Armor piercing ammo?!?

truckemup97

truckemup97

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As per the rules, I won't link to the story, but enter "Oklahoma City police seize 7 guns, armor-piercing ammo in arrest of suspected pot dealer" in a search and you'll find it. My question is, for which of these weapons would he have had "Armor piercing" ammo? Or is this another case of the media knowing nothing about which they write?
 
truckemup97 said:
As per the rules, I won't link to the story, but enter "Oklahoma City police seize 7 guns, armor-piercing ammo in arrest of suspected pot dealer" in a search and you'll find it. My question is, for which of these weapons would he have had "Armor piercing" ammo? Or is this another case of the media knowing nothing about which they write?
Click to expand...

Armor piercing ammo is for certain rifles. Without going into detail, the reason for it's use should be obvious.
 
It was probably nothing more than 7.62x39 FMJ military ammo.
 
Last edited:
Kanewpadle said:
Armor piercing ammo is for certain rifles. Without going into detail, the reason for it's use should be obvious.
Click to expand...

If you mean going through "bullet proof" vests, most rifle rounds will do that. So will some Tokarev ammo. Using that logic, any rifle ammo is armor piercing.
 
I always laugh when I hear about evil AP ammo. When I was a kid, we had a lot of AP (black-tip) .30-06 ammo around, no idea where it came from, Dad wasn't a gun guy, and has never owned a .30-06. Anyway, I didn't know it was AP until years later when I learned what black tip signified on US .30-06 ammo; I loved having it around, though, that AP ammo made great rockets for my GI Joe's.

As has been previously pointed out, damn near all centerfire rifle ammo will punch body armour, and for the media, that makes it AP.
 
Probably he had some old Chicom steel core AK ammo. It was technically banned from import as being AP ammo, but it really isn't.

The Feds have laws on the books regulating AP ammo for handguns, not rifles. State law may very. It's not illegal to possess under Federal Law.

AP ammo can be made for most any gun using drill rod or similar expedients.
 
truckemup97 said:
If you mean going through "bullet proof" vests, most rifle rounds will do that. So will some Tokarev ammo. Using that logic, any rifle ammo is armor piercing.
Click to expand...


Since you couldn't read between the lines, yes that's what I was getting at.

I don't discuss body armor and penetration on an open forum. I don't care if it's general knowledge or not.
 
I bought a case of GI .30-06 AP ammo at a gun show during the 1970's, shot it all up as practice ammo, then started reloading the brass. I still have most of the brass, but I wish I had the ammo now! AP ammo will easily bring $1-plus per round on the open market.

I also had a good quantity of US GI .30 Carbine AP ammunition. What a joke! The .30 Carbine won't penetrate much with any bullet.

I still have a box of W-W .357 158-grain AP ammo that I bought about 35 years ago for around $12. Probably worth five times that now.

Anyone remember the Federal 'NyClad' pistol ammunition? Specifically developed with nylon coating to reduce airborne lead for indoor range use. Someone found out that it would penetrate kevlar vests (more so than some other bullets) so, bingo!, "cop killer" bullets became the media rant!

About 20 years ago Winchester came out with the 'Black Talon' ammunition. One of the TV 'investigative reporting' programs aired a show depicting it as horribly devastating to humans. Winchester withdrew it from the civilian market, making it for law enforcement only. I promptly bought a couple of cases of .45 ACP Black Talons, which are now selling for about $4 per round! I bought it for about $13 per 50-round box (law enforcement purchase order price), so it is now part of my "retirement fund".

Shortly before the "Assault Weapons Ban" I found a case of US GI 20-round M-16 magazines at $3 each. After the AWB those were bringing $40 each as "pre-ban hi-cap magazines".

Good rule of thumb: Whenever politicians, or the TV talking heads, start talking about things no citizen should be allowed to have, those things become excellent investments!
 
The problem in the public perception and with the media is a lack of uniform definitions.

Armor piercing can mean anything from being able to penetrate body armor (bullet proof vest) to making holes in a tank. It is quite similar to the "cop killing" bullets that the media was once fond of tossing out.

Well......I have seen several officers die after having their vest penetrated by routine handgun ammo so I guess that would have been considered armor piercing.

Notice that the media will always say how many guns they seized but never exactly what they seized. Wonder what the media would say if police raided the homes of some members here. I can see the headlines, possibly on CNN, saying "Home raided, hundreds of guns seized."

The media puts their slant on the news as they feel will attract the most attention. I get sick of their view of the world and life. Unless I was on the scene of a media report, I do not read or listen to it. The media seldom gets anything right.
 
Steave said:
I always laugh when I hear about evil AP ammo. When I was a kid, we had a lot of AP (black-tip) .30-06 ammo around, no idea where it came from,.....
Click to expand...

Growing up in the 60's surplus 30.06 ammo was available most everywhere. My neighbor was an avid hunter and a WW2 vet (carried a BAR). He used to take his son and I shooting and he'd bring an ammo box full of surplus rounds which were cheap. I recall three different types. The black armor piercing bullet had a hardened bullet within the bullet. He showed us by sawing the tip of bullet off which he did to make it a deer hunting round. If you sawed back too far from the tip the saw would contact the hardened center and just slide off.
I also recall a green tipped bullet, and my favorite to shoot, the orange tipped tracer round :D . He said the tracer was hard on the barrel so he never brought very many of them for us.
 
AP law in many states is vague. Some places have laws on the books that would indeed technically ban almost all rifle ammo if actually enforced. (I think Guam is one such example.)

Federal law only relates to handgun ammunition and differentiate AP from regular via bullet construction. It can't be sold to just anyone by an FFL any more. A non FFL can still sell it. You can also get into trouble for making it without doing the paperwork.

Most of the vests that got penetrated by certain bullets that earned a reputation as penetrators but weren't per se AP were IIA and level II vests. Velocity standards were raised and durability to wear were improved under the new NIJ standards. For a while "special threat" level II vests were sold. Anyone who wanted to know what the bullets were that were a "problem" had only to read the manufacturer's blurbs as to what the "Special threat" vests were supposed to protect against.

Talon remanufacturing used to sell remade .30-06 AP, but they were shut down for environmental problems. It could still be made and sold commercially if there was enough demand.

The newer black tip M955 5.56mm AP ammo isn't sold commercially but is a real penetrator. It'll zip through rifle plates as well as, or possibly better than, the old black tip .30-06. That's one reason why ESAPI - and later XSAPI - plates replaced the original SAPI plates.

AP rifle ammo, either under that name or not, is routinely used when hunting larger/dangerous game.
 
I couldn't get the full article, but am chalking this up to ignorance on the parts of both the cops, who seem to routinely dramatize their comments to reporters, who routinely,ignorantly, uninquisitively, and unquestioningly, regurgitate what they've been told. The guy, as Gatorfarmer said, probably had some commonly available cheap FMJ 7.62x39mm AK ammo lying around, contributing to what is usually breathlessly characterized as an "arsenal".

By the way, why has no one questioned the premise of the search, and the accuracy of the headline, which maybe should have been: "On the flimsiest of evidence, much of it hearsay, local police bust fireams enthusiast, discovering cheap ammo, paltry gun collection, and an insignificant amount of contraband cannabis."
 
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