We all heard the term, high powered rifle, or handgun do you know what makes it high powered?

I always assumed high powered a term of comparison regarding the penetrating power of the slug as well as the effective accurate distance the weapon can propel it.

“High power” is relative and subjective. It also depends. A .22 short is not, neither is a .22 long rifle, a .223 is medium but a .22–250 is high powered. Confused? The size of those rounds is roughly the same, roughly. The difference is the amount of powder and explosive pressures driving it.

Maybe I should have put, what does the media consider a high powered firearm?

There’s no universal definition. A lot of people define it terms of bullet caliber, but what I was taught when I learned to shoot was a muzzle velocity of 2,000 feet per second.

@SQUEEKY2 “Maybe I should have put, what does the media consider a high powered firearm?”

Most media outlets are completely illiterate when it comes to guns. For them, a “high powered rifle” is anything they think looks or sounds scary.

High kinetic energy (and so, wounding potential) from size/weight of bullet, and muzzle velocity. ke = mv^2.

What makes a gun more powerful (per shot) tends to be its chambering for a large round with a lot of propellant, and a long rifled barrel.

I’d say .22 and .25ACP pistols tend to be low-powered, .32 to .38 pistols tend to be moderately powerful, ~9×19mm pistols tend to be quite powerful, and .357 and higher Magnum I’d definitely call high-powered.

And by that standard, almost all rifles tend to be very powerful, some more than others. There are though some lower-powered target rifles.

I think the mainstream news media and gun-control-oriented politicians tend to be inconsistent and a bit silly, simplistic, and sensational in their use of the term “high-powered”.

It would need to be in the 40 watt range.

This what I found out by asking two gunsmiths and a firearm enthusiast the media considers anything center fire high powered.
And that includes 25acp.
Your answers are great and that is what anybody who knows anything about firearms thinks but not what the media or the anti gunners think.

Bullets with a high powder ratio are high-powered. Something powerful enough to kill a large animal. A bullet that has a center fire primer, not something that is rim fire primer, like a regular .22. Here in Idaho you can shoot a deer with any gun that is center fire even a pistol with .25 ACP.

I would think it refers to the muzzle energy of the projectile. I’m not sure where the cutoff is or how steep the curve is for muzzle energy ballistics though when defining the threshold for “high powered.”

As far as I know there is no specific definition for “high-powered”. I did find that in shooting matches they created a definition for the term, but it really only applies to their matches.

As far as the secondary question of what does the media consider a high-powered rifle? Any rifle that is used that they want to get sensationalized headlines for. Much the way they use “assault rifle”. An assault rifle is one that is used in the military that can be used in semi-auto or full-auto mode of operation. It usually uses a smaller bullet or with less propellent charge. But the media believes if a gun looks scary it is an assault weapon. Because using “assault weapon” in a headline or a story sounds much scarier than just saying “gun”.

^^ Oh, those damn media!

Did you know that a .22 bullet and a 9mm bullet come out of the muzzle of similar guns at the same speed?

It’s just a word dude.
It doesn’t matter how fast a bullet travels.
Do you think a “slower” bullet is gonna do less damage to bones and tendons and ligamets and organs?

@Blackberry “Do you think a “slower” bullet is gonna do less damage to bones and tendons and ligamets and organs?”

Yes. Basic Physics.

@Blackwater_Park
Are you daft?
And a smaller sun will burn a human body at a slower pace than a larger sun….

Go ahead, man, tell us all a situation where someone will be “ok” being shot by one bullet instead of another.

You can even decide the range the person is shot at and everything…

Tell us, please….what’s the age, angle, trajectory and whatever else you feel is pertinent to claim a bullet isn’t gonna mess up a human body.

Work is slow today. I really wanna hear it.

@Blackberry I agree with you. Dead is dead is dead. And the “responsible gun owners” who want to keep their guns have a responsibility to figure out why we’ve had 309 mass murders in this country while other countries have none or very few.

Men who seemingly have no knowledge of what female physiology is all about seem to feel that they can control medical health for women. Can’t we who might not know a rifle from a Colt 45 decide that there’s been enough life loss in this country this fucking year?

Lol. Let’s use the .22 at 50 yards or so. A .22 shot out of an air rifle with low compression may not break the skin. You live. A .22short will not make it past your skull. You live. A .22LR which is the same but with more velocity may make it past your skull, or it may not. You may or may not be ok. A .223 which is roughly the same size but with more velocity will certainly enter your skull and will likely exit the other side. You die. A .22–250 which is again, roughly the same size but even more velocity would practically take your head off and one, possibly two people standing behind. It’s basic physics. See the equation @Zaku posted above. You had better believe that sort of thing matters.

