The hot load with higher velocity meant much greater retained energy at extreme long range than would have been expected from a less intense loading of the same projectile.

But we are drifting away from the subject of the thread now.

One thing to consider is that when Norway (?) adopted the 8mm Long Range Browning MG with case length of the 06 but a heavy 8mm bullet they ordered custom made versions of the 98K Mauser rifles in the same chambering for their MG crews. These are still to be found occasionally though most were rebarreled to 7.92 or 7.62 NATO in the fifties or sixties.
These have a muzzle brake milled into the barrel.
The cartridge was probably too long for a Krag any way.

[Alfred]

PS to the above, it was Sweden rather than Norway that used the K98 in 8X63 caliber for their machinegun crews.