Why hand gun and rifle bullets are different.

Some people have observed that rifle and handgun bullets are different and wondered why. Hand gun bullets tend to be short and fat while rifle bullets are long and thin. For example, #M855A1 is the current US military rifle round that has a 62 grain weight, .223” diameter bullet. The standard #M882 handgun round is a 112 grain, 9mm (.355”) diameter bullet. The handgun bullet is 1.8 times heavier and the diameter is 1.6 times greater than the rifle bullet.

The difference in barrel length between hand guns and rifles is what largely causes this difference. Now some of you are nodding in agreement and everyone else is still confused. So let me elaborate on this some more. What pushes a bullet out of the barrel is the gas pressure generated by combusting gun powder. The bullet is being continuously accelerated by the gas pressure pushing on the bullet base . So bullet velocity is largely a matter of how long the barrel is to let the acceleration happen. Therefore, short barrel handguns are limited to much lower velocities than rifles.

Handgun bullets
If you look at typical handgun muzzle velocities they generally run from 750 FPS (Feet per Second) to 1,300 FPS. This excludes 6” and longer handgun barrels. This range is generally true for all bullet weights of .22LR cartridges through 45 caliber sizes . On the other hand, rifle speeds generally run from 1,900 FPS to 4,000 FPS. Handgun bullet designers are faced with the basic limitation of a short barrel giving lower velocity and yet they desire to maximize effectiveness. So to improve effectiveness you can do six things.
1) To increase handgun bullet effectiveness in the same caliber you might increase the bullet weight by making it longer. But then the muzzle velocity starts to drop. There is no magic bottom limit but I think most people would agree that 750 FPS is near the bottom limit for effectiveness. I have seen 1200 FPS suggested as a good handgun bullet velocity. So to get higher velocity the weight of the bullet is dropped. This makes it easier for the combustion gas pressure to accelerate the lighter bullet. You generally you end up with a stubby bullet where the length is only 1.4 to 2 times the diameter. Hand gunners would like to use a longer heavier bullet but it just comes out too slow.
2) You can increase the barrel length to allow a longer acceleration time and get more velocity. This is limited by the overall desire for a handgun to be small and easy to carry around. If you could use a rifle that is what you would be carrying.
3) Another possibility is to increase the pressure generated by the gun powder and bullet combination. This has been done and modern cartridges operate near the limit allowed by current metallurgy. The different handgun and rifle cartridges have different allowable maximum pressures depending upon the state of cartridge design during the years they were developed or pressure limits due to the firearm that was intended to use the cartridge. Hand guns generally have lower allowable pressures. For example revolver users like to be able to open their cylinder and have the empty cases either fall out or come out without too much of a push. This desire limits the maximum pressure because increased pressure forces the case walls to conform more to the chamber which makes it harder to remove the cases.
4) The next possibility to increase effectiveness is to increase the bullet diameter or caliber to throw more lead and make a bigger hole in the target. So rather than stopping with a .22 handgun size people generally move up to a .355” (9mm caliber), 40 caliber, 45 caliber or something similar. Increasing the bullet diameter allows the pressure generated by combusting gun powder to push on an increased bullet base surface area. If the same pressure (PSI or Pounds per Square Inch) is pushing on a larger rear bullet area then you can increase the bullet weight and still get about the same velocity. For example let me compare bullets from a .22WMR cartridge (.22”) and 45 APC +P cartridge (.45”). Both have similar operating pressures of 24,000 PSI and 23,000 PSI. The base of the .45 has 4.1 times the area of the .22 bullet for gas pressure to use pushing the bullet up the barrel. Therefore we should be able to use a bullet that much heavier and get a similar velocity. A typical bullet for a .22WMR is 40 grains and gets 1100 FPS to 1300 FPS in 2” to 4” barrels. So a comparable bullet for the 45 APC +P cartridge should be 164 grains (40*4.1). And, in fact, a couple companies offer a 165 grain load for this cartridge that obtains about the same velocity as the 22WMR. So the point is that you can throw more lead with a bigger handgun caliber (diameter) to improve effectiveness. The limit on this is recoil and gun weight. As the bullet weight gets heavier the recoil gets heavier and the gun gets heavier. From observing firearm history, it seems that the .45 is the maximum size that people have settled on as a compromise between handgun weight and size, bullet effectiveness, and recoil.
5) You can improve the bullet design to get greater effectiveness. There has been a lot of development in this over the last several decades. Better bullets have improved performance for all handgun and rifle calibers. I don’t think that better bullets have substantially changed the weight of the bullets being used in a particular caliber. But, better bullets have made some smaller calibers a little more acceptable. For example the .45 was popular for most of the last century. However, now bullet diameters from .355” to .40” (380 ACP, 9 mm, 40 S&W) seem more popular. Part of the reason that the .45 size was popular was that bullets did not expand reliably on impact and so starting out with a larger diameter bullet helped insure a bigger hole in the target.
6) Finally you can improve the gun powder to get a more sustained push with lower peak pressure. Since the development of modern gun powder over 100 years ago, recent improvements in gun powder have had some effect but they have not caused any essential change in the short fat nature of handgun bullets.
So, to compensate for a short barrel, handgun bullets tend to be short to reduce their weight and get the bullet velocity into an acceptable range. And then that basic bullet shape is scaled up into a larger diameter to allow more lead to be shot at the target. Of course, handgun bullet development history is not so simple since I just summarized in two sentences at least decades if not a century of work by many people.

