FM> Referencing the CALIBER of the weapon, NOT the cosmetics, which
FM> are
FM> completely irrelevant.
        Ok, so then all of these "hunting" rifles that shoot
any of these "military" calibers were really designed to wound and
not kill?  Somehow, I don't see the correlation between wound
and hunting.  Am I missing something?
  The "cosmetics" are irrelevent?!  Oh please, please tell this to
the gun grabbers!  It seems that this is the basis for banning these
so called "assault weapons" in the first place!
  Most of these "military" calibers were developed as commercial
loadings before they became "military" rounds.  Some were developed at
the request of Continental Army Command, but the caliber and case
length were usually the only criteria that were given, the development
of the round was up to the commercial ammo producers.
  Case in point (no pun intended), the 7.62 NATO round, more commonly
known as the .308 Winchester, as quoted from the Speer #11 Loading Manual:
    "The origin of the .308 began after World War 1.  Following the close
of this conflict, Ordnance devoted considerable effort toward development
of light semi and full automatic weapons.  It was obvious that a cartridge
with a shorter overall length than the 30-'06 would permit shorter, lighter
and more efficient gun mechanisms."
   It would appear from this text, that the emphasis on the 7.62 NATO
cartridge was one of weapon efficiency and handling characteristics.
Nowhere in the text does it mention ballistics more suited to wounding
than killing.
  On the subject of the 5.56mm or .223 Remington cartridge, the Speer #11
Manual states:
    "Originally, a rifling twist of 1-14 was selected for military rifles.
But it did not reliably stabilize the long boat tail military bullet at long
range, and a 1-12 twist was adopted.  This was recently changed to a 1-7.5
inch twist."
  It appears in this text that the .223 bullet was only unstable at long
range, and obviously this was a concern to the military, hence the adoption
of faster twist rates to ensure bullet stabilization.  If you think about it,
this only makes sense.  An unstable bullet might be more likely to produce
those wounding effects that have become such a center piece of the "assault
rifle" debate, but it is also known that unstable bullets are not accurate
and common sense should tell us that no matter what effects a bullet may
have, if you can't hit the target it does you no good at all.
 Again, no mention of intentionally designing an unstable round is made, but
rather it would appear that the opposite was pursued.
--- GEcho 1.00
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