Nice to see you back Stanc.
I hope all is well in your area.
How is the article coming?
Unfortunatly I cannot help you with this particular question but I hope you find a true and helpful answer.

 

Nice to see you back Stanc.
I hope all is well in your area.
How is the article coming?

Hi, James. The 6.8 SPC article? Finished it close to 4 months ago. Tentatively scheduled for publication near the end of October.

Stan

 

Welcm bck Stan. Like James, I can't be of ay help in this area, but all I can say is that my 7.7 Arisoka hurts my should when I shoot it. I can't imagine fighting a war with it.

 

Welcm bck Stan. Like James, I can't be of ay help in this area, but all I can say is that my 7.7 Arisoka hurts my should when I shoot it. I can't imagine fighting a war with it.

Ditto regarding the M1903 Springfield I once owned.

P.S. It's good to be back online. For almost two months my computer was dead. I was experiencing withdrawal symptoms without a regular internet fix. ;^)

 

Probably some generals brother made the ammo and guns for it.... seems to be how most .mil decisions are based.

 

Stan,

It'll take a while to find the source material, but the decision for the caliber switch made by the "sons of Nippon" (and Italians) seemed to have stemmed from a need for a heavier caliber for GPMG use and desire for commonality with their infantry rifles.
From the reports I've read, the 6.5 Carcano spitzer round had a reputation as a nasty anti-personnel round due to a rearward weight bias and rapid yaw in soft tissue. Performance issues arose at the long ranges experienced in N. Africa.

Besides Japan and Italy, a number of other countries adopted a 6.5 caliber round, such as Sweden, Greece and Romania.
FWIW, the Swedes never really gave up on their 6.5s - though they never fought a war with 'em either.

As for the Japanese, I'm sure the barrier penetration and longer range of their opponents' .303 Mk VII and .30M2 ammunition made a distinct impression on the upper echelons of their military. Whether the average slightly-built Japanese infantryman felt the increased recoil of the 7.7 round in the Arisaka was worth the performance improvement will probably remain a mystery.

 

Ezell's Small Arms of the World states that the Imperial Japenese Army experiences in China demonstrated a need for "a cartridge more powerful than the 6.5 mm", but does not specify if this in respect to exterior or terminal ballistics. LTC John George in his superb Shots Fired in Anger claims the Japanese change from 6.5 mm to 7.7 mm was done for improved tracer effects, because the 6.5 mm projectile did not offer enough room for tracer compound, thus the Japanese moved to the larger 7.7 mm projectile, as already used in their Type 92 machine guns. George reports that the 6.5 mm worked on par with other military service calibers in the jungle combat on Guadalcanal and that many GI's used battlefield pick-ups of 6.5 mm Japanese carbines instead of M1903 Springfields. He had great respect for the 6.5x50mm, hypothesizing that it is likely that the Japanese Type 96 6.5 mm "Nambu" LMG's killed more allied personnel than all other Japanese small arms combined…

At the LAIR Wound Ballistic Lab in the late 1980's, Dr. Fackler and his staff assessed the terminal effects of a large number of historically significant rifle cartridges, including 6.5x50mm Japanese, 6.5x52mm Carcano, 7.62x39mm Russian, 7.62x54 mm Russian, .30-06, .303 British, 7.92x33mm, 7.92x57 mm. On 11 February 1987, the 6.5 mm Japanese cartridge was tested. Two different loads were shot into bare gel fired from a Type 38 Arisaka rifle:

-- WWII Japanese military ammo: vel=2402 fps, pen=55+cm, NL=12cm, maxTC=19cm at 24cm, RW not recorded, but lab notes report no frag.

-- 1951 PRC ammo from Manchuria: vel=2157 fps, pen=66+cm, NL=14cm, maxTC=15cm at 24 cm, RW=136gr.

 

Thanks, guys. I also came across the following on the Army Medical History site:

 

LTC George's direct observation of close range 6.5x50mm rifle projectile wounds in the Pacific theater during WWII seems to disagree with that reported by the Army Medical History site:

"Ranges in true jungle country are always short, seldom over a hundred yards, with the average being nearer twenty-five yards. In the jungle assault, the ranges are at bayonet distance in many cases, with thirty yards being the extreme if cover is of average density. You don't often look for targets farther away than that. Should a man be shot by a rifle at such range--especially the highly humane and clean-killing ball 6.5--he will stand a chance of living through it."

On the other hand, George reports that when fired at close range from a LMG, the 6.5x50mm rounds proved deadly:

"But with a machine gun, especially the high cyclic rate light machine guns, a man hit at such close range is a dead cookie forty-nine times out of fifty...One reason a machine gun nearly always kills outright or wounds fatally is because of its rate of fire--the fact that a man is never hit with a single bullet at that range, but rather by a cluster of them coming so rapidly that they might have as well been fired simultaneously from a multi-barrelled weapon. The average number of such hits is usually around four or five--that many going in before the stricken man writhes or falls out of the way. That number is enough. If they strike a man in the body, they kill him. If they strike him in the bones of the arms or legs, they lacerate terribly and give fatal shock effect or else they bleed a man to death through a leg or arm artery. It doesn't take long for a man to pump out the critical two and a half quarts through the half-inch tube of a leg artery that squirts like a half-open water faucet; and it's quite a chore to stanch such bleeding with tools on hand while the shooting goes on. It takes a good aid man, and he has to be there!"

 

LTC George's direct observation of close range 6.5x50mm rifle projectile wounds in the Pacific theater during WWII seems to disagree with that reported by the Army Medical History site:

On the other hand, George reports that when fired at close range from a LMG, the 6.5x50mm rounds proved deadly:

Yes, there does seem to be some contradiction, but also some confirmation of George's anecdotal reports. For example, this chart http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/woundblstcs/chapter5.2.htm#table93 does show a high ratio of dead to wounded when hit by machine gun fire, and a low ratio of dead vs wounded for rifles, apparently confirming his comment on lethality of burst fire.

Here's the link to the entire book, should anyone be interested: http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/woundblstcs/frameindex.html

 

Thank you very much.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending how one views such topics, I am unaware of any recent shootings using 6.5x50mm and thus have no first hand experience or even good modern autopsy/surgical data and imaging of such wounds.