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Posted: 12/8/2012 1:47:06 PM EDT
| Worth having around - or gimmicky? Generally I have managed to avoid specialty rounds, and the premium on AP is high given that Ball Ammo will penetrate anything I can anticipate - but maybe as a more potent anti material round. What say you? |
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Yeah, since it's more important, why bother? I guess if a garand is your SHTF rifle, than some wouldn't hurt. You never know when you might have to stop a Ford truck or something. Toyota truck? Although M2 might not be too shabby either. Ball ammo will go thru any non-armoured vehicle like it wasn't even there; like a hot knife thru butter. Save the AP for when the blue-helmeted zombie hordes drive their armoured zombie vehicles thru your neighborhood looking for food. |
| M2 AP is good to have around, if you can get it at a reasonable price. When I was a kid, all of the 30.06 ammo I shot was M2 ball rounds, handloaded by my grandfather. He'd pull the bullets from M2 rounds, and then reload them with a consistent powder charge. He felt the M2 rounds were more consistent accuracy wise than cheap ball rounds for shooting, and he'd aquired a ton of the M2 rounds during the good old days of the DCM. Unfortunately, we shot that ammo up. I still have 2 spam cans of 40's era M2 ball, shoot a little of it. I buy more when I can get it for a similar price as current ball ammo, but those deals are few. |
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M2 AP is good to have around, if you can get it at a reasonable price. When I was a kid, all of the 30.06 ammo I shot was M2 ball rounds, handloaded by my grandfather. He'd pull the bullets from M2 rounds, and then reload them with a consistent powder charge. He felt the M2 rounds were more consistent accuracy wise than cheap ball rounds for shooting, and he'd acquired a ton of the M2 rounds during the good old days of the DCM. Unfortunately, we shot that ammo up. I still have 2 spam cans of 40's era M2 ball, shoot a little of it. I buy more when I can get it for a similar price as current ball ammo, but those deals are few. I think you might be confused in your terminology. "M2" is ball ammunition; while it's commonly called "M2 Ball" that is not it's actual designation. "M2 AP" or "AP M2" is the designation for 30 Caliber, Armor Piercing. For that matter I believe "Ball" is simply a descriptor for non-expanding projectiles, as opposed to expanding or fragmenting projectiles. So M2 AP would technically be ball ammunition as well. |
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The API is exceedingly hard to find. Can you share sources? Wouldn't mind having a couple hundred rounds of same. Probably illegal as hell in California. Very illegal in CA and I'm not sharing the few hundred that I have. Few hundred? That stuff is going for about $5/round. In the completely theoretical scenario where I own some I would have bought it one or two rounds at a time, when I could find it. Theoretically. |
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The API is exceedingly hard to find. Can you share sources? Wouldn't mind having a couple hundred rounds of same. Probably illegal as hell in California. Very illegal in CA and I'm not sharing the few hundred that I have. M2 AP is NOT illegal in CA. What is illegal in CA is AP HANDGUN ammo. 30-06 M2 AP is not a handgun round, it is a rifle round and as such is legal to own and shoot. What is illegal in CA is tracer and incindiary ammo. |
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The API is exceedingly hard to find. Can you share sources? Wouldn't mind having a couple hundred rounds of same. Probably illegal as hell in California. Very illegal in CA and I'm not sharing the few hundred that I have. M2 AP is NOT illegal in CA. What is illegal in CA is AP HANDGUN ammo. 30-06 M2 AP is not a handgun round, it is a rifle round and as such is legal to own and shoot. What is illegal in CA is tracer and incindiary ammo. "API" stands for "armor piercing incendiary", which is what he was talking about. RIF. Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
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The API is exceedingly hard to find. Can you share sources? Wouldn't mind having a couple hundred rounds of same. Probably illegal as hell in California. Very illegal in CA and I'm not sharing the few hundred that I have. M2 AP is NOT illegal in CA. What is illegal in CA is AP HANDGUN ammo. 30-06 M2 AP is not a handgun round, it is a rifle round and as such is legal to own and shoot. What is illegal in CA is tracer and incindiary ammo. "API" stands for "armor piercing incendiary", which is what he was talking about. RIF. Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile My bad, I missed the "I". Ooops.  Unfortunately, too many people, even here in CA don't know the law.
