During the filming of one of the Larry Vicker’s Tac-TV show in California, he left with me a few boxes of the L-Tech 4.6 rounds as souvenir. It really just sat on top of my safe collecting dust until recently my friend in firearm division of a local Metro PD mentioned to me that a certain division within the PD is looking into the MP7 platform as a support weapon to gap the pistol and the carbine, but he was worried about the stopping power of the 4.6 round. Lo and behold, I remember the L-Tech ammo sitting on top of my safe and told him about it.
The L-Tech 31gr 4.6 loaded with Barnes TSX a solid copper projectile is the heaviest 4.6 round available on the commercial market and the performance of the TSX in the Blackhill 5.56 brown tip is just simply phenomenal, the 5.56 TSX is also a cartridge being considered as their SWAT carbine. He started to do some research on L-Tech ammo all the while H&K also introduced L-Tech to the division looking to adapt the MP7 as a choice for the duty round. The firearms division conducted some serious testing and the rest is history.
Which bring us to this video. We had the pleasure to work with H&K along with the help of the metro PD that adopted the MP7, and the L-Tech 4.6 TSX round on this test just to see if the MP7 with the proper ammunition can as effective on target as some of the more popular cartridges the market as to offer. As of this time, the Metro PD have adapted this platform and they are now running the L-Tech 31gr 4.6mm round as their duty round (the same round we tested in this video).
Besides testing the L-Tech 4.6, we also ran it against some of the more popular rounds on the market in order to give you a look into the performance potential of the L-Tech 31gr TSX 4.6 round and the H&K MP7.
Testing notes
For each caliber, two batches of 10 rounds each were pulled from the same ammunition lot.
For one of the batches of ten, the bullets were pulled from the casings and weighed to obtain the highest, lowest, and average weight as well as standard deviation to check for weight consistency of the ammunition lot.
The second batch of ten rounds were fired through the chronograph to obtain the highest, lowest, average, and standard deviation of muzzle velocity of this ammunition lot.
We were unable to secure a proper gun rest for the gelatin testing. Instead, all weapons were measured for their heights from the ground and leveled as carefully as possible.
We fully conformed to the instructions for mixture and cooling of the test gelatin. Gelatin temperature was carefully controlled during its manufacture, storage, and transportation and the gelatin was measured again for proper temperature just before commencing our tests.
A pump action air rifle was used to test the gelatin for consistency. The air rifle was tested at 587ft/sec muzzle velocity and the BB projectile was able to penetrate the gelatin at approximately 3.3″. This test helped to determine that the gelatin block was of the correct consistency and temperature range for proper ballistic testing.
Disclaimer: This test was performed to give the viewer a general idea of the performance of the 4.6mm round against other established calibers and is for information purposes only. Do not base your requirements and adoption of the caliber based solely on this video.
This post was written by SMGLee – www.facebook.com/tacticalsmglee
