Reversing Rifle Bullets to Increase Penetration?

[bob lembke]

This topic or idea has been discussed occasionally, and there was a thread on this a month or so ago. At that time I added "my two cents' worth", but stated that when I next saw my wife's relatives I would pose the question, as they are serious gunners (they manufacture their own target rifles and their own ammunition, for a start), in a fashion that few denizens of the UK are still allowed to follow.

I saw my brother-in-law Matt on New Year's Day; he had just come off the range, where he fired in a competition at 500 yards (the only other range that he competes at is 600 yards). He and his step-father made their rifles by marrying 110 year old .45-70 actions with "bull barrels" made in the 1000 square foot gun-smithing-oriented machine shop under the living room, turning the barrels, which must weigh 20 lbs. each, from a blank of steel on a large lathe. The sights are "iron sights", not optical or telescopic, but the most complicated things, with spirit levels built in, for example. They manufacture their own ammo from components; the slugs of the .45-70 weigh about six times as much as the US service round.

So we can accept that Matt (and the rest of the family) are serious rifle people. My wife's mother, when she was 16, killed two deer with one shot (a double head shot), and became a local celebrity.

1. One of my points was that if the bullet of a 8 mm round were extracted and reversed the revised round would not feed in the rifle. Matt felt that it might, or might not.

2. He agreed with me that the velocity and therefore the kinetic energy of the moving bullet would drop much more sharply than a normal round, and that energy is what is needed to punch thru armor.

3. He agreed with me that the accuracy of the modified round would suffer severely.

4. He and my father-in-law have experimented a lot with piercing various gauges of steel (like the sides of dump trucks) with various rifle rounds. He has experimented with special armor-piercing rounds, which he said work very well, much better than various "normal" military-grade ammo. So he has a sense for this question.

5. Something that he added that I had no idea of is that military rifle ammunition is very tightly crimped, and, unless you use very special, very large, and very heavy equipment you will destroy the round, especially the neck of the case. He has done this, and received that result, with both the right equipment (which certainly was not available in the trenches), and with smaller hand tools. For some reason most of his disassembly efforts were with Russian military ammo.

6. He added that the one possible advantage of a reversed round was that the jacketing of the bullet is somewhat thicker at the base, as compared to the tip, but, without the energy, and with the case impacting a much larger area of the steel target when the base struck it, it is hard to see how the reversed slug would have more penetration than the slug in a proper tip-forward orientation.

7. We did not discuss it, but I feel that the probability of a reversed round tumbling in flight is very high, further reducing its penetration, and its accuracy as well.

So all in all he thought that the idea made no sense, and additionally added that (normal) armor-piercing rifle ammunition performs very well. The Germans made such ammunition, in that caliber, at least for their machine gunners; I do not know if it was distributed to the infantry.

Bob Lembke

[Pete1052]

In terms of ballistics the reversed bullet idea sounds preposterous to me. Possibly it was a word-of-mouth legend that made its way around the trenches that may have caused some guys to experiment with the idea. Early in the American Civil War tall tales made the rounds among soldiers about exploding bullets, probably because until then few people had seen what a .577 or .58 caliber slug would do when fired from a rifled barrel.

[Garron]

Hi

Theres an article about reversing the bullet not on armour but seeing if it did increase penetration

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot32_4.htm

it acted like a hollowpoint and expanded like a mushroom.

They did othertests like cutting an X in the tip of the round a cutting the top off to create a makshift dum dum.

Garron

[bob lembke]

Attempting to increase the impact on a human body, to increase expansion, is exactly the opposite problem of increasing penetration, through armor, for example.

All of those expedients are also violations of the rules of war.

Bob Lembke

[auchonvillerssomme]

Bob this is where we have discussed this in depth before.

Mick

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/i...=51603&st=0

[MikB]

I don't think the box-o'truth guy's done the right test in this case; he should have tried it against steel plate. I'd be interested to know if the flat-base impact can shear a hole in steel, while a point runs into increasing flank resistance the deeper it pierces.

It does seem counterintuitive, it's certainly not lawful to shoot these at humans, and both energy and accuracy can be expected to suffer - as much from the necessarily amateur assembly of the round as from any basic ballistic reason.

However, remember, a standard spitzer bullet is more aerodynamically stable travelling ar$e-end first, and when driven normally - point-first - will attempt to turn over when penetrating a resistant medium of any sort.

