Howdy, i was wondering if anyone gas chronographed
M80 ball with their m&p10?
The rifle itself means nothing. Barrel length will determine the velocity, plain and simple.
For a 16" barrel in a 308, M80 tends to run about 2650-2700FPS as a given. From a 20" barrel, they will deliver up to 2800 FPS.
2780 is about the given speed of the 7.62x51. I have seen few out of the box 308 going much faster than 2850, regardless of NATO designation, Wolf plinking ammo, or top shelf hunting ammo. For the .30 caliber bullet, about 2800-3000FPS is the effective ceiling before you start burning the throat on the barrels prematurely. From a rifle shooting 2700FPS ammo, your expected life span is going to be 20,000 rounds before accuracy really suffers badly. (I am talking say 2-3MOA, and keyholing issues.) Once you hit 3000FPS, the life drops by 50%, so we are talking 10K rounds and the barrel will be pretty sloppy.
When you spit hot rodded ammo running 3200FPS from the .30 caliber rifle, your lifespan is down in the 500-1000 range. A severe penalty for running extremely fast ammo thru the rifle.
Since NATO ammo is rarely going to deliver better than 2MOA even with good optics, and since it is designed to be liberally applied to enemy forces, the speed is kept in check to protect barrel life on both semi-auto rifles which chamber it, as well as the M240 and the Pig (Where still in service, if any are still running these days.)
