M855A1 Performance Review. Did it live up to the Army's hype? Did going green really work?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- Touted by the Army as a more accurate and lethal bullet than the older M855 "Green Tip". But is this really true? Did going green with a lead-free design really work? Does it damage M4 carbines? Here I take a deep dive into the performance of M855A1 ammo, based off my time using it in Special Forces and my own accuracy testing.
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On Afghan Walls: He’s not joking. They might be made with a mixture of portland cement and goat dung, but unless they’re hit right next to a corner, or at the top edge they’ll shrug off a shot from an AT4 or RPG-7, no problem. And at the same time they’re soft enough that you can walk up and pull chunks out with your hand. Weird tech, but very tough.
It essentially acts like compacted sand.
You know how good sand is at stopping projectiles.
@@pewpewTN SAANNNDDD!!!?!?!??!??
@@pewpewTN I don't like sand. It's rough and it gets everywhere
I've seen one take a whole belt of .50 and still stand
@@cascadianrangers728love the pfp
Where M855A1 shines is that it still fragments at much lower velocities, like close to 1600FPS. This is around the 600 yard mark for 12.5" to 14.5" barreled rifles. Old M855 minimum fragmenting velocities vary between 2700 to 2500 FPS, which out of an M4 doesnt get you very far.
Bingo. Plus M193/M855 suffer from fleet yaw that causes inconsistent performance even within the fragmentation velocity range.
@ChadTheAfricanBullfrog I don't think the OP even made mention of seeing the effects of A1 against a enemy. It's gel results still give an indication of it's potential performance in living tissue and M855A1 has been proven by many with public gel tests to be superior to M855..
@ChadTheAfricanBullfrog Martin Fackler, who popularized the gel test, was a field surgeon in Vietnam and likely had more experience with 5.56 wounds than anyone else. Gel isn’t something made by guys in lab coats that have never fired a gun before, it’s something made by a combat surgeon who had extensive experience documenting GSWs.
This guy wasn’t very specific at all as to whether the terminal performance was better or worse, and said the information was secondhand anyway. M855 and M193 performance is notoriously inconsistent, and if we just listened to one person and jettisoned gel tests we would either come to the conclusion that M193 is amazing or terrible, when the reality is that it can be either one, depending on the AOA from fleet yaw.
Buh…but my gel test showed it would work, buh…
Ballistic gel is nothing but a consistent test medium from which to compare various projectiles, nothing more, nothing less. It literally is for lab use *only*. There’s a reason why an ammo maker will spend years developing a bullet in the *lab* and then take it to Texas or someplace similar to shoot living animals. Then they find that it really doesn’t work as advertised. Why? Because even when you add test barriers in front or inside the gel they aren’t consistent. There’s a huge difference between live bone and dead bone, so adding a pig scapula inside the block isn’t accurate either.
@@soonerfrac4611 yeah none of that is accurate.
Martin Fackler initially took wound profiles from his experience as a field surgeon in Vietnam. When he later headed the Wound Ballistics Laboratory, they initially used pigs. First anesthetized, then later dispatched and used before rigor mortis set in. He then popularized the use of properly calibrated 10% 250A porcine gelatin not because it was simply consistent, but because it correlated closely with the average wound found in pig and human tissue. This was further demonstrated by Gene Wolberg’s study “Performance of the Winchester 9mm 147 Grain Jacketed Hollow Point Bullet in Human Tissue and Tissue Simulant” published in the IWBA’s Wound Ballistics Review (Winter 1991, Volume 1, Number 1, Page 10).
When 10th mountain made the switch, my groups were cut, literally in half as far as size. We also saw a significant increase in the marksmanship scores during rifle qualifications across the board. I am a huge fan of the new “green “round.
I have also seen some ballistics gel tests on yt that show it has far far better terminal performance in soft targets compared to M855. Regular green tip will sometimes zip through soft targets without tumbling or really dumping any energy, or will tumble really deep like 7-8 inches in at which point it would already be most if not all the way trough a body. So its a bit more accurate and better terminal performance on soft and hard targets. Seems like a good improvement to me.