Rifle Bullets
During the black powder era rifles were limited by the old black powder. Black powder could only generate limited pressure and so effectiveness was improved by increasing caliber size. My old Lyman Black Powder Handbook, 1st edition, lists 16,000 CUP or about 6,000 PSI as the highest pressure generated by any of the black powder loads. Many common modern cartridges operate at 60,000 PSI or ten times as much. With limited pressure all they could do was increase the bullet diameter and weight to increase effectiveness. This is why some typical black powder cartridge rifles were of .38, .40, and .45 caliber sizes. Some muzzle loaders were even larger like the .75 caliber Brown Bess. With the development of modern smokeless gun powders we can generate higher pressures with resulting higher velocity. Rifle bullets then started to become long and thin for a number of reasons.
1) A rifle shooting a big heavy bullet at high velocity will hurt the shooter’s shoulder. At the higher velocities the smaller diameter bullets will do the job and not hurt the shooter as much.
2) Thin long bullets are more streamlined and cut through the air better. This allows them to go farther and increases the effective range.
3) Thin long bullets also penetrate the target better. Ensuring adequate penetration and also having reliable expansion is a regular concern with many handgun bullets that travel at low velocities. However it is relatively easy to get adequate penetration and expansion with an appropriate modern rifle bullet if one of sufficient weight is used. Often the heaviest rifle bullets available in a caliber are not the typical ones used because the shooter does not need that much penetration.
4) If the lighter, smaller diameter bullet would work it also made sense to use it to save cost and enable the use of lighter rifles, and smaller cartridges.
Rifles have some velocity limits but, in general, we can select as long and heavy a bullet as we might want in a particular caliber and still have adequate velocity. Since rifles have velocity to spare, people will occasionally get a shortened carbine length barrel to improve handling and sacrifice a little velocity. My favorite .223 rifle bullet is a 64 grain and my current favorite .308 caliber rifle is a 165 grain weight bullet. Both of them are 3.6 times longer than their diameter and are of a medium weight in their caliber. However, that ratio is much higher than the typical handgun bullet ratio of 1.4 to 2. And so rifle bullets tend to be thinner and longer than handgun bullets since velocity is not an issue due to the longer rifle barrel.

