DIY AP bullets (sorta)

[kenno]

I was watching a documentary about the excavation of WW1 British and German Trenches in France.
The trench lines were 150 yards apart and both sides used snipers shielded with 1" thick steel plates, Standard rifle ammo would not penetrate these plates. The soldiers pulled bullets from thier ammo and re-seated the bullet backwards then fired it at the steel plates. The reversed bullet acted like a shaped charge when it hit the plate and had enough penetration so that metal would spall-off the backside of the plate and injure the sniper! The British would also use manikins to draw sniper fire, the bullet hole would help pinpoint the snipers position so that mortars could be zeroed on that area

[nakadnu]

Did it say or do you know what kind of bullets they used. Did they have an exposed lead base or were they full metal jacketed etc. Very interesting. Thanks

[kenno]

The 1914 Mk VII 303 174 grn. bullet had an open lead base and the nose was filled with fiber or aluminium. The ballance was towards the rear of the bullet MV 2440 and ME 2310

[monet861]

Now I'm going to have to pull the bullets from ALL of my ammo and turn it around, wow that's going to take some time.

[nakadnu]

Thanks Kenno.

The 1914 Mk VII 303 174 grn. bullet had an open lead base and the nose was filled with fiber or aluminium. The ballance was towards the rear of the bullet MV 2440 and ME 2310

[Legion489]

This was quite common in Africa when the hunters ran out of FMJ ammo. The dummies were used to see where the snipers were so the other snipers could shoot at them.

[entre]

never happen, i'ts bs. guys. only the 50 bmg will pierce 1" of mild steel. SOMETIMES the tiny tungsten wire core of 30-06 AP black tip WW2 will do so, but not with any energy left over, and not from much distance,either.

[THUNDERMAN]

DO NOT ever try to shoot a bullet loaded backwards in the case.This will cause a serious overpressure in the chamber. The leade into the rifling is there for a reason,to align the pointed end of the bullet into the rifling in the barrel,not a blunted end.

[rhode]

accuracy with the bullet backwards is probably very poor. The leade might not matter, if the bullet was seated deeply enough into the case neck. Military loads of the day were pretty low pressure, and bolt actions are very stout. So it was probably safe enough to the shooter, but extremely unlikely to do anything on the far side of 1" steel plate, from any distance.

[Legion489]

OK, the bullets were FMJ to begin with. Yes, the African hunters did pull soft nosed bullets to turn around to make FMJ, but it was because they had to, not for fun. It will work, but it obviously isn't for the faint hearted to play with. It will NOT go through 1" of hardened steel, although if you get a small bullet going fast enough it might go through 1" of soft steel and get peppered with basically lead and steel vapor.

[Defcon090]

I agree. Not only will it cause this type of harm, the bullet would probably get caught in a rifling spiral and lodge somewhere between the chamber and exit end of the barrel. Maybe even split it. Not worth the damage to yourself, gun or others.

DO NOT ever try to shoot a bullet loaded backwards in the case.This will cause a serious overpressure in the chamber. The leade into the rifling is there for a reason,to align the pointed end of the bullet into the rifling in the barrel,not a blunted end.

[Dutch106]

I concure never shoot a bullet backwards in a rifle especily! This sort of "folk wisdom" comes along periodicly from some anecdotal comment in a book, written by guy who had a buddy,who had a buddy who said something about a storey he sort of remembered someone talking about while they were getting sqiffy.
Dutch

[jeager]

IF and it's a BIG IF professional hunters turned bullets backward accuracy would
be abysmal. Ranges would be quite short however.
I've read a number of books by professional hunters in Africa and most use nothing less
than the .375 H&H and ALL I've read about use full metal jackets on all dangerous game.
Respect shooting critters that might eat you accuracy is paramount and there is a back up
gunner right there.
Shooting a backward loaded bullet is nothing short of stupid.
I don't know why anyone in a survival situation needs be concerned about shooting through
mild steel or any metal steel plates.
If need be the 5.56/.223 WILL burn right through 3/8" steel even soft points will do that.
I've done that.
My range is 125 yards and in my back yard so I do one heck of a lot of shooting.
I have at least 7 training certifications from the Ohio Police Officers Training Academy and
I can't even remember how many shooting/fireams schools I've been too.
I trained with Carlos Hathcock (r.i.p.) and Massad Ayoob is a personal friend.

I know enough to know I don't know everything but I know one heck of a lot more than
the average shooter.
When I shot p.p.c. matches I put 100,000 rounds through a Smith revolver and wore it
out.
In ONE year!

[RICHFL]

I have two thoughts:

1. A 1 oz sabot slug out of a 12 gauge shot gun will go thru an engine block at up to 100 yards. Did that to a 350 V8 chev engine.

2. The first snipers used by the British were former grounds keepers from the royal forest and major lords estates. They used the first gillie suits made of netting and strips of colored cloth. They were the bounty hunters in England for illegal hunters.

[jeager]

Surviving a nit wit!

Ghillie suit. Reminds me of a hilarious story. To me it was hilarious, not the the "victim".
My old hunting buddy and I were hunting several hundred acres of woods owned by
another bud.
My hunting partner showed up in a home made ghillie suit.
He made if from strips if burlap, all strips were quite fuzzy.
He was also a chain smoker so I stayed far from him.
I was in a tree stand and my ol' bud never saw me, sat on a rock in his burlap
suit and fired up a smoke!!! grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

The lighter ignited the fussy burlap and set the suit on fire pronto.
Being none to bright he started running which only fanned the flames.
He jumped into an ice cold creek to put out himself.
bawww hawwwwwwwwwwwwww. Choke, sputter, gasp, gafawwwwwwwwwwwwww.
I nearly fell out of my tree stand.
He was non the worse for the experience.
Needless to say we no longer hunt together.
Wonder why he has yet to bag a deer?
He's till a buddy but I make excuses not to hunt with him.
Then there was the day when he did hunt my place..................................
I already bagged a deer so I went someplace leaving him without adult supervision.
I came home and was horrified to find smoke coming from under the eves!!!!!

I ran in the house to find the nit wit had a new cast iron pan in my oven full of
bacon grease to season it while he hunted.
Natch the bacon grease over flowed sending hot grease on the red hot element
of the electric stove smoking up my everything.
The there was the time I was out back hunting and nit wit had some 7.62 X 39 steel
case ammo that got wet in his basement.
So nit wit put the wet ammo fell out of the container onto the heating element of
my stove and set rounds off.
More rounds blew out of the metal container and also blew up quite nicely.
I had many holes in my oven and had to buy a new stove.
My bud does not come over any more!