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Got a few en blocs of M2 AP put away in the chest, also "just in case." Not to derail much, but also have a about 70 loose M2 AP projectiles I've been trying to figure out what to do with. Has anyone tried them in .300 WinMag? I recall that it is doable, and delivers the projectiles at a pretty remarkable velocity. |
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The API is exceedingly hard to find. Can you share sources? Wouldn't mind having a couple hundred rounds of same. Probably illegal as hell in California. Very illegal in CA and I'm not sharing the few hundred that I have. Few hundred? That stuff is going for about $5/round. In the completely theoretical scenario where I own some I would have bought it one or two rounds at a time, when I could find it. Theoretically. Well aware of the price. I had a sealed spam can of API in bandoliers (6 or 8 bandoliers?) which I sold for just a tad under 1k about two years ago. |
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Got a few en blocs of M2 AP put away in the chest, also "just in case." Not to derail much, but also have a about 70 loose M2 AP projectiles I've been trying to figure out what to do with. Has anyone tried them in .300 WinMag? I recall that it is doable, and delivers the projectiles at a pretty remarkable velocity. I'd like to see one loaded into 300 RUM 
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Got a few en blocs of M2 AP put away in the chest, also "just in case." Not to derail much, but also have a about 70 loose M2 AP projectiles I've been trying to figure out what to do with. Has anyone tried them in .300 WinMag? I recall that it is doable, and delivers the projectiles at a pretty remarkable velocity. I'd like to see one loaded into 300 RUM That's my kind of crazy right there! Sadly I don't have a RUM chambered rifle or the loading dies, only WinMag. |
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Got a few en blocs of M2 AP put away in the chest, also "just in case." Not to derail much, but also have a about 70 loose M2 AP projectiles I've been trying to figure out what to do with. Has anyone tried them in .300 WinMag? I recall that it is doable, and delivers the projectiles at a pretty remarkable velocity. I'd like to see one loaded into 300 RUM That's my kind of crazy right there! Sadly I don't have a RUM chambered rifle or the loading dies, only WinMag. I recall seeing various mentions 'round the Web over the last few years of M2AP bullets loaded and fired in 300 WinMag rifles, with....significant improvements in penetrative effect. Maybe not earth-shattering or anything, but improvements. Then again, that's just IIRC, and I could be wrong (easily, at that). |
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I pulled five projectiles and loaded my .300 WM (Rem 700 P, 26" bbl); three rounds shot a 1.5 MOA group @ 150 yards (2.25" group, slight vertical spread).
The other two punched clean through a 1" steel oilfield flange that AP M2 didn't even leave a bulge on the back side of. 72.0 grains of 4350, 3100 f.p.s. |
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WW2 Film on Small Arms
A classic training film - don't make them like this anymore. Skip to 5:35 to see a demo of 30-06 AP on concrete. |
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Interesting. Of course if I absolutely must poke a hole in something I can just drag out the .50BMG API. This is more of a "huh, I've got these, but don't really know what I want to do with them." Maybe I should just auction them for an obscene amount.  Not rare at all but cool. The "shit" as far as rare USGI API is M14 API. |
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With the price of ammo climbing and regular M2 ball going for .65 to .80 cents a round, AP at .75 to $1 isn't that much more expensive. Heck the new hornady ammo for the garand and any of the newer garand rounds that are being commercially reloaded are going for close to $1 a round. With people paying these sorts of prices, M2 AP is sort of "undervalued" in my opinion right now.
Back when ball was going for .20 to .30 cents a round, AP was still bringing $1 a round. If I had to pay close to $1 a round for ammo, why not buy the AP, as long as it's legal in your area. |
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