.32 APC Rifle Chamber Insert (adaptor)

The online web site, Sportsmansguide.com, sell a cartridge adaptor that lets you fire 32 APC pistol cartridges in your .30-06, .303, or .308 Winchester rifle. This sounded like an interesting thing to try and so for $14.97 plus shipping I had a cartridge adaptor for the .308 Winchester to play with.
The way this thing works is probably self evident from looking at the picture above. However, what you do is place a 32 APC cartridge in the end of the adaptor. The adaptor is then hand loaded into your rifle and fired. The 32 APC pistol bullet diameter of .311 is close enough to the normal .308 rifle bullet size that it goes through your rifle barrel with no problems. You will normally need to use a pencil to push the spent 32 APC cartridge out of the adaptor base. It does not require much of a push and sometimes they fall out by themselves.
To initially use the adaptor you will probably need to adjust the adaptor length to fit your chamber by sanding the head end on some emery cloth as directed by the instructions enclosed with the adaptor. I used a small square of 120 grit emery cloth from my tool box that I find occasional use for. What you do is hold the emery cloth on a hard smooth surface. Then you place the head of the adaptor down on it and sand the end using a circular motion. Check it occasionally in your rifle action until the action just closes easily. I suggest you try and remove the circular swirls on the head end before firing it in your rifle by using a finer grade of sand paper than I did. I believe that swirl marks left on the end of the adaptor were transferred to the end of my bolt during firing.
Even if you have something other than a single shot rifle you will still have to load and fire the pistol cartridges like you would with a single shot rifle. The pistol round does not have enough power to cycle semi-auto rifles. Also the pistol cartridge can easily slide back out of the adaptor. So if you tried to load several adaptors and put them into your magazine you might find that a pistol cartridge had fallen out during the cycling since the 32 APC has an easy slip fit into the adaptor. Also, since the adaptor is shaped like an empty rifle case it lacks a rounded bullet shape at the end that most guns count on to guide the cartridge into the chamber. So you would most likely have my experience of discovering that the adaptor cartridge mouth gets caught while moving from the magazine into the chamber. Finally you want to avoid the gun action throwing your $15+ dollar adaptor off into the weeds or onto the concrete floor. I let mine hit the concrete once and the cartridge mouth was bent slightly. It straighten out with the next shot but I decided that I needed to catch it each time with my hand as it came out of my action rifle.
The Sportsman’s Guide product information page says “If you have a .308, .303 or .30-06., you can make it more "town-friendly" quiet, and practice shoot it for less.” It further says, “The gun becomes low recoil and low noise (similar in volume to a magnum air rifle).” I think that the noise statements are mostly false. When I fired a Remington UMC practice cartridge the noise sounded like a regular 22LR rifle cartridge due to the supersonic speed of the gasses exiting the barrel. I think that is too loud to be called “town friendly.” Since I had been interested in some backyard quiet firing I did a test reloading the 32 APC shells to find out at what point they did become quiet. What I finally came up with was that I could put no more than 1 grain of Clays powder under a 71 grain metal case bullet for the combustion gasses to be subsonic when they exited the muzzle of my 22” long barrel. The average bullet velocity was 637 FPS. At that point the sound was more of a loud pneumatic blast that lacked the “crack” typical of supersonic gasses. I had also tried a 49 grain “O” buck shot but it lacked the weight necessary to obtain good combustion and the exiting muzzle gasses were louder and had something of a supersonic “crack” with the same powder load.
Typical muzzle velocity from a pistol for my factory test Remington UMC cartridge is 905 FPS according to Remington. The average muzzle velocity from my rifle was 1095 FPS. Pistol cartridges are meant to fully combust in just a couple inches so the long barrel length only added around 17% more velocity.
The adaptor really hurt the rifle accuracy. Typical 5 shot group sizes at 25 yards were from 1 ½” to 2 ¼” using a 71 grain bullet. That was a little distressing so I went and got my normal 150 grain 308 Winchester hunting reloads and shot a ½” 3 shot group that I felt much better about. These were all shot sitting at a picnic table and holding the rifle with my elbows rested on the table. A 2 ¼” group accuracy is bad enough that I would hesitate to use this adaptor for squirrel hunting. I would certainly not go for the head shots that would be fine with a scoped .22LR rifle. Also the point of impact shifted to the right a couple inches from the settings normal for my deer hunting load.
Sportsman’s Guide only sells the most popular size version. However, MCA Sports (http://www.mcae.com/) sells 34 other versions for a variety of .22 .30 and .32 pistol calibers fired in various rifle cartridges. By the way Sportsman’s Guide calls this product an Insert. MCA Sports calls it an Adaptor. I think the Adaptor term is more correct.
Overall this adaptor has limited usefulness. Accuracy is reduced and handgun cartridge cost is much higher when compared to plinking with 22LR cartridges. It could possibly be used to introducing a youth to a larger rifle where you initially want to avoid recoil and don’t want to mess with hand loading some low recoil cartridges. However, since the rifle function would be different than normal that does not seem like a good training route. Finally, if you want low noise for backyard plinking or pest control then CCI 22 Short CB or Remington 22 LR CBee cartridges seem like the way to go for less money, more convenience, and more accuracy.

