Russian exploding bullets

[willone242]

Hi - I have a question I hope youy might help me with. In several books I read (life on the eastern fronts) are refering to the dreded russian exploding bullets. I tried to find out more about these bullets on the internet, but couldn´t findanything. Just curious about how this ammunition worked.

Will

[P08]

They most likely worked the same way the German B-Patrone did. One of the books where you hear about this type of ammunition is the German biography by Josef Allerberger: Im Auge des Jägers. A very sad book that really makes you understand the suffering that both russian and german soldiers went through on the eastern front.

In Richard D. Law's book: K98k as Sniper Rifle, you can read about the B-Patrone and see a print from the original German description.

[willone242]

Thanks for the information. I worked with EOD several years, but never found any ammunition like that in smaller callibers. The .50 got it, but I mean thats pretty modern. Just curious about how the russians got it to work. Read "frontschwine" just now, and in that book they refer to it regarding snipers. In another book written by a Swedish SS man named Wallin they frequently get problems with this ammunition in fighting, and with regular troops. Would like to see a blueprint of it. I am gonna look the B-patrone up though. Thanks.

Will

[copdoc]

I was going to look up a paper I had before posting but have not had time. We had some of the Russian HE aircraft ammo in the 1980's but I asked our unit not to keep any for reference because it actually is a little HE round. Most of the other small arms rounds are more for spotting except the German B Patr. I think the Russians used RDX as the HE and had a small contact detonator much like the primer in the "Exploder" ammo made in the 80's. The metal jacket covered the primer unlike the exploder. One of our guys had actually fired some of it in a MN91/30. He was having fun until one went off before contacting the target. It was far enough away that he was not hurt. The bullet tips were red and I think they had a flat tip. Hope this helps. I'll let you know if I find the paper.