gatnerd said:

My concern is these cobalt sintered projectiles show very good performance on steel (M993 is pretty solid on steel) but may shatter when encountering harder ceramics.

Unfortunately, I can't answer that question.

I've got a very effective ammo lot of 7.62x51 mm DM151 (high density WC-Co core, MV around 880 m/s from a 22" test barrel @+52°C, and 855 m/s @+21°C) that will be tested against ceramic armor, but not before 2023.

Against RHA, an exposed tip .277 Fury ADVAP (main hypothesis: a 32 mm long WC core, a MV of 3000 fps and a 0.29 C7) could probably defeat someting like 29-30 mm of RHA at 100 m, and 16-17 mm at 600 m which is (from my limited experience) the "entry ticket" to expect being able to defeat lvl IV ceramic armor.

EDIT : with the above set of hypothesis, a .277 Fury ADVAP is duplicating the performance of the XM948 SLAP up to 500 m, and is slightly better after 500 m due to it's higher BC.

gatnerd said:

My concern is these cobalt sintered projectiles show very good performance on steel (M993 is pretty solid on steel) but may shatter when encountering harder ceramics.

Why concern? In the picture the penetrator fragments look awefully effective.
It might even be intentional to get good behind armor effect?

One of the main functions of the Cobalt in the WC Co sinter mix is to increase the resistance to impacts. To improve the flexibility and ductility of the material. Prue WC is very hard but very brittle. This is why there are different mixtures of WC and Co available for different uses.

I am not convinced that a WC-Ni-Fe mixture would give better shatter resitance.

The material EmericD mentions, TSF22, also is a tool grade WC-Co mix. With ~8 % Co. Special about it is the super fine graine structure. Its about as hard as you can get without using pure WC.

What I find intresting is that is seems nowadays the ammo manufacturers just use tool grade WC materials they can purchase on the market. My guess is they don't even shape the penetrators themself. They just order them from a company specialised in sintering. The ammo manufacturers just assemble the cartidge from parts that are delivered to them.
This of course has implications for the performance. The tool grade WC materials are all a compromise tailored for one specific application. Which is why milling workshops usually have a selection of different cutting tools. But armor penetration is a very complicated process and unlike milling in a workshop the surounding factors are not known in advance and can not be controlled. So its virtually impossible to select the ideal penetrator material in advance. Actually it seems necessary to pick the best compromise that will allmost allways work in a usefull way.
Getting trough hard ceramic plates but shattering and working fine against steel armor might be such a compromise. Allthough for the M993 I rather think penetration of ceramic body armor has not been a factor at all concidering the time of development.

schnuersi said:

Why concern? In the picture the penetrator fragments look awefully effective. It might even be intentional to get good behind armor effect

The issue is that Ceramic plates function by shattering penetrators into 'un-piercy' sized fragments that can then be caught by the UHMWPE backer. 

If the penetrator doesn't shatter (or if the penetrator only shatters mildly in the case of that test) after passing through the ceramic gauntlet, it can then zip through the UHMWPE backer.

So they key for Ceramic defeat is a penetrator that can survive its impact with the ceramic to the fullest extent possible.

In that M993 test, it was able to make it through. But many other M993 tests from Buffman have shown failure due to shattering. 

EmericD said:

I've got a very effective ammo lot of 7.62x51 mm DM151 (high density WC-Co core, MV around 880 m/s from a 22" test barrel @+52°C, and 855 m/s @+21°C) that will be tested against ceramic armor, but not before 2023. Against RHA, an exposed tip .277 Fury ADVAP (main hypothesis: a 32 mm long WC core, a MV of 3000 fps and a 0.29 C7) could probably defeat someting like 29-30 mm of RHA at 100 m, and 16-17 mm at 600 m which is (from my limited experience) the "entry ticket" to expect being able to defeat lvl IV ceramic armor. EDIT : with the above set of hypothesis, a .277 Fury ADVAP is duplicating the performance of the XM948 SLAP up to 500 m, and is slightly better after 500 m due to it's higher BC.

Very cool that you will be conducting ceramic testing; hoepfully you can report back but understand if you cant. 

Not sure which armor you will get to test. But the Iranian armor found in Ukraine, along with the various Level IV Chinese plates readily available on Aliexpress I think should be looked into as probable 'adversarial' systems. Adepts Colossus plate might be worth trying too as a harbinger for future advances in armor. 

...

Thank you for doing the .277 ADVAP calculations; those are extremely impressive performance estimates. 

Based on your calculations, what do you expect that .277 ADVAP projectile would weigh? I imagine a good bit heavier than the steel/copper 6.8 'GP' EPR projectile?

how heavy is the steel core on 556 AP rounds?

smg762 said:

how heavy is the steel core on 556 AP rounds?

Which 5.56 mm AP round?

The P112?

>https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6986420763545239552/

From the T-Worx LinkedIn. They designed the powered rail system used in all NGSW applicants.

The point of particular note here, imo is the ammunition belt. Showing ostensibly the standard issue 6.8NGSW cartridge. The EPR bullet design is clear and expected. But the use of what appears to be an entirely steel case is very interesting.

Perhaps it turned out that SIG's multipart case design was too complex for mass military manufacture.

I initially thought that this would be lower-pressure practice ammo, but the EPR-style bullet confuses me.  My understanding was that practice ammo would use a bullet with less penetration and ricochet potential. 

I recall a NDIA presentation a number of years ago that discussed ammo weight reduction by utilizing thin-walled steel cases but had seen nothing since.  I wonder if the need for extra strength for the base of the new 6.8 cartridge has suddenly made steel cases much more attractive.

SIG's case design being particularly ridiculous was probably the biggest incentive Lake City needed to finally go through with it. 

Apsyda said:

The point of particular note here, imo is the ammunition belt. Showing ostensibly the standard issue 6.8NGSW cartridge. The EPR bullet design is clear and expected. But the use of what appears to be an entirely steel case is very interesting.

Perhaps it turned out that SIG's multipart case design was too complex for mass military manufacture.

It may be that the multi-part case proved too complex for mass production, but I would note that the T-Worx post does not say the rounds are the "standard issue" cartridge.

Another possible explanation for what appears to be steel cases is that they are dummy cartridges used for display at public exhibitions like AUSA 2022, instead of live ammo.