You're right it's been done to death and much of the references in the OP are more or less wrong. For a good technical discussion see http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=326877

One of the many issues addressed is that US Army tech manuals have continued to repeat old and obsolete figures - which are close enough for government work. This includes reporting values of 50,000 CUP as PSI long after the cartridges in use had changed and so had the technology and so it goes. Tech manuals can be more or less user's guides and not really very technical. Folks repeating tech manual information in the erroneous belief there must be some relationship to lab figures have contributed to the later confusion.

Last edited by ClarkEMyers; 08/21/11.