Any gun used to hurt anyone can be potentially fatal ,you just stand a better chance at surviving from certain calibers compared to others.
The media sensationalizes it for better head lines and bigger audiences, just like I pointed out you fined a 30cal rifle slug there is no way of telling what the gun was seeing a lot of guns shoot the same slug.

I have hunted jack rabbits in Nevada with both a .22 WMR (magnum) rifle and a standard .22 rifle. Both using hollow points.
The standard .22 leaves a bigger hole going out.

There is something major wrong in the US with all these mass shootings.
Anti gun people blame the gun to many ,to easy to get one to use to commit a shooting crime.
you need better laws to stop these shooters!
Isn’t shooting someone against the law?
I think it has to be more than just to many guns, like curb violence as entertainment, violence as entertainment is all around us movies, tv shows, video games, I feel it desensitizes young people especially young men, and they want more after a while and turn to the real world to get their violence fix.

@kritiper I have used different rifles to shoot varmints such as ground hogs and gophers, a 300winmag BIG GUN just blows a hole through them.
A 223 lot smaller gun blows them up.

It’s as if these people won’t just find another way to do what they do. The Boston marathon bombers used pressure cookers of all things. Certainly some gun regulations will help but the crux of the matter is going to remain how can we stop them from wanting to do this in the first place. I don’t have any real answers to that question.

@SQUEEKY2 I’ve heard that.
My brother once witnessed the same thing happening to a rabbit with a .22–250.

@Blackwater_Park Very true up here a guy used a rental van to kill a bunch of people.
As a society regardless of what country we live in we have to show tolerance of people with different views and life choices,be it political, religious, or sexual as long as it’s legal we just have to accept them,not work up a rage and want to kill them.

I feel like most of these shooters are young, mostly white, angry males who are either frustrated, marginalized, unsuccessful, deranged, suicidal or all of the above. Some of them may be over-medicated or under-medicated. Either way there is a clear trend. So why this particular demographic? What has steered them in this direction when this was not a thing 25 years ago. I don’t think we can simply blame violent media or music or video games either. That stuff is all over and you don’t get this chemistry as bad as it is here in the states.

@Blackwater_Park
Ok thanks for the informative response. Although most shootings are obviously piercing flesh.

The logic is sound:

Someone killed a bunch of people one time with something other than a semiautomatic firearm.
Therefore semiautomatic firearms aren’t a cause for concern.
Solve problem by making sure all people are happy always. Genius.

I have a .45 caliber gun. The muzzle velocity is slow compared to many bullets. Something to the tune of about 840 fps. A 9 mm can get upwards of 1200 fps. Yet the .45 will do massive damage when it hits. It has enough energy to penetrate the body, and the bullet itself is about 30% larger than the 9 mm. And heavier. So technically the .45 would not be considered a “high powered” gun by conventional attitudes. Yet the stopping power per bullet is higher than the 9 mm.

@seawulf575 How does the muzzle energy compare?

@Blackwater_Park
Whatever the issue, it won’t be addressed, which is another issue.

Whatever problem and solution is presented will be met with denial and rhetoric used to avoid said problem.

But yea, I’m sure it’s just medication…..

@gorillapaws I guess you could figure it out…230 grain bullet moving 840 fps as opposed to 120 grain bullet moving at 1200 fps. if you don’t like grains, there are roughly 15.4 grains per gram. So roughly 7.8 g compared to 15 g. The two are close in muzzle energy…360 foot-pounds for the 45 cal, 384 foot-pounds for the 9mm. But muzzle energy is only a piece of the equation for the damage it will do.

I know there are guns made as weapons of war. They are meant to obliterate another human being. They are not meant for hunting or home protection.

Yeah? Tell it to the NRA.

@Jonsblond There are some guns that are made as weapons of war. There are also other weapons of war. A flamethrower is one of them. Yet when the left brings them to protests it doesn’t seem to get the outrage, does it?

^I’m not even…

That is not a flame thrower.
This is a flame thrower

The whole point of FMJ bullets is to not kill but wound. And the bullet has the additional benefit of going through one person and hitting another. More people get tied up in combat caring for wounded compared to the dead. If it was meant to blow people up, all (combat specific) bullets wound be soft-nosed or hollow points.

@seawulf575
In the 1st article, he was approaching KKK headquarters….you know…that organization with gallons of african blood in their hands. And it ended peacefully.

The second article, the guy was apprehended and charged with 2 felonies….his life is basically over. White Americans get away with worse on a daily basis.

What else you got?

