One-piece frangible armour-piercing discarding sabot

摘要

A subcalibre, spin stabilised, multi-purpose projectile, which completely fragments on hitting a target of e.g. thin aluminium plate, has a projectile body of sintered heavy metal material which (a) contains 90-99.5 (preferably 97-99) wt.% tungsten, together with a binder of cobalt and nickel in a ratio of 1:0.5-2.3, preferably 1:1.5; (b) has a density of 17.5-19.2 (preferably 18.5-19.0) g/cm3, after liquid phase sintering, and a mean grain size of 20-50 (preferably 40) mu ; and (c) has a hardness of 300-400 (preferably 340-380) HV(30). Preferably, the material is liquid phase sintered at 1450-1600 for 5-90 mins. optionally in a protective hydrogen atmosphere, annealed at 1200 deg C for 0.5-6 hrs., quenched and, after finish machining, annealed at 900-1200 deg C for 1-20 hrs.