far zero. Comparison of cartridges of caliber 7,62x54R and .308 Winchester
From left to right, cartridges in calibers 7.62x39, .308win and 7.62x54R
В продолжение articles about .338 LM you need to touch on a topic that may have been studied for a long time, but is still relevant. We are talking about comparing the 7,62x54R caliber we have in service, used in sniper rifles, and the foreign 0.308 Winchester caliber, which is in service with NATO and the United States.
It so happened that although they were created at very different times, the goals for which they are used are similar. Direct comparison of these two cartridges is a little incorrect, since our 7,62x54R is still closer to the .30-06 caliber, and they were also created at about the same time. However, we will compare with .308 win, since both are used by army snipers in our time, and try to understand their effectiveness.
The 7,62x54R cartridge was adopted back in 1891 as a result of the re-equipment of the tsarist army, and subsequently became the reason for the appearance of first the Tula and then the Lugansk cartridge factories. That is, the cartridge has been in service for 131 years. Different types of primers were used, the bottom of the cartridge case was changed, the bullet was refined and modified, the rifles from which they were fired were improved, and as a result, the cartridge is involved in battles to this day.
What follows from this? What a great ammo. He has a zest - a welt (rim). A stumbling block for many experts, both couch and not so much. We will not discuss the need for this feature, we will take as a basis the fact: tsarist Russia could not produce a rimless cartridge, and the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation did not consider it appropriate to change something.
As for .308win, you first need to understand where it came from. His grandfather, in .30-06, was adopted by the US Army in 1906. After going through World War II, it was replaced by the 7,62x51 mm cartridge, which had identical characteristics, but, thanks to the achievements of the powder industry, was shorter.
Around the same time, Oliver Winchester recognized the commercial potential of the 7,62x51mm cartridge and introduced a very similar cartridge in .308 Winchester for the civilian hunting and shooting market. As a result, the .308win cartridge with thicker case walls and the ability to hold more than 7,62x51 mm pressure turned out to be almost completely comparable in ballistic characteristics with 7,62x54R, and nowadays it is one of the most common rifle cartridges in the world.
From left to right: cartridges in calibers .308 win, 7,62x54R, 30-06 Springfield
A little more than half a century after the creation of the 7,62x54R, the .308win cartridge caught up with it in ballistic performance. The devil, as you know, is in the details, so let's delve into the numbers, without this in any way.
Let's take the data for lead bullets in a full metal jacket weighing 11,7 grams.
When shooting 7,62x54R from a rifle with a barrel length of 730 mm:
speed - 786 m / s,
energy at the muzzle - 3 614 J,
ballistic coefficient - 0,506.
When firing .308win from a 600mm rifle:
speed - 735 m / s,
energy at the muzzle -3 160 J,
ballistic coefficient - 0,498.
You need to understand that these are indicators for civilian ammunition options, but we take them as an average for the hospital for a general understanding of the state of affairs. Military ammunition will vary greatly due to the specifics of the targets, and it will be extremely difficult to compare them according to the selected indicators.
Data taken from an open source from the website of the Czech manufacturer Sellier & Bellot
From the data in the picture, it appears that the 7,62x54R at 400m has more speed and power, requires fewer corrections than its competitor, and will also become subsonic later than the .308 win. It should be clarified that the bullet, when moving from supersonic speed to sonic speed, becomes unstable and can fly, for example, sideways.
So why then is the 7,62x54R infamous for being an "obsolete" cartridge, while the .308 win never goes out of style and is preferred by both military and civilian shooters?
There are several reasons for this.
Firstly, due to the fact that the cartridge has become very widespread around the world, it has a huge number of manufacturers. In a competitive environment, these manufacturers are trying to produce a unique product that will interest the user. For .308 win, you can find not only conventional semi-jacketed bullets consisting of lead coated with copper or brass, but also bullets with a non-separable jacket, as well as all-copper or with an "armor-piercing" component. Different weights and types of projectiles, different speeds, a variety of powders and primers - all this allows you to choose the perfect gross cartridge for yourself, and in case of emergency, buy components and assemble from scratch.
Variety of bullets and weights for .308 win. Left to right: 110 Hornady V-Max, 135 Sierra MatchKing, 155 Hornady ELD-M, 165 Hornady BTSP, 168 Sierra TMK, 175 Sierra MatchKing, 175 Sierra TMK, 180 Speer RN, 190 Sierra MatchKing, 200 Moyers Silhouette, 200 Hornady ELD -X
Secondly, the 7,62x54R welt cartridge is not as demanding on machine accuracy as its counterpart. In the 30s of the last century, the USSR could not afford to completely transfer the production of cartridges that were in service to new rails. It was very expensive, it required the replacement of production lines, the running-in of technology, the creation of the necessary commodity volumes from scratch and with a margin, as well as re-equipment.
But that was then, and now our factories in Tula, Barnaul, Novosibirsk and Izhevsk quietly produce .308 win cartridges for the needs of the civilian market. The production has been debugged for a long time, the technical and material part necessary for it is available, the accuracy of the machines allows.
Armor-piercing incendiary cartridge .308win
So what has changed for 7,62x54R since the launch of .308 win at our factories?
In fact, not so much. Among civilian shooters, it is in demand more for patriotic or economic reasons. For military needs, the cartridge underwent changes in 1999, receiving an armor-piercing bullet 7N26, as well as a sniper armor-piercing bullet 7N14.
It is necessary to separately indicate that the sniper bullet turned out to be extremely successful. Consisting of a bimetallic shell and a combined U12A steel core in the head part and a lead core, it pierces at least 80% of 2 mm thick 5P armor plate at a distance of 300 meters at a right angle. Steel 2P was used as bulletproof protection tank T-34, that is, we are not even talking about a wearable element of individual armor protection.
A 7N14 bullet hit the plate of the Shturm-VV body armor of armor protection class 5. Source: guns.ru
Nevertheless, the main reason for the 7,62x54R's notoriety was and remains the instability of its ballistic performance from batch to batch. It is not so important whether the cartridge is military or civilian - the spread in speeds and the overall quality of the cartridge has a very negative effect on the repeatability of the shot. The unpretentiousness in production, which played into the hands of Tsarist Russia, has now become the reason why preference is given to foreign calibers and ammunition.
For your rich history cartridge 7,62x54R has undergone many improvements and several "restylings". Despite the many geopolitical changes that have affected our country over the past 130 years, progress does not stand still, and we already see Caliber and X-95 in action, which until recently were only promising developments.
Considering that it is much more difficult to produce missiles than cartridges for small arms, I would like to believe that in the future, the 7,62x54R cartridge will not only be updated with modern knowledge and technology, but also produced to strict standards to maintain quality.
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