Small Arms Ballistics

I hadn't realised until very recently that the VC used hollow point AK 47 rounds (guess I'd never really thought about it).

Am I right in thinking that if a hollow point round hit a hard surface at an angle, it is unliklely to richochet in the same way as a jacketed round...in fact, it could crumple or break up?

(This could be the answer as to why something happened in a particular contact.)

Many thanks, Bruce

Bruce during a short stint on a security team I was present at a series of practical ballistic tests on a range/mix of weapons and ammunition. Our aim was prevention of over penetration, uncontrolled ricochet, and accuracy over prescribed ranges under varying conditions. Although we did not conduct any testing with the 7.62x39mm round we did trial a number of calibres that spanned the AK round and the results support your supposition that hollow point rounds are far more likely to break up or sustain a massive amount of distortion so they rapidly lose velocity and essentially "fall" to the ground. Hope this helps. Bill H.

Thanks Bill. I see on the Internet that 7.62x39mm are very popular today. Interestingly, in some States in the US it's mandatory to use hollow point for hunting.

The AK round found in a magazine in Phuoc Tuy in 1971 is described as:

"The Hollow point round, of which there were 3 or 4 [in the magazine] was a lead ball (round at the front) with a hole in the front."

There was a mixture of rounds, others being tracer and normal jacketed. The former owner was a company commander with 33NVA Regiment.

I'll see if i can get a comment from the Inf Museum.

Cheers, Bruce

Bruce, a number of us had AK's in SVN, for the C/C's they sat perfectly on top of the T50 and were obviously preferable to our pistols. I can't recall ever seeing anything other than standard jacketed rounds and tracer in the ammo I used which was from captured magazines and caches.