Adding weight to a 20 ga shotgun to manage the recoil.

I had been loading some low recoil shells for my son too keep the recoil down. I was using a 3/4 oz and 1100 fps speed. I recently decided that that was probably hurting his clay target shooting scores. So I decided to try and move up to a standard 7/8 oz and 1200 fps shell. I snuck in a box of standard shells at our last outing without telling him. He could tell the difference and said his shoulder hurt and that he didn't want to shoot any more. That was with a 6 lb shotgun and an extra shoulder pad.

So after reflecting on that and looking at the numbers I decided that his gun needed some more weight added to it. So I ended up filling the hollow plastic stock full of lead shot. That got the weight up to 8 lbs. He tried it out in the back yard blasting away at a poor milk jug. He now appears ok to shoot a standard 20 ga load. I will be interested to see if his scores improve the next time we are at the range.

Improved powder selection

I was doing some target shooting with the 58 caliber round ball load that I developed. I could not reproduce hitting a target at 100 yards like I was able to do a previous week. (See the first posting.) Thinking about it I started to get concerned about the amount of "blow outs" the bottom skirt on the wad was experiencing. About half of the wads that I picked up off the ground had a split in the side of the skirt. One wad had the bottom skirt totally flipped up all the way around. I started figuring this would cause irregular velocity performance. It doesn't exactly explain why I didn't hit the target. There was also more wind that day but the round ball should not have been blown off that much.

Anyway I decided that for the slug load that the Nitro 100 powder may be too fast and that I would be better off with a slower powder. So picking from what I had on hand I tried Clays and Universal.

13.4 grains of Universal gave a speed of 1039 FPS but the inside of the barrel was very very littered with unburnt powder. This load was not going to generate enough pressure to burn that powder. So I did not pursue Universal.

Clays gave good clean burning results.
10 gr = 983 FPS
11 gr = 1120 FPS
11.4 gr = 1157 FPS
12 gr = 1196 FPS
13 gr = 1252 FPS

I ended up settling for the time being on using 11 grains which was basically a 1.6cc scoop. From a test firing I recovered 4 wads. Two had pin holes in the skirt and two were ok. So this was better but still a little suspect.

My next test would be to use 700X. However, I was trying to get ready for a youth deer hunt at Fort Knox last weekend that at the time would be in a couple days.

The irony is that, after having gone, I have decided that early October Youth deer hunts are a waste and you get realllly chigger bit! It was too warm and hardly anyone saw a deer. During the regular gun season, off post, he can use a good .223 round that is good for deer size medium game. So I may not end up ever using the 20 ga slug load I developed. We'll see. I have a couple more children that are still too young to hunt that in future years may want to try something on post during the regular quota hunts

So this next Saturday morning we will go squirrel hunting. We are a lot more likely to get a squirrel. I am still unsure of what to do about a shot hunting load though. I think that I may add some more lead shot to the hollow butt of the gun to reduce the recoil of firing standard 20 ga hunting loads. Also he'll wear a shoulder pad.

Low Recoil 20 ga shotgun

Background History
For around 15 years I have been hunting on post at Fort Knox in their annual deer quota hunts where they do not allow modern rifles for deer hunting. They limit the hunters to shotgun slugs or muzzle loaders. This year I wanted to sign my 11 year old son up for the youth hunt weekend there but would need to come up with a round he could fire that met the requirements. A couple seasons ago I had gotten a single shot H&R youth handi-rifle for him to use in a .223 rifle caliber. I realize it is a marginal deer caliber but he would not shoot the .243 a second time after trying it for one shot. That had been my first choice. We have not yet been able to shoot a deer with the .223 but he has enjoyed shooting it at the range.

