Vietnam successfully produces armor-piercing bullets

Easily penetrating 18mm thick CT3 steel from 100m away and penetrating level 3 armor according to US NIJ101.04 standard, Vietnam's 7.62mm bullets are on par with Western bullets.

With the aim of improving combat capabilities, especially the armor-piercing ability of bullets, engineers of Factory Z113 (General Department of Defense Industry) have researched, designed and successfully tested the 7.62x54mm (K53) armor-piercing bullet with a steel core.

The bullet can be used for existing K53 ammunition guns. The bullet is designed to penetrate 12mm thick CT3 steel at a distance of 100m and penetrate level 3 armor according to the US NIJ101.04 standard.

Armor-piercing bullets made in Vietnam.

To ensure the ability to penetrate steel, engineers have studied to increase the critical speed of the bullet and the hardness of the steel core. Through theoretical and experimental research, the authors have chosen the average designed bullet velocity at the position 25mm from the gun muzzle to be from 840 to 890m/s.

To ensure the hardness of the steel core, based on the materials used to produce K56 piercing bullets, the authors chose Y12A steel grade as the piercing core. The steel has a hardness of 64-66 HRC after quenching, and a hardness of 62-64 HRC after tempering at high temperature.

The technology for manufacturing 7.62x54mm steel core bullets is the technology that the factory has applied to the production of regular 7.62x54mm (K53) bullets. In particular, the stage of manufacturing the steel core has applied shaping technology, which is a method of cutting and creating hardness for the steel core using salt furnace quenching and oil tempering technology.

The actual velocity of the bullet reaches 870.7 to 872.4 m/s; the ability to penetrate 16mm thick uniform CT3 steel placed perpendicular to the barrel axis at a distance of 100m is 100%; penetrating level 3 armor according to US standards is 100%.

The gun's gas pressure is the same as that of conventional bullets, which increases the gun's durability. On the other hand, the bullet still uses the propellant used for conventional bullets, so there is no need to produce new propellant. Test firing results show that the steel penetration ability meets and exceeds the design parameters.

Specifically, with CT3 steel targets with thicknesses of 14, 16 and 18mm when using PKMS gun at a distance of 100m, the penetration rate of 14 and 16mm thick steel plates reached 100%; the penetration rate of 18mm thick steel plates reached 80%. Testing armor penetration with level 3 armor at a distance of 15m also gave a penetration rate of 100%...

According to Baodatviet