Another Debunking Thread

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BigG

New member
Ah, the URBAN LEGENDS of GUNDOM...

I just participated in a thread that discussed the differences between the two well-known NATO rifle cartridges in their military vs. civilian guises. In my opinion, there ain't a dime's worth of difference between them, but you pay your money and you take your choice.

I think the problem at least partly lies in the fact that gunwriters carve out a niche and then hammer on the same old points their entire career. One well-respected scribe has emphasized the "what if" legal scenarios to the point where it is now an unwritten axiom among some shooters that you will be be locked under the jail if involved in a self defense shooting using reloaded ammunition or a BHP with the magazine safety disconnected or a 9mm just can't cut the mustard, the FBI "proved" it in Miami in 1986.

Others think that unless you can clean a 22 shot IPSC scenario in under 6 seconds, you are not ready to defend yourself.

What other Urban Legends are out there that we need to question?
 
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KSFreeman

New member
One of my recent faves: [GSC voice] "The Bulgarian AK has a barrel made by Steyr which makes it super accurate."

Others: the Glock 7, the .357, the .44 mag, the 1911 myths, any emmagee myth.

I like them all. Very entertaining.
 
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Joe Demko

New member
My all time favorite: "A hit in the pinky with a .45acp will pick a man up and spin him around at 300 yards." The only other handgun round to have its effectiveness so grossly overestimated might be the .44 magnum.

"All that .25 will do is make somebody mad." Plenty of dead folks will tell you otherwise.

All the various posts from fans of the .308 about its penetrative qualities making it the ne plus ultra of SHTF cartridges. Even though it will shoot through more wood, steel, etc. than a .223, such posts ignore that the rifleman can't see his target through such things. What can be done by a squad of M1/M-14 wielding troopers supported by an mg or two is entirely different from what a lone rifleman can accomplish. BTW, I like the .308 and own a couple rifles chambered for it, I just don't confuse what I can do with what a platoon of Marines could do.

I could go on, but I'll leave some of the fun for others.
 
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blades67

New member
The old California Urban Myth was that the Government would have to send in the S.W.A.T. teams to take their "assault weapons" after 1JAN00.

The new one is that they won't ever jump through hoops to buy a new gun after 1JAN03.
 
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45King

New member
BigG, if you are referring to the .308 Win./7.62 NATO, it is NOT a myth that the two cartridge cases are different enough to cause serious problems.

Some years ago, I had a Styer SSG rifle in .308. I had cooked up a nice, accurate handload for it using Nosler 165 gr. ballistic tip bullets and commercial (Remington IIRC) cases. This load was below the max suggested in the manual, and the fired cases and primers showed no signs of overpressure.
I also had on hand some military 7.62 brass, and the exact same load in this brass caused stickiness in extracting. Examination of the brass showed definite signs of overpressure. Pulling the bullets and measuring the powder charge revealed that the charges were exactly as I had measured them originally. Rechecking the manual showed that the weight of the charge was definitely below the maximum charge listed for .308 Winchester brass. The problem was that I wasn't using .308 Winchester brass, I was using 7.62 x 51 brass, and the internal volume of the 7.62 brass was less than the internal volume of the .308 brass, causing overpressure.

Remember, military brass is made with thicker walls than the civilian counterparts, and this can indeed lead to pressure problems, at least in rifles.

I've got quite a bit of military .45ACP brass which I've been loading for years (in some cases, the headstamps have been rubbed off from repeated loadings and firings.) Even though the milspec pistol cases have thicker walls, this has not lead to any overpressure problems for me with the loads I've used.

Weigh a primed empty case in both .308 and 7.62, then fill them with water and weigh them again, then do the math. You'll see that the 7.62 case does indeed have less volume. It's not a myth, it's the truth.
 
