SpudFiles

You know I see all this talk about power of a weapon (me included), but when it comes down to it, the only thing that matters is how good of a shot you are. A .22 between the eyes is just as effective as a 20mm depleted uranium round between the eyes, it's just one will have a cooler and grosser effect.

magnum9987 wrote:You do not need large bullets for power. The Barret M82 type weapons only get 2500 feet per second, their around.

Both bullet weight and velocity factor in muzzle energy. They also both factor in the (in some ways) more useful Taylor equation, which gives a reasonable idea of the trauma that will be caused by any given bullet:
Bullet weight in pounds * Bullet velocity in fps * Bullet calibre

At the muzzle, .300 and .338 Lapua Magnum rounds have Taylor numbers of around 20 to 30, depending on the exact variety of ammunition.
.50 BMG, which, even with heavy bullets will still do around 2900 fps has Taylor numbers of 150 to 170.

I know which I'd rather get hit with. Taylor number of 25, or 160 - hmm, I'm going to have to go with the one with only two digits.

What is need is a high density and high velocity.

A high sectional density and high velocity will get you high penetrative capacity - most probably over penetration, which is inefficient.

With one of my launchers, I can put a tiny pinhole through a drinks can filled with water with one type of projectile - or I can hit it with a different projectile that doesn't overpenetrate, and literally tear the can in two with hydraulic shock:


Which can would you consider more damaged? The one with a tiny hole through it, or the one that's been bent out of all proportion and ripped in half?
In the real world, you want a bullet to give up as much of it's energy as possible into the target - which means not over-penetrating.

Each gets reportedly 3500-4000 fps.
If they where made f depleted uranium they would be uber powerful, more so than a .50cal

Um, that's not actually correct - ignoring the fact that your velocity figures are rather generous. You should be looking more in the 2900 to 3500 fps range for Lapua Magnum rounds from a typical rifle.

Anyway, if you used DU, then you'd have a heavier round, which the rifle then wouldn't be able to fire with the same velocity. As a rough guess, if you could find a way to get a rifle to fire a DU bullet instead of a lead one, you'd see a ~20% velocity loss.

The other thing is that you couldn't actually fire a pure DU bullet from a rifle. Rifles use lead for two main reasons - it's density, and the fact it's a reasonably soft metal, which allows it to be fired through rifling. Depleted Uranium is certainly dense, but it's not soft enough to be fired from a rifle.

I'm not denying that Lapua Magnum in either size could be very dangerous, but 50 cal is much nastier.

*****

Anyway, all of this talk about "ultra powerful" rounds ignores some problems.
Longer cartridge cases are not particularly practical in automatic weapons - and the rounds are heavier, meaning you couldn't carry as many.
I'd sooner have something in a shorter case - the largest I'd really consider practical is something like NATO 7.62mm. It might not be quite as powerful, but you could carry lots of rounds, and it should still do the required damage.

The .300 LApua magnum could be used in say a modified M1 Garand or a modified BAR, like said previously. The thing is, the BMG type weapons, like the BArret, are used for anti material/ anti armor. The .50 was designed to destroy tanks all those 80 years ago. The military does not use the barret or other .50 type rifles unless it is for long distance (which it is being replaced for now with the .408 and .417 rounds) and anti material. For ant infantry/ flesh targets, the military uses the r700 type weapons (m24, m40) or for distance the .408/.417. Plus the 7.62 Nato is Drastically underpowered. Ever here of the good guys store incident? To sum it up, a terrorist was standing be hind a thin glass sliding door, a sniper took a shot at him with an r700 with 7.62, the bullet was slowed too much for the bullet to do more than bounce and graze his head. BEsides, unless your in Resident Evil, you arent going out their killing the zombies, they are coming for you, so you could have a can full of lapuas, .50s, even damned 20mms and just have a turkey shoot.

magnum9987 wrote: To sum it up, a terrorist was standing be hind a thin glass sliding door, a sniper took a shot at him with an r700 with 7.62, the bullet was slowed too much for the bullet to do more than bounce and graze his head.

That can't have been a thin glass door then, or it was a bad shot in the first place. 7.62 NATO is a very nasty round, easily fatal out to hundreds of yards - a thin glass door is not going to slow it.

If you're so sure it's drastically underpowered, find someone with a .308 rifle and get them to shoot you with it. You don't get hit with 2500 ft-lbs lightly.

BEsides, unless your in Resident Evil, you arent going out their killing the zombies, they are coming for you, so you could have a can full of lapuas, .50s, even damned 20mms and just have a turkey shoot.

Personally, if I were in a zombie apocalypse, I'd be stockpiling resources, then finding a truckload of mates and moving into a pretty rural area, because if you're in a city when the zombie virus strikes, it'll move through a population centre like wildfire, and there'll just be too many of them to deal with.

Well, even if the 7.62*51mm NATO was powerful, I'd rather have the .300 lapua magnum. It is a simple conversion to modify any rifle of 7.62 caliber to fit the 70mm cartridge. It is only a 9mm from a .30-06. Hell, even a good ol' 12 gauge is good. The 7.62 NATO just is not sufficient for me, it may for you. And a SWAT sniper taking a bad shot with the greatest police agency sniper rifle used around the world and by our own military? yeah right.

magnum9987 wrote:And a SWAT sniper taking a bad shot with the greatest police agency sniper rifle used around the world and by our own military? yeah right.

So you're telling me that there is no way they could miss?
Nothing is ever certain - odd environmental conditions, wind, misjudged range, a dud round - anything could have affected it.

It seems a darn sight more likely to me that it was a bad shot than a "thin glass window" slowed a 7.62 round so much it wasn't lethal any more.

