Part II of "Requirements for replacements of currently issued 5.56 M-855 and 7.62 M-8

[JASmith]

...I do think inserting 9mm (or .30 Carbine) performance into the requirements is likely to cause confusion in those reading a document about potential replacements for 5.56 and 7.62 NATO.

You just hit on part of the reason I mentioned the M-1 Carbine as a possible threshold -- as you helped us understand, this "little guy" actually does tumble and you've sent us a neat picture of the permanent cavity in gel.

So, as in the earlier draft, we ask that the major cross section of the wound cavity be at least a specified dimension. The FMJ bullet tumbles, so the length of the bullet becomes the basis for the threshold. The Speer 110 gr TMJ 30 Carbine bullet is shown as having a length of 0.676" in the JBM "Lengths" Library. So, we take approx 90% of the length and require that the maximum width dimension be at least 0.6" on average over at least (a guess) 5" of the permanent gel cavity.

We'll need to mensurate the picture you posted but you get the idea...

This gives as a measurable quantity that is based on arguably questionable statistics and actual performance of a surrogate.

I wonder if Bill can approach the author to get more detail about the statistics?