"The Most Powerful Weapon In The World" (AA-12)

[Marduke]

I'm pretty sure that's not in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, although using a shotgun for internal security is. In other words, a shotgun can't be used in "normal" combat out in the field, but CAN be used to guard, say, an armory or a bank within a base or post.

Shotguns have been used in combat for over a century. It was even a favored weapon in both World Wars, especially in the trenches of Europe and the jungles of the south Pacific.

 

[Benson]

I'm pretty sure that's not in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, although using a shotgun for internal security is. In other words, a shotgun can't be used in "normal" combat out in the field, but CAN be used to guard, say, an armory or a bank within a base or post.

The Geneva Conventions don't even cover weapons; they're about personnel issues; non-combatants, POWs, and the like. The Hague Conventions are the ones on weapons, banning hollow-points and what-not, but they don't forbid shotguns.

Marduke, those videos don't appear to show anything more than a magazine at a time. Anything can rattle off 32 rounds at cyclic rate, but I expect that you'd have overheating issues if you kept that up for a few hundred rounds, as fast as you could reload.

 

[KD5XB]

I guess I was wrong -- but the reason I was wrong was because I was trained incorrectly in the US military! Well, either that or else my memory has lost something over the last 10 years since I retired from the Air Force.

I did some quick research, and the Geneva Conventions only apply to treatment of people -- that's why my active-duty military ID card showed my Geneva Convention Category on it.

The Hague Conventions cover the use of various weapons in war, and do not specifically ban shotguns. There is a bit of controversy though, about a phrase which says unnecessary suffering should not be caused.

As for the AA-12 -- I have been seeing this thing advertised for some time now and have never seen one in person. I don't know if the US military has any. Wonder how they would work for quail and doves...

 

[Marduke]

The Hague Convention doesn't explicitly ban hollow points either, just rounds designed for "unnecessary suffering". The US Military has used hollow point rounds for decades also (mainly for snipers). Besides not signing the Hague Convention, our reasoning is that a hollow point is MORE humane than a FMJ, since it is more likely to cause an immediate lethal wound vs a FMJ.

 

[Benson]

The Hague Convention doesn't explicitly ban hollow points either, just rounds designed for "unnecessary suffering". The US Military has used hollow point rounds for decades also (mainly for snipers). Besides not signing the Hague Convention, our reasoning is that a hollow point is MORE humane than a FMJ, since it is more likely to cause an immediate lethal wound vs a FMJ.

I thought the justification was that they were hollow-tipped as a side-effect of the manufacturing process, rather than as a design feature for expansion. Although the lethality argument is also good, I had not heard that the gov't uses it.

 

[Marduke]

The official statement was

The purpose of the 7.62mm "open-tip" MatchKing bullet is to provide maximum accuracy at very long range. … Bullet fragmentation is not a design characteristic, however, nor a purpose for use of the MatchKing by United States Army snipers. Wounds caused by MatchKing ammunition are similar to those caused by a fully jacketed military ball bullet, which is legal under the law of war, when compared at the same ranges and under the same conditions. (The Sierra #2200 BTHP) not only meets, but exceeds, the law of war obligations of the United States for use in combat.

Reading between the lines, "it works even better", in more ways than one

Edit:
Also, you could argue that they (Sierra MatchKing) are not specifically designed for use on anything other than paper targets (which is true), but they just happen to be used for other purposes with great success.

 

[KD5XB]

I used to use the 168-grain .308 MatchKing bullets in high power rifle matches. I recovered some from the dirt backstops and you never knew whether one would expand or not. Usually they didn't.

 

[LuxLuthor]

I wonder where the Black Talon round would fall in the regulations.

 

[Northern Lights]

The hollow point match bullet is a function of the manufacturing process and not expansion performance.
The FMJ, hollow point and soft point hunting and defense bullet uses other designs to create or limit expansion. The hollow point is used to transfering energy and destruction to the target.

The reason the match bullet is hollow is that to achieve match accuracy the bullet weights in the lot of ammunition must be consistantly the same, as well as the cases, primers and propellants.

To make a match bullet a precisely weighed lead slug is place into a copper cup and drawn to a point forward, there is a slight air space under that hollow point which is drawn closed to a consistant and perfect ojive for aerodlynamic flight purposes; it allows all the lead to remain and seek its own level withing the paramaters of the ever so slight differences in the bullet from manufacturing processes. The solid base prevents lead from being burned off during firing too so the weight is consistant all the way to the target. Most of the time the hollow point match bullet does not expand.

Other factors determine the shape of the projectile, ojive, ratios of lead to copper, diameter (caliber), and cross sectional densities play to the overall design to achieve perfect flight characteristics. The design is for flight but not terminal performance.

To make a soft point rifle bullet the lead is drawn out and exposed in the tip. Some lead always is shaved off hence the weight varies with this process. This design is concerned with terminal perfomance as well as the non expanding FMJ.

Making the tip solid and having the base open is how the standard FMJ bullet is made but the exposed lead on the base here again allows some of the drawn lead to be lost in construction and some will burn off from ignition. These variances are slight and not noticed in service accuracy or most sporting use. But highly accurate match firearms will detect those differences where as the group of fired bullets will not land entirely close enough together on the target, target bullets, match bullets therefore are made for that purpose.

Knowledge of ballistics was a requirement of former professional positions I held.

