Handgun and Rifle Ammunition
Source: World of Darkness—Armory © 2006 White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.
p.82ff
Ammunition for handguns and rifles is manufactured using the same basic design described in Weapons - Ammunition. However, some fundamental differences exist because of different design objectives. Handgun ammunition has to be relatively short in order to fit into a revolver cylinder or a magazine that fits into an autoloader’s grip. This means less propellant and a shorter bullet. In order to make up for this, a handgun round picks up some girth and sacrifices speed for mass in the kinetic energy equation.
By comparison, a rifle cartridge doesn’t have to conform to a comfortable length. This allows for both a longer projectile and a longer propellant charge. The bullet gets both mass and speed from being built larger in that dimension, so the bullet can be slimmer — which gives an extra added bonus of a smaller cross-section, and thus less resistance from whatever it’s passing through (air, Kevlar, people).
These differences in construction lead to a discrepancy between the performances of rifle rounds and pistol rounds. Pistol rounds move a lot slower than rifle bullets: compare a 9mm Luger handgun bullet (weight 115 grains, muzzle velocity 1,150 feet per second) to a .223 Remington rifle bullet (weight 55 grains, muzzle velocity 3,200 feet per second). The handgun round weighs about twice as much as the rifle round, but the speed of the handgun round is almost two-thirds lower. In addition, the handgun round has a wider cross-section, which means the round slows down faster; and, because it’s moving slower, it loses stability and altitude over a much shorter distance.
All of these factors combine to make rifle rounds deadly and accurate at much longer ranges than handgun rounds. Additionally, higher velocities and lower diameters mean that rifle bullets tend to go through things that would stop many pistol bullets cold: thin metal, tree branches, body armor and so forth.
Handgun and Rifle Ammunition Types
Full Metal Jacket (FMJ): The de facto standard for rifle and handgun ammunition is the full metal jacket bullet (“ball” in military parlance). FMJ rounds, as the name suggests, are completely sheathed in metal. Their usual construction is a copper or steel sheath over a lead core.
Mechanics: None. FMJ is the default ammunition type with which all handguns and rifles are assumed to be loaded unless otherwise specified.
Acquisition: Resources • for a box of 50 handgun cartridges ($50) or 20 rifle cartridges ($40). FMJ ammo is available in all calibers and is legal anywhere guns are.
Armor Piercing (AP): Militaries often require ammunition capable of punching through cover, body armor or light vehicles. Armor-piercing rounds perform poorly against unarmored targets, often drastically over-penetrating, but small holes are still better than no holes. Armor-piercing rounds share similar construction with FMJ rounds, but contain solid steel or tungsten cores (“penetrators”) rather than lead innards. When an armor-piercing bullet strikes a solid object, this bullet’s core retains its shape rather than deforming. This allows the penetrator to keep moving at something close to its original velocity even as the lead around it slows down.
Mechanics: Armor-piercing bullets are, obviously, armor piercing. The rating of an armor-piercing bullet depends on its caliber:
| Bullet Type | Damage Succs | AP Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Handgun | 2 or less | 1 |
| Handgun | 2 (10 again) or more | 2 |
| Rifle | 4 or less | 2 |
| Rifle | 4 (10 again) or more | 3 |
Acquisition: Resources •• for a box of 50 handgun cartridges ($150) or 20 rifle cartridges ($100). AP ammo is rare in non-military calibers and is illegal for civilians to possess in any nation with gun laws. Some calibers are innately armor piercing with their normal FMJ ammo and cannot be acquired as armor piercing for double effect (see “Handgun and Rifle Damage by Caliber,” p. 85).
Blank: Used for entertainment and simulation purposes, blanks are cartridges without bullets. A blank is dangerous at point-blank range because the propellant still explodes, but is harmless past about 10 feet. Because the gas from a blank expands without a bullet’s resistance, semi-automatic and automatic firearms will not work with blanks unless fitted with a blank firing adapter, a device inside the barrel that constricts the expanding gas — and causes catastrophic failure if a live round is fired from the gun.
Mechanics: A blank does normal damage within three yards. Otherwise, the blank goes “bang” and flashes with no other effect.
Acquisition: Resources • for a box of 50 cartridges ($40). Blanks are readily available in all calibers.
Frangible: These expensive bullets are a partial answer to the problem of over-penetration. Frangible ammunition, also known as Advanced Energy Transfer (AET) or pre-fragmented, is designed to break up on impact with a solid target. This maximizes the bullet’s transfer of energy to the object and minimizes the chances that pieces of it will exit at dangerous velocities. Frangible ammo comes in a variety of configurations, from hollow rounds filled with tiny metal beads (the well-known Glaser Safety Slug) to semi-solid bullets with grooves or notches to facilitate breakup. Frangible ammo has found acceptance in both military and law enforcement hostage rescue use and in civilian home defense.
Mechanics: Frangible ammo gains a one-die bonus to its Damage rating against unprotected living (or unliving) targets. However, against a target with a Durability or Armor rating, this damage bonus is lost and the Durability or Armor rating is tripled. An innately armor-piercing caliber loses this effect with frangible ammunition.
Acquisition: Resources •• for a box of 20 handgun or rifle cartridges ($100). Frangible ammo is available in most hand-gun calibers (any with Damage of 3 or less and not listed as “Rare”), as well as some military rifle calibers (Damage less than 5). Frangible ammo is civilian-legal.
