Skorpy-chan wrote:
Longbow wrote:
.223 \ 5.45x39 were a terrible mistake made by military - both lacks stoping power
You don't know what you're talking about. The 5.56mm round actually does MORE damage than the 7.62mm round, due to the tendency to yaw and fragment after impact. It's also lighter and more accurate, which is why EVERYONE now uses it in modern assault rifles.
Sorry, but the ammo the military uses doesn't really perform as advertised in this aspect. The lack of mass in the bullet is actually rather dangerous. I work with and meet a lot of veterans of the Iraq war just about every day, and I've heard from more than one about those 5.56mm bullets not penetrating windshields of cars. The angle of the windshield just deflects the round because it's just too damn light. One of the guys I work with actually would have been killed because of this if one of the guys in his unit hadn't been carrying an M240 (which shoots 7.62x51 AKA .308) when a suicide car bomber tried to ram the gate of the compound he was guarding. Those 5.56 rounds weren't penetrating the windshield. All you need to know, 5.56mm ammo isn't even legal to hunt dear with in some states because it lacks the stopping power to kill the animal and is considered cruel, that says a lot about the round to me.
There really is a big push in the use military to phase out the 5.56mm round. There is a lot of hubub around the the 6.5 SPC which I believe is just a 5.56 necked up to 6.5mm. It's being actively tested by special forces in Afghanistan and Iraq to good reviews, has the stopping power needed and is still accurate. It also doesn't require a new gun, just a new barrel and new magazines on an M16 or M4, I even think there are a couple M249 variants floating around.
And the reason 7.62x39 ammo isn't used as much anymore is because it's a fairly outdated bullet/casing design. It doesn't lend it self well towards being an accurate round. Kalishnikov himself hated the 5.45x39 round and thought that the 7.62x39 just needed modernization. A good example of the potential it had if modernized is in the 6mm PPC round used by target shooters. It's considered one of the most accurate rounds in the world and is actually a 7.62x39 case necked down to 6mm and modernized.
Personally, I still think .308 is best round available. It's accurate, has plenty of stopping power, and recoil is managable. It has been made to work in carbine rifles like DSA's FAL seen here so it can work in urban combat quit well.