Further, a kinetic - hammer type bullet puller will remove asphalt-sealed service bullets even without using a seating die to crack the gum - though it's easier if you do.

Such a thing wouldn't be too hard for a unit armourer to make.

I can understand why the box o'truth test didn't include steel plates - I wouldn't want to do it in the open either - but I don't see how this can be properly resolved without 'em.

Regards,

MikB

[ian turner]

Bob,

Thanks for taking the time to further enlighten us.

I think the point about damaging the crimping effectiveness, if the bullet were to be removed and reversed in the cartridge, has an important weight to the argument against such practise.

I still wonder if the sigthing of such rounds was in fact dum dum ammunition with points removed, and that the effect of ordinary bullets on victims made them seem as if they were exploding rounds.

Ian

[Pete1052]

If the reversed bullet idea had had any merit I'm sure the ordnance men of the armies in the war would have redesigned cartridges to take advantage of the alleged improvement in performance. To my knowledge nothing of the sort happened in any of several armies which fought in this war. I stand by what I said earlier: the reversed bullet idea was a rumor that was spread among the troops in the trenches.

[Max Poilu]

There have been a number of in-depth discussions on this going back a few years. These may be of interest:

Explosive Bullets, Their use in the war?

Reversed Bullets in cases, Dum Dum effect

In this one I pictured some bullets that had been found, shame once again the pics have gone:

Following that recent topic..., ...on explosive and reversed bullets.

[edit] Just found the old pic on the HD as referred to in last link above:

[Max Poilu]

And the other pic:

[walrus]

Re: The use of reversed bullet agains armour plate.

Might I suggest that this might work if the amour plating has been poorly or inadequtely heat treated or has otherwise undergone some form of embrittlement.

In this case, the bullet would not necessarily have to penetrate, but may cause material to 'spall' off the inside face, acting as a secondary projectile, causing the required damage.

Just an idea

Tom

[bob lembke]

Max's photos prove that these rounds were made. (Max, are these rounds German or Allied?)

They would certainly, tumbling or not, provide a terrible wound against an individual. Also, pushed that far in, they almost certainly would feed. They would certainly have to be fired at troops very close to have any accuracy. But it is clear to me that except at close range these rounds would rapidly lose velocity and energy and be less effective against a tank. Without a lot of kinetic energy you cannot expect penetration, spalling, nothing, except possibly a clang.

Also, are rifle cartrige cases completely filled with the smokeless powder? (I have never re-loaded or taken appart rifle ammunition.) If so, it would seem to me that some of the powder would have to be removed in order to seat the bullet so deeply. Remember how it sticks out when in the normal position. This, of course, would also rob much velocity and kinetic energy. Additionally, I would think that the reversed bullet would engage the rifling rather brutally and suddenly, perhaps also decreasing velocity and energy right at the muzzle.

The more that one thinks of this the less useful that it seems to be against armor. Why not bayonet the tank?

Bob Lembke

[grantmal]

Bob,

Thanks for your reply to my post on WW1 photography.......here's an entry from the diary of Captain A G Butler, MO 9th Bn AIF, at Gallipoli, concerning orders received:

"Prisoners who have improper ammunition must be tied up and reported at once and man to retain bullets which have been reversed or filed at the point. Hands tied behind their backs."

Seems that some Turkish soldiers might also have been reversing their rounds.

Good on you,

Grant

[Plan]

I've seen the issue discussed and high-speed filmed, in some documentary... Exactly as Walrus suggested.

It was used against sniper protection shield. The idea was that the butt of the reversed bullit would not collapse (crumple as in car front-end design) as easily as the front, therefore not absorbing so much of the kynetic energy, which was therefore transmitted to the shield. It was not intended to pierce the shield, but to impact it with an "impulsion" that would cause the back surface of the shield to eject fragments that would slightly wound someone behind the shield (hopefully in the eyes).

Essentialy, the idea was to avoid the "crumple" effect of the deformation of tip, but to rather make an "impact" where a larger part of the kynetic energy was transferred to the shield, causing it to buckle and break on the rear surface, sending splinters from that rear surface.

It is just like the experience/toy of multiple balls tied from strings, all touching each other. At one end, one ball is made to impact the next one, and the energy end-up being transmitted to the last ball at the opposite end. But if the original ball is made of rubber (crumples), the effect will be much less.