Low Recoil 20 ga Shot load
Earlier this spring I took advantage of the barrel swap ability of an H&R single shot and got the receiver fitted for both a 20 ga smooth and rifled slug barrel. One shot of a standard 7/8oz at 1300 fps load was enough for both of us. He got knocked back a step and I observed that it kicked harder than my 12 ga shotgun because the gun was much lighter. My overall feeling after the fact was that I would have been better off with a 28 gauge for shooting shot. However, having bought it I wanted to try and make the 20 ga work. Also the 28 gauge barrel was only available as a fixed choke. So I started researching low recoil 20 ga shot loads. I bought all sorts of shotgun loading manuals and was disappointed that they had nothing on low recoil loads. What I finally came up with on the internet was an Alliant cowboy action load for ¾ oz at ~1000 fps. It used 9.5 grains of Nitro-100 powder. So I invested in a Lee Load-all and the necessary components. I took my son back to the range to try it out and he said it was better but still kicked too much. So I then finally ended up adding about a pound and a half of lead shot to the hollow stock of the gun to make it 6 ½ pounds and buying him a shoulder pad at Wal-Mart. Finally he was ok shooting the 20 gauge. The first shooting goal with the load that I had was for him to qualify for the Boy Scout shotgun merit badge by hitting at least 12 out of 25 on two different rounds. After several weekends working on it he did it. At that point he was tired of shooting and I am hoping that giving him a break will renew his interest in shooting skeet or trap with me this fall. I think that I like shooting more than he does.

Low Recoil 20 ga Slug load
So having gone through that whole exercise on a 20 ga shot load I turned to the 20 ga slug load. I looked at the commercially available loads for a low recoil one. The best one seemed to be the Low Recoil Federal True-Ball. However it had a little more recoil than what I was looking for from doing the math to compare it to the shot load. So then I started seeing what I could put together myself. There are Lyman slugs available but I was hesitant to go through the hassle of molding them even though I already mold my own Lee slugs. (Since then I found I can buy the Lyman 20 ga slug for 30 cents each from Gardner at http://gardnerscache.com/12_gauge_sabot_slugs.html). While researching slugs on the internet I ran across comments about .575 round ball loads in the Lyman 3rd edition Shotshell Handbook. So I bought a copy on Amazon.com. Then to avoid the trouble of having to mold the balls I decided to try using a .570” ball that was available for muzzle loaders on http://www.midwayusa.com/ . When including the wad pedals it still gave me about .012” of squeeze down in my rifled barrel which seemed likely to be enough. Unfortunately the recipe gave a resulting speed of 1500 fps using Blue Dot magnum powder. The recipe worked well at 1500 fps however it kicked really hard and so I started slowing it down. I tried it at 1300 fps and it was better but still too hard. So the next step was to go down to 1100 fps which I had suspected would be what the speed needed to be. My problem was that as I slowed down the load by reducing the powder amount the Blue Dot stopped burning well and was leaving a lot of unburnt powder in the barrel. My fear was that I was going to end up with an unpredictable load that in cold weather might perform very differently. As I was pondering this I realized that the powder solution for the shot load would likely work for the slug. I was dropping the ball in the same plastic wad and the weight was only 1/8oz less plus the desired speed was about the same. I tried 9.5 grains of Nitro 100 and a WAA20 wad in a Winchester hull. That gave 1066 fps. (By the way I measure the speeds with a Crony. http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=688064&t=11082005 ) A Remington hull left the powder a little loose with the same load and gave 1040 fps. So my final load was my next test which was to try 10.0 grains in a Remington hull. By pushing the ball in the wad down to the correct position for a folded crimp the powder was tight and I could not hear any shaking. The resulting speed was 1087 fps at about 10 feet from the muzzle which I decided was close enough to my goal of a 1100 fps muzzle speed. The powder burns well in this load with a typical small amount of residue.