 

[baterija]

A fun idea. In it's niche it might be nice to have along. I wouldn't want to be the guy carrying it and it's ammo though. Of course I prefer weapons that carry me instead of the other way around. I also prefer my shotguns in 120mm firing 22 lbs of metal per shot. :devil:

 

[Patriot]

Just a small note about the BTHP (Boat Tail Hollow Point) or MatchKing type projectiles, they come is several different weights and calibers and aren't limited to specific weights like 168gr. in .30 cal. Also, the jacket which protrudes about 4mm on a 168gr .30 round and 5.5mm on a 190gr .30, (measured by me inserting a paperclip end) beyond the point of the inner lead core, acts as an aerodynamic jacket which increases the ballistic coefficient while slightly lowing the sectional density. Its primary design function is to increase aerodynamic efficiency and doesn't necessarily increase accuracy in and of itself.

A .30cal 168gr BTHP with Ballistic Coefficient of .450 fired at 3000 feet per second will still be traveling at 1845fps at 600 yards.

By contrast a projectile with nearly identical weight but different shape as in the example of a 165gr Spire Point flat base has a B.C. of .387. Fired at the same 3000fps it looses more velocity and slows to 1634fps over the same 600 yards. Accuracy is essentially the same other than the BTHP's higher B.C. keeping it's flight time a few nano seconds shorter and therefore less effected by external influences like wind. In short, if it was fired on a calm day or in a vacuum there wouldn't be any inherent accuracy advantage.




Regarding the shotgun....yes, very cool. They finally got the final design down after the idea fell flat many decades ago. I also agree that the remarks and comment made by the host are quite inaccurate at times and are geared to woo the general public than appeal to die hard enthusiasts. It's not limited to small arms either. There are a lot of incorrect or exaggerated statements made about full scale weapon systems whether it's fighter aircraft, missiles or special application tank munitions. Oh well, it's still and interesting show and I just watch it with my BS filter on and extract the good info that's not available from other sources.

 

[MarNav1]

I always liked the 30mm gun in the A-10, but that's just me.

 

[GreyShark]

I wonder where the Black Talon round would fall in the regulations.

Black Talons are just regular old expanding hollow points, no magical properties. They were subjected to much hype by the lamestream media that doesn't even begin to understand them or bother to do any fact checking. This is much the same as the other popular media creation, the "assault rifle" that has no happy switch. The politicians who attempt to draft new laws to regulate these media fantasy inventions are no better. Anybody remember McCarthy describing her barrel shroud as "a shoulder thing that goes up?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ospNRk2uM3U

At any rate all governments have weapons in their arsenals much more powerful and much more horrific than any black colored bullet, shotgun or other firearm. The NBC family of weapons of indiscriminate mass murder come to mind.

 

[Patriot]

Well stated Greyshark. It's humorous that the ammo labeled "black felon" by many politicians who pushed to have Winchester pull these rounds from sale is the same round that was relabeled Ranger SXT and then sold to law enforcement....lol. After all, there's really no harm since the black talon differed little from almost every other type of expanding hollowpoint. Funnier yet is that Winchester's Supreme SXT is nearly the same version which is being sold to the public but instead of 6 radially arranged petals, there are 8 longitudinally arranged petals which essentially give the same performance but with a more media friendly name. I can't remember his name, but an "investigative reporter" in the media was the first to call attention to Winchester's round and the politicians were right on his heals. I think all weapons and ammunition should have colorful, happy names like, Dandelion, Apple pie, and Lady bug, just to rub the irrational media/public and devious politicians. I jokingly wonder if this was what the military had in mind when they named the BLU-82 bomb the Daisy Cutter...:laughing:


One of the first person shooter games, BattleField2, that I enjoy playing has the older version of the AA-12 shotgun called the Mk3A1. It's an upgrade that's available after certain requirements are met and it's available to engineers. It's not very useful beyond about 15-20 yards in the game but it was deadly up close. Uses a 7 round replaceable drum and fires full auto.
http://wiki.bf2s.com/weapons/unlocks/

 

[GreyShark]

I think all weapons and ammunition should have colorful, happy names like, Dandelion, Apple pie, and Lady bug, just to rub the irrational media/public and devious politicians. I jokingly wonder if this was what the military had in mind when they named the BLU-82 bomb the Daisy Cutter...:laughing:

I think the Russians are leading that charge with brands like Silver Bear, Golden Bear. Care Bear and Sugar Bear are probably not far away.

Then you have their Saiga line of rifles and shotguns. Saigas are funny and non-threatening little creatures.

 

[markdi]

This is The Most Powerful Weapon In The World.

A hand held version of the Davy Crockett.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8927728783445897510

 

[Mike Painter]

Some of the MetalStorm toys can put a bit more downstream a bit faster.

 

[gorn]

I wonder where the Black Talon round would fall in the regulations.

Ah the round that had to change it's image because of Connie Chung. We taught our Deputies to refer to the evil hollow point bullets as "controlled expansion rounds" that saved all kinds of heartache if you had a defense attorney that liked to blow smoke up the jury members butts with arguments like "the military doesn't even use hollowpoint bullets, why do you?"

As to breaching rounds. Our SWAT team used frangable rounds made of concrete dust.

 

[Lightraven]

We taught our Deputies to refer to the evil hollow point bullets as "controlled expansion rounds" that saved all kinds of heartache if you had a defense attorney that liked to blow smoke up the jury members butts with arguments like "the military doesn't even use hollowpoint bullets, why do you?"

Is this a real problem? I know of some trial unfriendly things to avoid doing or saying, but the ammo we're issued says "Jacketed Hollowpoint" on the box. Calling it anything else might be considered blowing smoke (except for ammo that says "Controlled Expansion" on the box), but I still don't see why this would ever come up in a trial, at least for the shooting officer. He simply says, "I shot what I was issued." What's to argue?

 

[LightCannon]

I don't get the purpose of the AA12. Why would you ever need such a high ROF on a shotgun?

The way I see it, you've already got the spread, so why do you still need the spray-and-pray?

Someone want to explain to me why this gun is practical? Or is this just one of those "I made it because I can" guns?