Hollowpoint: A hollowpoint bullet, as the name suggests, has a hollow point, usually taking the shape of a cone-shaped section scooped from its nose. When such a bullet strikes a target, the hollowpoint expands (or “mushrooms”) more readily than a FMJ bullet. This results in more energy transferred to the target, and thus more spectacular wounds. The primary drawback of hollowpoints is that they do not discriminate between solid objects. For example, a Kevlar vest will serve just as well as a human torso for purposes of slowing the bullet down and making it expand. Still, against unarmored targets, hollowpoints are messily effective.
Various improvised types of expanding bullets, collectively known as “dum-dums,” perform as hollowpoints. The most common method of creating a dum-dum is to carve some or all of the jacket off a FMJ bullet, notching the lead underneath.
Mechanics: Hollowpoint ammunition gains a one-die bonus to its Damage rating against unprotected living (or undead) targets. However, against any target with an Armor rating, a hollowpoint suffers a two-dice penalty instead. In addition, hollowpoints perform poorly over distance due to increased drag, and penalties for attacks at medium and long range are raised to –3 and –5, respectively. An innately armor-piercing caliber loses this effect with hollowpoint ammunition.
Acquisition: Resources • for a box of 20 handgun or rifle cartridges ($40). Hollowpoints are available in all calibers except the largest military ones (.50 BMG and up). Hollowpoints are legal for civilian purchase. The Hague Convention prohibits the use of expanding ammunition in warfare, so militaries rarely use hollowpoints.
Match Grade: Competitive shooters demand precision from their ammunition. Match grade ammo is FMJ ammo produced to exacting tolerances. After production, randomly selected rounds from each lot are tested for ballistic performance, and a record of these tests is packaged with every box of ammo, showing its behavior at known ranges (typically 50, 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 yards). Some professional shooters swear that only match grade ammo allows consistent peak performance, while others insist that this ammo is too sensitive to humidity and temperature to give any real benefit.
Mechanics: Match grade ammo provides significant benefits only if the shooter takes time to set up the shot. If the shooter has access to current weather information (wind, temperature, humidity) and the data sheet for the batch of match grade ammo, the shooter may spend 10 minutes calculating performance and adjusting the weapon’s sights. This requires an Intelligence + Firearms roll (with a –3 penalty if weather information is unavailable). The number of successes is added to the maximum bonus the character receives from aiming (e.g., with four successes, the character may receive a maximum bonus of +4 from aiming, if he aims for seven turns). This bonus is lost if the weather changes significantly.
Acquisition: Resources ••• for a box of 50 rifle cartridges ($300). Match grade ammo is available in all rifle calibers, but it’s especially difficult to acquire in quantities of more than a couple hundred rounds at a time due to low production numbers.
Riot Control: “Rubber bullets” are low-velocity rounds intended for non-lethal use against crowds that refuse to disperse peacefully. Rubber bullets are made of medium-hard rubber or plastic and are intended to be fired at the ground to ricochet into targets, as these bullets can still cause serious injury or death if used directly at targets.
Mechanics: Riot control ammunition does bashing rather than lethal damage unless the ammo is aimed at the target’s head, in which case the ammo still does lethal.
Acquisition: Resources •• for a box of 20 handgun or rifle cartridges ($100). Riot control ammunition is generally available only in common Western military calibers (5.56mm NATO, 7.62mm NATO, 9mm Luger, .45 ACP), as the vast majority of police weapons use these calibers. Riot control ammunition is technically legal for civilian use, but most vendors restrict sales. An innately armor-piercing caliber loses this effect with riot control ammunition.
Tracer: Tracer ammo is FMJ ammo with a small amount of combustible chemical compound (usually phosphorous or magnesium) on the back end of the bullet. When a tracer is fired, this chemical burns off over the course of a second or so (typically the bullet’s entire flight). To the human eye, a small illuminated object moving at supersonic velocity appears as a bright streak and afterimage. This provides a visual reference for the bullet’s track, which allows the shooter to adjust her point of aim when firing bursts. Because of the excessive chemical residue tracers leave in a gun, most shooters load one tracer round for every three to five normal rounds. Some shooters also load the last few rounds in a magazine as tracers as a visual reminder to reload during the heat of battle, though this also tells the enemy that the subject is vulnerable.
Mechanics: While tracers are not hot enough to inflict fire damage (not even to vampires), the bullets can set targets (or scenery) on fire as a secondary effect. Whenever a combustible target is struck by tracers, roll a single die: if the result is less than the amount of damage inflicted by handgun and rifle ammunition-handgun and rifle ammunition types the attack, the target catches fire and begins taking a single point of fire damage per turn until extinguished. Characters are not normally considered combustible, but their clothes are. Any attempt to spot a character who’s just fired one or more tracers automatically succeeds if the observer has any degree of eyesight.
Acquisition: Resources •• for a box of 20 handgun cartridges ($100), ••• for a belt or case of 100 rifle cartridges ($500). Tracer ammo is technically legal, but rare, on the civilian market. Because tracer ammo is used almost exclusively in automatic weapons, it is produced only in common military calibers.
Back to main ammo page.
What about shotgun ammo?
And the totally crazy other types of ammo?