Editing Firearm (section)

===Types of bullets===
As a short note on bullets, its important to know that just because a bullet can easily penetrate armor doesn't mean its a definite upgrade over everything else. If a hard bullet like the FMJ or AP penetrates the human body and exits in the same shot; its gonna hurt like hell but unless that bullet was in the 12.7mm (.50 caliber) category or it hit something important like a lung or the head; the target has a good possibility to survive through a combination of medical aid, hormones (adrenaline in fight or flight), and willpower (with the side possibility of stimulants), and even still continue to fight onwards if they're that [[Ork|dead 'ard]]. That said, if a 12.7mm round came tearing through your body; it has enough momentum to potentially rupture a good chunk of your insides which is ''very'' lethal, but 12.7mm guns are generally not mainstay (these are guns like the Desert Eagle, M2 Browning, or M82 Barrett), so unless you're a real-life action hero, a turret gunner, or a counter-sniper; its unlikely for you to have access to these behemoths.

Likewise, if a soft bullet like the JHP or SP penetrates the body, then which expands, fragments, and/or tumbles inside; in short internal and external bleeding would be the most urgent of the target's concerns, with ruptured organs and torn muscles leaking like a broken sewage pipe, thus making HP lot more lethal and debilitating. That said, soft bullets fragment easily and body armor proportionate to it's caliber can reliably stop soft round. That said even if armored; the target is still gonna feel the impact of the bullet's force hitting against his body, and that still has the potential of killing someone if the circumstances are right (although its still unreliable).

In the end, a bullet is either specialized where it's only effective against either armored or unarmored targets, or a special combination that renders it effective against both types (although these require an experienced smith to manufacture properly).

*Ball - though if we start talking bullets we need to start with the first bullet: the lead ball, from where we derive the common term for bullets as 'rounds'. It's...just a lead ball though, not much to say about it. The balls were hand made, often by soldiers themselves since lead has such a low melting point, with the molds often being unique to each gun. This used largely the same process that was used for [[Sling]] bullets since antiquity. These early bullets would be smaller then the barrel and so would often 'rattle' down the barrel due to the ill fitting, which combined with a lack of rifling would mean early guns were horribly inaccurate (you could still reliably hit your targets at ranges between 70 and 100 meters, this is only true if we compare it woth modern firearms, which have their range measured in hunderes, if not thousands of meters). If one used a larger bullet that better fitted the gun, one could use rifling, but this required, (see above) hammering the bullet into place to make sure that there were no gaps.

*Minié ball- The first bullet we would know as a 'bullet', and the first truly distinct from a lead ball. A Minié ball is a conical bullet with a concave hole in the base. When fired the base flared out from the pressure of the blast, letting it engage with the rifling of the gun. This meant that it formed a seal with the barrel making it incredibly accurate, while not needing to be tightly hammered down the barrel. The best of both worlds. Combined with it's large size these things were lethal on the battle field maiming and crippling an entire generation of soldiers during the US civil war.

*Full Metal Jacket (FMJ)- Generally a lead or steel bullet encased in a soft metal such as copper. Acts a sort of lube as well as preventing fouling of the barrel. Depending on design, has a potential to fragment post impact, shredding internal organs.
**Synthetic Jacket- FMJ ammo with a plastic jacket, which has the advantage of reducing cleaning requirements and safer when hitting steel at the cost of various things not really relevant in practice ammo. Currently only in handgun calibers and only made as practice/match ammo (though some hollow points and AP rounds do also use polymer jackets).

*Hollow point (HP)- The hollow section in the center makes the bullet expand on impact, creating a bigger hole in its victim at the expense of being less effective against armored targets. That being said, the decreased penetration also makes it safer to use in situations where over-penetration could be dangerous (e.g. on an aircraft). Certain designs have bladed tips on expansion, causing additional cutting and bleeding too. It was banned from military use by the Hague Convention of 1899, so restricted to police, civilians, and, as of 2017, the United States Armed Forces (The US didn't sign that provision, but previously stuck with FMJ even after mass production became feasible for the sake of NATO compatibility).

*Semi jacketed Hollow point (SJHP)- Same as a hollow point, but has a copper jacket to help reduce fouling.

*Jacketed Hollow Point (JHP)- Same as above, but fully covers the bullet down to the tip.

*Wad cutter (WC)- Flat tipped bullet. Not very aerodynamic but it leaves a big hole to help tell you where you hit the target. Generally for closer range paper targets as they lose velocity very quickly due to the drag on them.

*Semi Wad Cutter (SWC)- Like the wad cutter, but more aerodynamic.

