Website Updates 5-3-2021

Good Evening, Morning, Afternoon, what ever it may be where you are reading this. It’s Monday again and time for a bit of an update. This past week has been a busy one, but somewhat productive. I managed to get a Bullseye Camera system working after significant tinkering. The root cause seemed to be a low battery.

The battery was charged enough to power the router but would not power the camera. The LiPo battery pack had sat in a state of discharge for who knows how long before I had inherited it, which is never good for LiPo batteries. I think it took a solid week before it hit full charge, which given the age is not surprising but it also probably means I likely did not have the right wall adapter. I need to look up and see what kind of wall adapter the manufacturer recommends for the LiPo pack.

This particular model is the sight in model, and has a range somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 to 200 yards. Honestly for the majority of my needs right now, this fits the bill. I played with a long range version and was quite impressed with it back in 2016. The company has since come out with some very nice systems, but I suspect the age of video based target systems is short lived. The electronic targets are coming down in price and it would not surprise me to see electronic targets in the neighborhood of 200 to 300 dollars within the decade. There is a high likelihood that I will be using this when I finally get out to the range to finish siting in the VZ-58.

The other industry news is the video posted by Kentucky Ballistics. If you have not had a chance to watch it, here is the link. I have see and few of his videos. It is not a channel I actively follow, and most of his content, honestly, is a bit “clickbaitish”. It is sometimes cool to see new guns, but the novelty of how different cartridges and rifles perform on various objects has worn off. Just not my cup of tea. The video is worth talking about because things went wrong, very wrong. He was testing 50 BMG SLAP ammunition, and the rifle came apart in the process nearly killing him.

SLAP, stands for Saboted Light Armor Penetrator. The round was developed in the 80’s to accelerate .30 caliber 355gr tungsten penetrator to nearly 4,000 feet per second. They did this by using a plastic sabot, which is discarded shortly after the projectile leaves the bore. This round, or a derivative of it, is still in production by Winchester. A variation on this round is the SLAP-T which is a tracer.

This ammunition is designed primarily for armor penetration’s and it was quite effective at it. Reportedly it is able to penetrate up to 1.3 inches of AR500 at 500 meters, and .90 inches at 1000 meters. All of this it accomplishes at a service pressure of 55,000psi. Based on the data I can find, the powder used was WC 856. Based on what information I have been able to find, this powder is faster burning then US 869, but does not have a commercial canister equivalent. Powder for typical 50 BMG ball ammunition is WC 860.

I have read many theories as to what could have caused this. Some say the chamber has to be of a special cut, and it will only work in machine gun, such as the Browning M2. However I have not found any technical specs or references which outline how this chamber is different. I have also found mention that the plastic sabot may have melted and stuck to the inside of the chamber creating a “stuck round”. Sounds a little plausible, but not completely convincing.

Usually the reason SLAP rounds are not recommended for general rifles is due to the fact the muzzle break has a tendency to catch on the muzzle break. This can screw up a clean release, resulting in a flier at best, or the sabot can get caught in the muzzle break and split the break on the next shot at worse. Some 50 BMG rifles also sport a special chamber cut to allow for bore rider bullets, and that could cause high chamber pressures. However it is unlikely either of those things were responsible for the way this gun catastrophically failed. A custom chamber is not something that the rifle maker, Serbu Firearms, Inc even offers for their RN-50 rifle, and a caught sabot is more likely to damage the muzzle break then cause the breech to fail as the pressures at the muzzle are far, far lower then they are at chamber.

Another point on why I doubt it is a chamber cut issue. The military knows that sometimes life does not go as planned. If things go sideways and you run out of M8 Ball, and all you have is a can of M903 linked with M962 (50 BMG SLAP and SLAPT-T), but no Browning M2 to fire it in, are we saying that it cannot be used under any circumstance? That trying to chamber an fire this round in a Barrett M107 will cause such a catastrophic failure as to risk life and limb of the soldiers using it? It kind of find it implausible that this has not be considered and the design of the ammunition makes allowances for it, but I suppose possible.