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The Plainsman

New member
When I was a kid, I was told that if you got hit with a magnum, regardless of caliber, that the "extremely high" velocity would cause shock waves in the water in your body which would kill you, even if you got hit in a finger. That was the reason cops weren't allowed to use .357 mag rather than .38 Spcl, so I was told. :rolleyes: I don't remember who told me this, but it sure scared me. :eek:
 
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BigG

New member
The statement is usually more like :eek: "It's not only dangerous but potentially fatal to shoot a surplus 7.62 in a 308 chamber" :eek: (or vice versa). Nothing about reloading which any reloading manual will tell you that military brass is 10% thicker and to reduce your starting load accordingly.

Who reloads military brass anyway? Not me.
 
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BigG

New member
I also like the one that "reloading is easy."

My feeling is that you have to be very attentive and alert while you are reloading and if you have a sneaking suspicion something is wrong, stop NOW and find out what it is because your sixth sense is trying to tell you something.

I have given up most of my reloading except for 45 ACP because I use a single stage press. The guys with the progressives usually seem to be the ones that have the kBs! and pffts!.
 
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Gewehr98

New member
Military brass - more common than one would think.

Been shooting a bunch of Lake City from the late 1960's as my reloads of choice for the John C. Garand Matches. Turns out a bunch of us old farts are doing so, so we now color the bases of our rounds with different colored magic markers so we can pick up our own brass after the relays.

I run nothing but Lapua 7.62x51 military brass in my M14NM, 700PSS, and BM-59. When I get my Tikka 595, it'll be fed the same brass. I wound up with several thousand pieces of Lapua from a non-descript police rifle range a few years back. Good stuff.

Swaging out military primer crimps suck, though. :(

How about another myth? ".223 Remington/5.56mmNATO can do everything the .308 Win/7.62mmNATO can, all the way out to 1000 yards".

Yup, that's why the U.S. M-24 and M-40 series AREN'T chambered in .223.

Or maybe the Marine and Army troops just haven't learned they don't need that big obsolete round yet? :)
 
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BigG

New member
About the 223 and target shooting (or maybe target shooting in general).

I think it's a little presumptuous of us to compare target shooting, where they do all sorts of things to work around the rules, and real life. I am NOT single loading MY AR15 with extra long VLD bullets so I can make shots over 400 yards away. Anything that won't work thru the magazine is of just about ZERO interest to me, other than as an academic exercise. So, I agree with you that the 223 will not do everything the 308 will unless heavily doctored and it just ain't practical, imho. (They do sex change operations, too, but it does not change the underlying reality, imho.)

The military brass thing usually applies to reloading. It's pretty well established that military brass is thicker and that loads must be reduced to perform the same in milbrass as commercial brass.
 
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4V50 Gary

Staff
The fable pushed by the anti-gun folks that you're more likely to get shot if there's a gun in your house. :eek: Didn't know any of my guns had malice towards me. Little wonder those naughty things are in lock-up (safe). Some of them are even in administrative segregation (their own box and apart from other guns).
 
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Mark O

New member
Gewehr98 took the words roght out of my mouth about the .223.Also media claims that .223 and 7.62x39 are high powered rounds capable of 1000 yd shots.

Btw pump shotguns are more reliable than semi's when using reloads.With factory loads is where the myth comes in IMHO.
 
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Gewehr98

New member
Matthew, there's a little bit of truth in that shotgun statement.

But it's not as much a reliability issue as a functional issue. Self-loading shotguns, either recoil or gas, are somewhat sensitive to what loads they are fed. Loads that are too light for an autoloader will cycle just fine in a pump gun. ;)
 
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Marko Kloos

New member
This is not a myth. I know a guy in mpls that has one obtained from oldman Glock himself. It does have ceramic componets in it
Click to expand...

Negatron. There has never been a Glock 7, or a Glock made with any ceramic components. The Glock 17, so called because it was Gaston Glock's 17th patent, was the first handgun ever made by Glock, after only three prototypes.
 
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Ceol Mhor

New member
I learned at the gun shop today that a .22LR fired from a pistol will perforate any body armor without a steel trauma plate, because it's small and goes fast. :)
 
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Jim V

New member
How about, ".357 Magnums will penetrate an automobile engine block."? Never happen.

Or, "Shooting a car's gas tank will cause it to explode."?

Or, "Glock Perfection."? :D
 
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