Excerpt from Annual Report on International Efforts toProhibit Military Small Arms by W. Hays Parks

Excerpt:

For several reasons, the United States has expressed its opposition to the Swiss small arms proposal:
The Swiss argument focuses on bullet yaw. This is not a new phenomenon. The latest technologies and scientific advances, many of which were developed by Colonel Martin L. Fackler, MC, USA, (Ret.), including his wound ballistics methodology, establish that virtually every military rifle projectile used since 1899, whether Spitzer or round-nosed (such as the Italian Carcano), yaws in soft tissue depending on a variety of circumstances. Most will fragment at closer ranges. For example, the U.S. 5.56x45mm M193 and M855 (NATO SS-109) begin their yaw after traveling an average of eleven to twelve centimeters in soft tissue. Seventy per cent will yaw at twelve centimeters. Fifteen per cent will yaw sooner, while fifteen per cent will yaw later. The Swiss proposal makes undue use of variation in effect, incorrectly offering early yaw as the average and as the threshold for determining legality. Under the Swiss argument, the fifteen per cent that yaw early are presented as the norm, which they argue is illegal. ⁷ It is an arbitrary standard badly skewed and misrepresented to make their case to the less informed.

⁷ While initially stating that their methodology would not ban any existing military projectile, Swiss papers suggest that the Russian 5.45x39mm AK-74 would be illegal. Swiss representatives also have informed the French that their 5.56x45mm most certainly would be banned. Questions offered at the 2001 wound ballistics workshop (using the Swiss criteria) cast in doubt personal defense weapons (PDW) such as Fabrique Nationale’s 5.7x28mm round, and Heckler & Koch’s 4.6x30mm round, neither of which approaches the lethality of the 5.56x45mm NATO SS-109. For an assessment of the PDW, see Charles M. Hayes, “Personal Defense Weapons – Answer in Search of a Question?,” Wound Ballistic Review 5,1 (Spring 2001), pp. 30-36.