Yes I am aware that this is an extremely marginal deer load. At 100 yards the speed should be 865 fps giving 464 ft lbs. I have seen 900 ft lbs given as a minimum recommended figure for deer. However, Kentucky allows handgun elk hunting with a 100 yard bullet energy of 550 ft lb so this load may not be unethical for deer. See http://fw.ky.gov/deerguide08elk.asp Also the sectional density of this round ball is about half of the recommended value. A .223 is a much better youth load giving better down range performance and less recoil. My .223 firing a Federal P223Q with a Nosler Partition bullet will give you 998 ft lbs at 100 yards and they are listed by Federal for Medium game like deer. I am going to pick up a box of those for the regular season and practice with cheap FMJ rounds. However modern rifles cannot be used on base. (Ironically I noticed that in the September 2008 American Hunter magazine from the NRA they had an article indicating that one study done by Mountain Top Technologies Inc. showed that shotguns were potentially more dangerous than rifles when you included ricochet travel distances.) So this round ball load can kill a deer but bullet placement is important (as normal) and the deer will likely run some distance.

At the range this slug load had a 100 yard spread of 8” from an 8 shot group. See the target image at the end of the post.

20 ga Round Ball Slug Recipe (~1100 fps muzzle speed)
· .570 lead ball (279 grains or about 5/8 oz.)
· 28 ga, ½” fiber wad to go in the plastic wad under the ball (9.3 grains was the weight)
· WAA20 plastic wad (30.4 grains was the weight)
· 10.0 grains of Alliant Nitro 100, this was the typical amount measured by a Lee dipper but I also adjusted it with a Lee powder scale each time to ensure consistency.
· Winchester 209 primer.
· 20 ga Remington STS Hull
This load is a tight fit in the hull and I found that it worked best to user the wad rammer to push the ball and wad down to the best position that gave a good crimp and then repeat that ram position each time. I ended up using a tape measure to check the handle distance from the floor to ensure that I got it right each time. The wad with ball is too tight to just drop by itself down onto the powder and has to be pushed down. I suspect that I could also get Hodgdon Tightwad powder to work but have not experimented with it. One reason that I wanted to use the Remington hull for this was that it made the hull different from my shot load where I was using a Winchester hull. However, they are still easy to mix up since both hulls are yellow so I mark the slug shells with a permanent marker.

20 ga Shot Load Recipe
· 3/4oz shot (I had to measure this with a Lee dipper as the Lee Load-All did not have bushings small enough to do this shot load or the powder load which was annoying.)
· 9.5 to 10 grains of Alliant Nitro 100 using a Lee dipper. The data says 9.5 grains will produce a velocity of 1037 fps.
· WAA20 plastic wad
· Winchester AA hull
· Winchester 209 primer.
· Normally the shot is a little loose so I have been using a 28 ga 1/8” felt wad under the shot or a Poly-wad spread-r on top of the shot to finish filling up the space. The Polywad does a very nice job of evenly spreading the shot for close shots.

Polywad results
A couple extra comments may be appreciated by folks interested in the spreader. See the following web site for the sales pitch http://www.polywad-shotgun-shells.com/spred-r-spreaders/. I did some testing and got the following results at an approximate distance of 10 yards using the same 20 ga barrel and an improved cylinder choke.
· 7”-9” spread with no spreader and magnum shot. The pattern was not a nice circle. (Possibly the uneven pattern was due to firing less than the standard 7/8 oz load for this gauge.)
· 11” spread using the Polywad spreader as the only change. (22-57% more)
· 12” spread using the Polywad spreader and chilled shot. (33-71% more) Overall the Polywad produced a more even distribution of pellets and a nicer round cloud than what should be the standard load out of my barrel.
I have also made a 12 ga spreader load that I have in mind to use on a couple close incoming skeet shots like the station 7 high house and station 8 for both shots. The 10 yard test results were similar to what I got with a 20 gauge. Shots were fired from a 30” barrel with a skeet choke.
· 9-11” and 10-11” spreads with a regular load. Once again there was some irregular shape to the pattern. (Possibly the uneven pattern was due to firing 7/8 oz instead of the standard 1 1/8 oz load for this gauge.)
· 9-12” and 12-13” spreads with an overshot card.
· 13” spreads with a Polywad spread-r. The pattern was more even and measured the same diameter at 90 degree angles. Overall this wad repeatedly produced a larger and more consistently round pattern.