You're more than welcome to make your own choices, but my feeling is that if you can do the job with a less powerful round, then there's no need to deal with the extra size, ammo weight, cost and recoil of a magnum round.

Some people think you need .22 LR for small game like rats & squirrels - I've killed both cleanly with my ~11 ft-lb 0.177" air rifle (a mere tenth of the energy of .22 LR) and although I've not yet had the chance myself, it's generally considered acceptable to use such air rifles on things as large as a rabbit out to 50 yards.

Sometimes, less is more.

The distance between the sniper and the door 30 yards. The door deflefcted the bullet and made the bullet graze the terrorist head. The door was originally open, but a hostage inside closed it suddenly, and unexpectedly, on commands from the terrorist. The same time the sniper took the shot, and the bullet grazed the terrorist's head, like said previously.

Then that's not a "stopping power" issue, that's just plain bullet deflection. If a bullet only grazes it's target, regardless of it's "power", it's not going to kill them.
Almost any round, save a very heavy bugger of a projectile would have deflected in the same way.

You can't really argue that as a point against 7.62 NATO, because your choice of Lapua Magnum, in either size, would have done much the same.

Anyway, until I see a zombie terrorist hiding behind a screen glass door, the point is kind of moot.

There's always stories of odd shots at lucky people.
One's about bullets getting stuck in belt buckles at point blank.
One's about hair being imbedded in recovered misses, one even about a .357 mag. only grazing some lucky guys forehead on direct impact, due to luck and his head (lucky) movement.
Heck on Ripley's they showed a kid who got half his head blown off by .357 and now lives and functions with half a head!

Fact of it is, a .308 nato round was designed to pierce a steel helmet at 1000 meters and it will. So draw your own conclusion about power.

As far as availability, I'd get standardly issued military rounds so I could reload when I ran out . (Good luck finding "Lampows" or whatever).

Sounds like someone's been reading too much "Special Weapons" magazine, who have to make up new crap to sell magazines and no real world shooting or thought to practicality.

BTW, Hope igpay got permission before making this cool "never ending post" (I figure it's cool as long as mods continue to post here)
8)

lapua magum firing AWM is used by the british and is being tested by the americans. So it used by the military. The AWM is also used by major police units as well.

magnum9987 wrote:lapua magum firing AWM is used by the british and is being tested by the americans. So it used by the military. The AWM is also used by major police units as well.

Being tested doesn't count when zombies show up tommorrow and eat yur friends face off!

Also if it is issued in Britain, I live in US, long way to travel in middle of zombiedom.

I bet there's no police near me who probably ever heard of it too!!!

Like I wrote before once again:
"Sounds like someone's been reading too much "Special Weapons" magazine, who have to make up new crap to sell magazines and no real world shooting or thought to practicality."

magnum9987 wrote:So it used by the military. The AWM is also used by major police units as well.

But I still dare say that 7.62mm might be easier to come by, as practically every NATO force uses the rounds in both battle rifles and sniper rifles in some quantity.
If I had access to such things in this sorry country I call home, I'd be looking for a decent 7.62mm long range/sniper rifle for dealing with zombies at range, a pump action 12 gauge for if they get too close, and probably a .45 pistol as a last resort.

As it is, if zombies did attack, all I'd have to hand is, if I had finished it my then, a semi-automatic spudgun, albeit a relatively powerful and compact one; a couple of other spuddies; an air rifle; some knives; a few golf clubs and my wits.

if their is a mall anyware with a home depot in it i would want to be thier becouse they have food and other things, and i could go to home depot toget spud gun parts.

I was thinking it'd be cool if there was a Paintball meet with enough people where say 30-40 could play zombies.

How it would work is that the "zombies" would have face/helmets maybe covered with a hood. Only head shots would eliminate them. I was thinking they'd have maybe boards tied around thier legs and arms to walk like zombies. They could carry sponges with paint and if one touches a player that player is out.

But even with the short range of PB, and 40 plus zombies, If this was done, the player could just run away probably though.(still distracting them to be open to regular enemies though).Hmmm...Smaller field(?)

It's Making me rethink zombie escape strategy.
I mean as long as someone ran far out from concentrated population, with open view, They'd have time to build a fortress. Then even with a fuedal fortress system though, as people are added to protect it, it would only attract more zombies though.
I'm talking like possibly 400 million plus roaming zombies.
Perhaps an open flat space would be needed with constant patrols to run over zombies and what not. But if the gaurd population fell Ill that may be the end.

Surely there is some interesting mathmatics. And maybe interesting random generating computer program to test how the chaos would unfold for different variations(?) (Surrounded, encamped, evading, fighting...)Cool project maybe to build an accurate computer simulator.
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In the Omen, Thorn theorizes about keeping a couple thousand workers in the air so if anything happened on the ground their would be a workforce still. Maybe if a couple thousand mercenaries stayed in the air at all times, if a zombie uprising happened we could kick their ass!
:withstupid:

Back to reality: As fore fortresses, the best one would have several layers of defense. The walls them selves do nothing, but as zombies slowly crawl over them, they can be pegged faster, so they slow down, more and more die. THen at the inner most wall, as well as the highest, machineguns are maintained at the top, probably armed with 20mm or .50 call for range and extreme penetration. If the zombies find the way through that, their would be one last minefield. Then their would be a maze where a machine gunner could hide behind every single corner to fend off. Once the zombies get to the end of the maze, the survivors could take some helicopters or take a rocket to space. Once the survivors are out of range, a huge nuclear bomb (500 megaton) would detonate destroying the zombies within hundreds of miles.