@Blackberry the articles were in response to the statement that there are guns made to be weapons of war. As well as the overall attitude coming out (that is inevitable in these threads) that guns are the only way people hurt others. There are indeed guns that are made as weapons of war. But then, flame throwers are also used in war. We continually hear about how the right wingers are the violent ones, how they come armed to protests and it is horrible, etc. But here we have 2 perfect examples that it really doesn’t matter if you are right or left. Violence is violence. Bringing a weapon to a protest is just looking for violence. And guns are not the only weapon out there.

@seawulf575

Most people already understand this, just like most people understand guns just happen to be a particular focus due to heavy denial of their basic capabilities and access in relation to similar countries and environments around the world.

We already know shooters can just rent a van or use a car or knives.

Will you go ahead and claim right now that guys tiny little flamethrower can do the same amount of damage as an AR-15 in the same amount of time?

@Blackberry So your stance is if it isn’t a gun, it can’t do damage and is, therefore, not worth addressing. It can just be discounted and ignored. Here’s a thought for you…hands and feet kill more people than rifles. Knives kill more people than rifles. And that is ALL rifles, not just AR-15s.

Will go ahead and claim right now that doesn’t matter because AR-15s are evil?

@seawulf575
?....
I did not say flamethrowers are not doing damage….I asked if that specific flamethrower and a rifle can do the same amount of damage….and you didn’t answer the question.
We’re not currently having a flamethrower spree, nor a punching or kicking spree at parades and schools.

When a fist or kick kills someone, it’s one at a time…a knife spree in China killed 6 I believe.

So let’s try again….

Can a fist, or a knife, or the small flamethrower from the article you posted do the same amount of damage in the same time as an AR-15?

Can I go to a school right now and kill 15 people with my fists before I’m restrained?

It would seem sensible to concur with the armies, criminals, and lunatics the world over regarding the most effective and universally recognized device for reliable extermination of our fellow human beings by a single individual. There are rather obvious reasons why police forces , armies, and criminals somehow reject automobiles, baseball bats, etc. as efficient means for willful homicide. And while it is rather clear to all of us that more of us are at experienced at baseball than murder or even shooting, I would be willing to bet that within a mile of this house, there are 50 guns for every baseball bat available; and I wouldn’t bother to speculate on how many cars I might need to rummage through on the street in front of my house with any hope of finding a bat or flamethrower.

@Blackberry As expected, you claimed none of the bigger killers mattered because the AR-15 is so evil. No, you didn’t say the flamethrowers are not doing damage. But you were very dismissive of them. You were very dismissive of everything except AR-15s. And you still are.
Of course an AR-15 does more damage than a homemade flamethrower.

So let’s try again…

If the AR-15 is so very deadly and so horrible, why DOESN’T it kill more people than hands and fists or knives? There are plenty of AR-15s out there. Why is it okay for someone to bring a flamethrower to a protest? These are things you are avoiding. So far you have just cemented your attitude that the AR-15 is THE evil weapon…that the discussion really isn’t about lives, it is about how evil the AR-15 is. Forget that it doesn’t kill as many people as just about every other weapon…just that it COULD is enough to get you into a lather and cloud your mind to everything else.

@seawulf575
We’re talking about semi auto rifles and pistols. We’re talking about the capability of these weapons. The AR 15 is just easier to acquire.
AK 47
FN FAL
Uzis
Did I really need to clarify?

Thanks for answering the question at least.

You’re asking why it’s ok to bring a flamethrower to a protest when guns are also brought to protests? People bring weapons to protests….ever heard of Kenosha, Wisconsin? Were there flamethrowers there? Yes or no?

Why doesn’t the AR-15 kill more people? When actually used….it does….

We’re not talking about lives? We are…we’re talking about trying to reduce the amount killed the next time it happens.

@Blackberry I already tied the flamethrowers and all that together with this thread. I’m not going to do it again.

And now you are trying to put the AR-15 in the same category as the AK47, FN FAL, and Uzis. Not even close to the same category. Do I really need to clarify? But it does make for a good scare tactic.

You can try deflecting on the flamethrowers at protests, but I just gave you 2 citations showing that people did. And you are still trying to avoid that. Because lefties did it. Can’t defend them so try deflecting away from them. One of them was used to set a cop on fire, but then it’s just a cop, right? Kenosha…flamethrowers? I don’t know. Plenty of Molotov Cocktails and at least one hand gun. Did I already mention that handguns kill more people that AR-15s? They do.