*Armor Piercing (AP)- As name implies, intended to penetrate armor, be it person or equipment. However, this ultimately depends on what gun you're shooting from and what armor you're shooting at. A 9x19mm AP steel round coming from a 4" barrel will do diddly to NIJ Level IIIA, where as a 7.62x51 AP flying out of a 24" barrel will punch through it easy as you please. Modern AP rounds are often jacketed in plastic, but this is purely to protect the barrel (turns out sending something meant to destroy steel through a steel barrel results in a wrecked barrel) and adds no armor piercing quality.

*Saboted light armor penetrator (SLAP)/Saboted bullets- Think of the discarding sabots fired from a M1 Abrams or a saboted slug of a shotgun, but redesigned to be fired like a standard rifle round. The sabot is designed to the grip the rifling until it leaves the barrel, then discard after leaving the barrel. This would leave the penetrator or bullet with a high velocity while providing a sufficient spin to the bullet to keep it stabilized in the air. With a higher density and/or thinner bullet, they can potentially penetrate better than potentially even APHE. Likewise for handcrafted bullets, they provide higher velocity for a smaller bullet in a cartridge intended for a larger caliber.

*High Explosive incendiary (HEI)- Explosive tipped munition. Generally for larger rounds (think 7.62 and beyond), they typically are meant for non-infantry targets such as light vehicles, light aircraft, and barriers, showering those inside with speeding shrapnel. Despite their implication, they might not work as well as one might think against hard target.

*Armor Piercing Incendiary (API)/Armor Piercing High Explosive (APHE), High Explosive Incendiary Armor Penetration (HEIAP)- Designed with the intentions of penetrating hard targets that HE rounds can't do alone and being anti-material in general, API and HEIAP are the answer to those targets. Generally have sufficient power in and behind the bullet (think Raufoss Mk.211), it will penetrate body armor and light vehicles with awe-inspiring ease.

*Soft point or semi jacketed - Like a FMJ, except the tip is exposed. Designed to have the reduced drag of a FMJ, while expanding upon hitting a target similar to a hollow point. Generally designed for hunters in mind.

*Ballistic tip - Similar in performance to the semi-jacketed bullet, but rather than being a solid core of lead it is designed like a hollow point, but with a plastic tip at the end to reduce drag and ensure expansion.

*Ratshot - made for smaller-caliber guns and is basically birdshot for rifled barrels. The tip is a plastic cap that contains a small amount pellets, typically within the 1.5mm range. As the name implies; the gun is primarily designed for shooting pests and small animals like rodents and grass snakes. You can use it to shoot at larger pests like coyotes or humans, but it's woefully underpowdered for the job.

*Matchgrade - ammo designed primarily for shooting competitions and/or extreme feats of marksmanship. Very expensive compared to popular alternatives and impractical for common use, but you get what you pay for: a cartridge produced with the finest minds R&D could muster, subjected to much more rigorous batch testing and quality control, and guaranteed to shoot a bullet as far and accurately as physics would allow. Rounds alone do not make an accurate firearm however, so the gun it's chambered in has to be well-maintained and designed for precise shooting in mind.

*Tracer - a regular bullet coated in pyrotechnic coating that ignites when fired. These are most commonly used with machineguns (every fifth round in a belt, to be exact) since it's useful for the gunner to accurately see where all his bullets are going, as well as make it clear to any enemies he's suppressing just who he's aiming at. Similarly rifle magazines are often loaded with tracers at certain intervals to provide indication of remaining ammo. Of course, the caveat is "tracer's work both ways" as they can give away your position; this can be mitigated by using "dim" tracers that can only be seen through night vision goggles. Sometimes also used by spotters or commanders to mark a specific target. They can potentially set fire to objects, if the incendiary compound hasn't burned out yet on impact.

*Less-lethals - Commonly known as 'rubber bullets' even though they're made of other substances such as plastic, foam, wax, and beanbag rounds for shotguns these days. Used in riot control and such, where the shooter isn't allowed to kill. The key word is "less", however. They hurt like a sonovabitch and can still kill in the wrong circumstances when they hit you in the head or a sensitive area, though. Some, such as blanks or wax, are also mixed in with real rounds before being loaded in weapons of a firing squad to make the responsibility of an execution unclear amidst the shooters. Airsoft this ain't.

*Silver - Pure fantasy, but common in there to counter supernatural creatures weak to silver. Silver bullets would suffer from many problems that rarely get mentioned in fiction. Chief among these are the cost, that silver shrinks when cast (so it's really hard to get the right size and shape), and that silver is too soft to engage rifling so even if you get the right size accuracy will be terrible. [[Monster Hunter International|More /k/ aligned works]] solve these issues with solutions like sabots (which helps accuracy but still worse than real bullets), ballistic tips made of silver and frangible bullets filled with powdered silver (instead of the typical competitively cheap metal).
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