So what is my theory? Well, two things stand out to me, 1st Kentucky Ballistics reportely paid $100 per round. Which is insane, given the cost to produce is likely only $20 to $25 dollars a round. However given there is not a lot of it that makes it to the civilian market, the exotic nature of the ammunition is likely the driving factor in cost. This disparity between cost to produce and the potential sale cost makes me wonder if someone was not cranking these things out in their garage and selling them as military surplus rounds. If you think I am a bit off the deep end, let me give an example.

Several years ago, Remington caught wind of some guys selling off QC rejected ammunition. These stuff was sent to be scrapped, but it was making its way on to the market. There was hell to pay, I believe people went to prison over it. That only reason Remington caught word of it, was from a police officer who bought some of this reject and went to Remington to ask questions. If there is a quick buck to be made, someone is likely to try and make it. That is my sinister theory.

My less than sinister theory is that this ammo was subjected to abuse. US-869, the slower burning cousin to the WC 856 is not a particular temperature stable powder. If these rounds were left to bake in the sun, in the hot Iraqi desert, and made their way around the world a few times, before landing themselves in a military surplus store. It is not too far fetched that powder may not perform like brand new US 856, when powders are heated and cooled, sometimes the pressure they generate still remains elevated, indicated that the heat induced a permanent change to the powder burn characteristics.

I believe this is both the simplest theory and the hardest one to prove. Unless you can get ahold of that exact lot of ammunition, and test it with modern testing equipment, (which no one will want to risk destroying at a tune of $3000 for a transducer and $10,000 dollars for a UR) we likely will not find out. With that said, the fall out from this is likely real for Serbu Firearms Inc. with this being a potential stain on their rifle. I think it is prudent not to blame the rifle for the failure because the pressures generated were undoubetly way beyond proof pressures.

However it is fair to fault the firearm in the way that it failed. I am not saying a Barrett M99 or a Bushmaster 50 would have handled it better, but they may not have failed in the same manner that would risk life and limb of the shooter. The type of action that us being used on the Serbu, is a very strong action, but the idea that the action can fail in the manner directing that amount of force towards the shooter, does make someone pause. Given the two things that caused the major life-threatening injuries was a “Locking Lug” shearing off becoming a projectile and the threaded breech plug being shot backwards. An enclosed action likely would have contained a significant portion of the debris. Good thing he was wearing safety glasses, he better frame them and point to them every time a new shooter steps on his range.

We as handloaders and shooters to take an opportunity to learn from this. I hope none of this seems like I am being critical of Kentucky Ballistics. From everything he said, and presented I cannot find one thing he did, that I would have done differently, given the circumstances. What it does do for me is reinforce one point. The exotic ammo, whether it be, military surplus projectiles, or loaded rounds, are not really worth messing with. There is not enough load data, nor can we trace how that ammunition might be have been handled and by whom. My rifles, and my life is a bit too expensive to chance it for kicks and giggles. In almost all circumstances it presents more of a liability then it is worth. This is coming from someone who is giddy when they walk into a military surplus store.

I briefly wondered, for a moment given the violent nature of the failure, if Kentucky Ballistics had gotten ahold of a product of Eldest Son, a covert operation run back in Vietnam that purposely introduced rounds which were laden with an high explosive and would detonate when the soldier tried to fire it. This was done to sow doubt in the both the quality of the rifles and the ammunition. It is a very interesting, and not well known operation. However the dates of the SLAP ammunition development and adoption introduction, combined with the fact it’s a US round, make this impossible.

The last little update I have, is the UPS Saga continues but we seem to be making progress. After having to explain, for the second time, the difference between projectiles and live ammunition, it seems as those UPS is processing the claim. I will likely find the outcome of that in the next few days, I am very much hoping it is a full reimbursement of the value of the property lost. I would have much rather had the bullets delivered and not gone through this mess, but if I can come away with no money lost, I’ll take it as a small victory.

As always if you are looking to get in touch, best way is to send me an email jay@theballisticassistant.com. You may check us out on Parler, Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit. If you’d like to submit a load to our load database, the instructions are here.

As always, shoot straight and stay safe!

The Ballistic Assistant