Now you fall into trying to justify your argument against the AR. When actually used…. Now we are getting to the crux of the issue. Anything, when actually used to kill people, will. Cars kill more people than guns every year. When actually used for that purpose they are devastating. Look at Waukesha and Darnell Brooks. He did a grand job of killing and crippling people without using a gun. And by the statistics, the AR-15 is apparently not used that often since hands and feet kill more people.

No, you aren’t talking about lives. You are talking about AR-15. If you WERE talking about lives you would be addressing why that particular gun kills so many fewer people than other weapons used. And you are distinctly avoiding that statistic.

@seawulf575
You were correct about car deaths, but left out that it’s being slowly overtaken by gun deaths.

A lot of money and research has and is being used on making cars safer, but this isn’t the case for rifles or handguns.

We already know the issue will be ignored for quite some time which is the real issue.

@Blackberry Now take suicides out of the equation. It isn’t even close. With gun deaths, close to ⅔ of the deaths are suicides. How about automobile deaths? My brother-in-law, when he was 18, two weeks out of high school, got killed in a car crash. His “buddy” had been drinking and was driving a car full of kids to the beach. My BIL was driving another car full of kids. The buddy decided to play chicken, seeing how close he could get to my BIL car. He finally bumped it, jerked the wheel to the right, swung into the guard rail, cut the wheel to the left again and slammed my BIL hard, knocking him into on-coming traffic where he had a head-on collision with a guy that was driving 20 mph over the speed limit. Every one in my BIL car were killed. 6 dead in a second. Better than a AR-15, eh?

No argument here that guns can kill people. But they aren’t responsible for as many deaths as everyone wants to believe. And yes, the AR-15 is a scary looking gun. But it is statistically insignificant when it comes to deaths in this country. It falls behind hand guns, knives, clubs, hands and feet and automobiles. I’m not even considering health issues like cancer as that isn’t something that someone else is doing to you.

^Just get it over with and admit you love guns more than children.

@Jonsblond , @seawulf575 is just pointing out other items kill just as good as the AR15,and no one is getting upset over those items just the evil AR15.
Why should a legal law abiding gun owner have to give his up just because some sick fuck went on a shooting spree?
Up here in Canada the AR15 is a restricted rifle,it has to be registered and can only be used at an approved gun range, and magazine capacity is only 5 rounds, 10 for semi auto hand guns.
Maybe it has to go that way in the states as well.

@SQUEEKY2 “Up here in Canada the AR15 is a restricted rifle,it has to be registered and can only be used at an approved gun range, and magazine capacity is only 5 rounds, 10 for semi auto hand guns. Maybe it has to go that way in the states as well.”

I don’t think many on the left would object to people owning AR’s and the like if they were kept under lock-and-key at gun ranges.

@gorillapaws They don’t have to be kept at the range, they can only be legally used at the range.

@gorillapaws As of 2017 the left would disagree with you about owning AR-15s

@seawulf575 I don’t follow?

Nobody is going on murder sprees at schools and parades with flame throwers. It’s a ridiculous argument.

@seawulf575
At the end of the day, protections are always and should be put in place for patterns of incidents.

Birth control, seat belts, safety regulations in chemical factories, hate crimes, even children being strangled by curtain strings….

The NRA has given millions to politicians so foul play and corruption is at work; not to mention the amount of money made based on fear the past 3 years.

@gorillapaws You said that many on the left wouldn’t have a problem with people owning ARs with restrictions. I showed you a proposed bill by Diane Feinstein which would outlaw them entirely. No restrictions…just no ARs.

@seawulf575 “You said that many on the left wouldn’t have a problem with people owning ARs with restrictions.”

I did.

“I showed you a proposed bill by Diane Feinstein which would outlaw them entirely. No restrictions…just no ARs.”

Right. And you also stated that “the left would disagree with [me].”

For your statement to be true that would mean that nearly all people on the left would have to believe that the bill you referenced was the only possible solution to gun control—that they would be unwilling to accept any compromises (such as allowing the ownership of many types of firearms if secured at gun ranges). Do you have any evidence that indicates folks on the left would be unwilling to accept compromise?

@gorillapaws Well gee…semantics. No, I don’t have any evidence that indicates folks on the left would be unwilling to accept a compromise. I do have a senator presenting potential legislation that is supposed to represent the will of her constituents. And since she is on the left and most of her constituents are likewise on the left, I can make a guess that she is speaking for most of them.

But let me turn it around on you. Do you have any evidence that most people on the left would be okay with people owning AR-15s? You didn’t present any, yet I am supposed to defend my stance with evidence. Fair is fair. Where is YOUR evidence?