Some of these 14-18 guys knew their sciences. As to how effective it was... Maybe we need to remember that trenches could be very close. And that first tank crews wore medieval like mails masks to protect themselves from such splinters caused by bullits that didn't pierce the tank armor, but made it's rear surface send splinters. The masks may have been a joke, but the issue that inspired them might not.

Anyway, I am no expert, but assuming honesty on the said documentary high-speed photography, the effect of a regular bullit on the shield was none (the collapse of the tip absorbed the energy), but a reversed bullit would cause splinters to be ejected from the shield back surface. Obviously, at some distant range, it would be uneffective.

So reversing the bullit would not "increase penetration", but it could cause a shield to expell fragments that could wound someone behind it.

Pascal

[auchonvillerssomme]

Max's photos prove that these rounds were made. (Max, are these rounds German or Allied?)

Hold on a second...these pics prove that one was made. Forgive me but I dont think that is a definitive answer, show me a couple of hundred of them and i might accept it was practice.

I still stand by my response in the previous thread.

Spitzgeschoss mit Kern (SmK) a steel cored rifle bullet designed to be fired from a standard Mauser infantry rifle. It was the German answer to the tank in World War I

SmK was an armour piercing round in itself, why would the design be improved in the field without it being taken into production if it was that good. I have recently read the following:

British tanks sported 8 mm of face hardened armour all round, and the "K" bullet could penetrate a maximum of 12-13 mm at 0 to 100 metres (0 Degrees inclination). This gave the "K" bullet a 33% chance of penetration with a direct hit on an oncoming tank. As every soldier in a front line position was issued 10 rounds of "K" bullets, there would be a large number of these armour piercing projectiles hitting the target. As a result, "K" bullets accounted for a large number of tank crew casulties, and vehicle losses in the early days of tank warfare.

Mick

[Max Poilu]

Max's photos prove that these rounds were made. (Max, are these rounds German or Allied?)

Hi Bob,

They were German.

This certainly seems a contentious issue - see the earlier discussions I linked to above, especially Explosive Bullets, Their use in the war?. Cannot understand the firm reluctance amongst some to belive they were anything but a myth. This is not the Angel of Mons we are talking about here but a well documented stop-gap procedure to produce a modified weapon in the field. Something that has been happening since man first picked up a rock to throw...

[SiegeGunner]

Bullets clearly were reversed, but evidently not to increase penetration. Plan's explanation — a way of countering snipers firing from behind an armoured shield (by increasing the likelihood of fragments passing through the loophole and/or by spalling splinters off the inside of the shield) sounds eminently plausible. Several men firing at a shield simultaneously would surely give a sniper something to think about. If this technique was indeed used against sniper shields, it would be logical for it to have also been employed against the early tanks, before purpose-made special ammunition became available. I wonder if there is any evidence of modified ammunition being used against RNAS armoured cars earlier in the war?

Mick

[MikB]

Hesketh Prichard in 'Sniping In France' refers to the discovery of reversed bullets (only in enemy hands, of course! :-) ), and he certainly didn't seem aware of a use for them in 'shield-spalling' - he was convinced they were just for dumdum effect in flesh, though he also commented that even a bullet launched in the approved attitude might sometimes keyhole in its victim. He preferred big-game rifles for shield piercing.

Nevertheless the explanation is a plausible one, particularly if there's evidence it worked.

Regards,

MikB

[Andrew Upton]

Thanks for your reply to my post on WW1 photography.......here's an entry from the diary of Captain A G Butler, MO 9th Bn AIF, at Gallipoli, concerning orders received:

"Prisoners who have improper ammunition must be tied up and reported at once and man to retain bullets which have been reversed or filed at the point. Hands tied behind their backs."

Seems that some Turkish soldiers might also have been reversing their rounds.

Interesting to read that - I refrained from mentioning this on one of the more heated threads, but when I went to collect my 1918 Vickers from a retiring fire-arms dealer in late 2005, I was shown a small collection of relics that he had recovered from a trip to Gallipoli many years ago. Included in this was an unfired German Mauser round with the bullet still in place but clearly reversed - I only wish I'd had a camera with me at the time to take a piture.

[TonyE]

Siege Gunner and I were discussing this only last night in the pub, he over his pint of Young's, me over my post-Christmas Detox glass of mineral water.