@seawulf575
Well Mr Seawulf…the Uvalde shooting video was released.
I recommend you watch it to hear the rate of fire and to also see your courageous boys in blue stand in a hallway and do nothing even though they responded within 3 minutes.

The blue line apparently is thin, and by thin I mean weak.

It’s rather interesting, how the law enforcement agencies of the country must now be lumped in with “leftists” regarding civilians and rapid fire weapons. It’s hard to fault a cop armed with a handgun for not aggressively confronting a lunatic wielding a military grade assault rifle. You couldn’t pay me to do it.

@Blackberry “The blue line apparently is thin, and by thin I mean weak.” That is one of the reasons people use for needing guns. Look at the video yourself. There were unarmed people everywhere and they had to wait for the cops to help them. Remember, the argument from the gun control people is that you don’t need a gun. If you need help you call a cop.

Another dumb untrained American with an itchy trigger finger. So much for escalation of force.

@Blackberry Maybe they should have called the cops and waited hours for them to show up? The part about videos like this is that it doesn’t show what led up to this point. Apparently the people recording were blocking the other guy’s driveway. Do we know what else happened? Were they asked to move and they told him to fuck off? Was this something they have done repeatedly before this and the guy finally had enough? The guy filming (or his buddy) claimed to have a gun as well. Could they have shown it or even threatened him with it before? Or was the homeowner just a complete douchebag? All things are possible here. We don’t know. To make a snap judgement shows where your mental weaknesses and biases are.

@seawulf575
You mean these cops?

What if the cops are untrained trash and the civilians are untrained trash?

@Blackberry I want to point out that if I were like most left leaning jellies on these pages I would tell you that a video from some blog page isn’t proof of anything. But I don’t play that game. You took the time to post a link, I’ll do you the honor of reading/watching it (unless it is something waaaayyyy too long).

But the problem I see with this video is that it doesn’t really show anything. You have the guy filming (and apparently his buddy) speculating. You can’t see the guy on the ground. You can’t see what prompted the cop to shoot. You can’t see anything. The site says a cop shot a cop (likely) and that someone else shot the suspect thinking the suspect had shot the cop. But we really don’t know. No links to the real story, no real facts. Emotion doesn’t do it for me. Emotion is what caused Ferguson MO to burn…emotion prompted by lies.

But what I DO know by watching the video…or at least what I can surmise…is that the suspect was wanted for something. It was likely something very serious as something like 6 cops showed up to arrest him. He was fighting like crazy, requiring all the cops to hold him down. So let’s start with that.

Now starts the questions: What did he do? What was he capable of? Take the cops out of the equation for one moment. What damage has this guy done to how many people? Was he armed? Did he have a hidden weapon that he suddenly got hold of? Did he try grabbing a gun from the cops?

This is two videos in a row that you presented that you had complete conviction about what was going on, who the good and bad guys are and you are presenting them as some sort of proof that cops are the bad guys or gun owners are the bad guys. Neither showed that.

High powered is not a very objective term, especially in media. For example, AR-15 uses 5.56 round which a lot of media calls high-powered. It is definitely has higher power than .223 which is it usually compared to, but if we look at something like 7.62×39 that is used in similar assault and militar rifles(used in AK rifles) than 7.62×39 going to be a clear winner.
Another good example would be which caliber you would use in something like deer hunting. 223, even tho considered a decently high power round is not even allowed in some states. Is it not high-powered compared to .22? No. Can you kill a deer with it? Yes, for sure. As you can see there are no clear line between what is high-powered and what is not, it all depends on situation round is intended to be used for.

@Markobro Muzzle energy is objective.

@gorillapaws it’s most definitely is, but can you make a clear breakdown at which breakpoint does round become “high powered.”

@Markobro ”...but can you make a clear breakdown at which breakpoint does round become ‘high powered’”

I’m not arrogant enough to presume the expertise to pick where that line ought to be drawn. I’m just saying that muzzle energy would be the appropriate metric for classifying things as “high powered” or not. It’s a gradient of values and there’s always going to be debate about where the line of demarcation belongs in the fuzzy middle.

Muzzle energy is the correct way to look at this. It is a gradient. A .223 is usually around a 55 grain projectile with a muzzle velocity of 3000ft/s giving it about 1100 ft-lb

A .308 which is generally accepted as the benchmark as a “high power” round has a 150 grain projectile at about 3000 ft/s giving it a muzzle energy of around 3000 ft-lb.
A .223 by all objective measures is medium powered.

A grain is 1/7000 lb in case you did not know.

Okay I can get behind this take. Wish all the articles in media would follow this pattern ‘cause recently I’ve seen writer call .222 Rem a high-powered round.