Having suffered his slings and arrows about my mis-identification of the Brownings last week (anyone can get too clever for themself and anyway I was suffering from alcohol deficiency) we agreed that the idea of spalling on either tanks or sniper shields was the most likely motivation.

In reality is is unlikely to have been any more effective than a normal bullet. Assuming it does not penetrate then the energy transference is the same whichever way it arrives. The one advantage it may have had was that it was possibly less likely to ricochet if it struck obliquely, thus transferring more energy to the target.

I conducted some trials a few years ago on half inch steel plate (not armour) and at short range (<100 yards) even a lead cored 7.62 x 39mm AK bullet passed through cleanly. I suspect that the reversed bullet theory was just that, the troops believed it offered some advantage.

With regards to Mick's point about SmK armour piercing being readily available to all troops, this was not true until the latter part of the war. There is a translation of a 1915 German directive in Kent's "German 7.9mm Military Ammunition" that states because the manufacture of SmK was so difficult and expensive it must only be used by marksmen armed with telescopic rifles in instances when great penetration is required. When the tanks started to appear on the Somme in mid 1916 I doubt if every infantyman had ten rounds of SmK issued. Only later when the manufacturing problems had been overcome did it become more available.

If survival rates are any indicator, even then it was not that plentiful. It is still a quite difficult round to find today, far more so than the .303 VIIW AP round, even alowing for the fact that one would expect to find more British ammo here.

Regards

TonyE

[Pete1052]

Maybe someday someone will conduct a controlled test of this reversed bullet idea that provides data on muzzle velocity, accuracy, and penetration. Measured with a chronograph, I think muzzle velocity would be lower than normal, accuracy at all ranges would be lower than the standard, and I doubt the penetration against pine or oak boards, steel, or armor plate would have been greater than that of standard service ammunition. If it were me doing the test I wouldn't want to use a nice rifle.

Some guys may have indeed reversed bullets during the Great War; however, I think doing so was a bad idea and it was also illegal by international law.

[MikB]

In reality is is unlikely to have been any more effective than a normal bullet. Assuming it does not penetrate then the energy transference is the same whichever way it arrives. The one advantage it may have had was that it was possibly less likely to ricochet if it struck obliquely, thus transferring more energy to the target.

Regards

TonyE

That may not be so. The total energy transferred may be the same, but the time-profile over which it happens could be radically different for what amounts to a flat punch as compared to a collapsing or partially-piercing point - leading to radically different instantaneous pressures.

Since the idea of a reversed bullet doing damage to armour - by penetration or spalling - is counterintuitive, I don't think it could've been sold to soldiers unless there was some substance to it, especially if they were at risk of severe punishment taken in possession by the enemy.

Regards,

MikB

[TonyE]

Your point is valid, and I agree the whole idea seems pointless, but apparently this was done. I don't think the idea was necessarily "sold" to the soldiers, much more likely that it was a story that got about as a rumour, like so many other things.

I doubt if we shall ever know for sure.

Regards

TonyE

[Simon R]

Though details of trials are not clear, the armour-plate manufacturers Miris Steel did conduct experiments using reversed 'standard' German ammunition on their products. Miris steel was used in the Roneo-Miris body shield.

It appears to have resisted reversed and German a/p rounds, though I do not have the ranges to hand - will post later. The results of this testing were used in Miris marketing materials. The reversed rounds seem to have penetrated to a greater depth than oridinary ammunition, but only at close range if memory serves.

[max7474]

Simple Ballistics theory says that a 'blunt' ended reversed bullet would be significantly less aerodynamic and would experience far more drag as it passed through the air. It would have a very poor Ballistic Coefficient compared to a round or pointed nose bullet. This would reduce the momentum of the bullet as it travelled and reduce its ability to penetrate objects as it would hold less energy upon impact having disappated more energy due to its un-aerodynamic shape. It would also be more unstable in flight, more inaccurate and have a tendency to tumble in flight.

Possibly there could be benefit from the greater surface area presented by the wider base of the bullet imparting its energy over more of a surface area - this could cause a scab of armour to break off from the reverse of armour plate or snipers' shields (think HESH rounds in a modern tank) however the round would still have less energy overall than a normal bullet for all the reasons described above so would have a reduced penetrative power. This suports the post about the effectiveness of short ranges only.

As an aside unauthorised modification of weponry to inflict greater harm is against the Geneva convention and could well have got you shot - German saw back bayonet carriers may well have fallen foul of this view.

Alan