10th Light Infantry division "Mountain" 85-86.
Biden's gift to the Taliban Billions worth of our Taxes & weapons. & The reason they didn't develop a better Round is because they want to stretch War out it makes the Elites more money
@@Nick-sx6jmthat performance depends almost entirely on the weapon used and the range to the target. The AR-15 platform was designed for a 55gr bullet and a 1:9 twist out of a 20” barrel. By the time you shoot a 62gr bullet out of a 14.5” barrel with a 1:7 twist you lose so much velocity the bullet won’t tumble on impact beyond about 100m. That’s fine for a carbine. It’s not for a battle rifle. That’s why the Marine Corps adopted the M16A4 with a 20” barrel.
@@coryhoggatt7691wrong
The M107 155mm round out preformed the M855 and the M855A1 lol. Thank you for sharing your experience with M855A1
I prefer the 84mm Carl Gustav myself
@ Modern Tactical Shooting
I find it very ironic that your Bravos had to wheel and deal just to get proper ammo and such. As MP on our SRT (early ‘02 time frame) we had to consistently beg borrower and tactically acquire just about everything. Ammo, range time, smoke grenades, even M4’s because our parent unit didn’t have any assigned to us so we took over spare M4’s from the local CID & RCF. We would run M9 ranges for artillery officers and SNCO’s just to get extra training time, or borrow tools and gear. We had zero up armored vehicles at that time also.
@@soonerfrac4611 SF still Army and we had our own funding problems too. Part what makes a 18B or Cs excel is their ability to wheel and deal to get stuff or get something done.
Ha ha, OP, were you a Redleg?
As the state marksmanship coordinator for the national guard in my state we did some work with these rounds on a known distance range. Using our All Guard shooters (and other team shooters but I was mostly paying attention to our All Guard members) we saw a noticable improvement in groups fired at 300 yards, the only yard line we fired both rounds. If you discount the worst round of either 855 or 855A1 5 round groups the A1 was clearly superior. It was about 1 MOA better. Including the fliers it was still almost a half minute tighter over the 5 groups of 5 rounds. I think including the .8 MOA group of the M855, that you admitted was an aberration, skews your results.
As for lethality it's my understanding that the fragmentation threshold for M855 is about 2600fps but that for the A1 it's about 1900fps. I can't confirm that from experience but maybe one day I'll get some test media and try it out.
As for the mags, we got them in bulk in the guard about a year and a half ago. Can't say I've seen much of a difference in mags, assuming they are not damaged. Damaged mags are shit no matter the specifics.
I'll see if I can find the notes from our informal tests on the KD range as my comments are from memory. I can say with confidence that we saw a noticable improvement in accuracy.
Sounds very similar to our state's experience. We used up the last of our green tip stuff in 2020 and saw an increase in points during TAG rounds in both 2021 and 2022; as an "and but" our over all numbers for competition was less in 21 and 22, but our range of experience was more diverse and should have had a greater variance. I can't speak too personally on the performance as I consider myself a horrible marksman with horrible eyes who compensates by a lot of range time; but the A1 rounds have only seem to perform on par or better with guys using the M4 rifles on red dots. The guys with that and ACOG's have seen an average increase, as well as the A2's and A4's (M16) both iron sight and ACOG.
This pretty much matches the test the AF tests from '10 comparing 855, 855A1, and Mk318. Ultimately our field tests showed Mk318 slightly more accurate (about .06 mil), but not enough to allow hits that 855A1 would not allow. Green tip M855 was the least accurate by about .2 mil. The most significant difference was in wounding. Inside 50-75 meters M855A1 was only slightly better than M855. Past that distance, the M855A1 was CLEARLY superior to legacy M855 and Mk262. Our testing was only out to 613M. On a side note, wounding for the Mk318 was characterized as "acceptable" at short to medium ranges, but far inferior to the M855A1 at all tested ranges.
@@anthonybarker9123 in my initial read my brain read MOA where you wrote Mil. For a moment I thought your numbers seemed wrong to me. I quickly realized you were using mil. I'm old and learned moa, not mil.
I've become a fan of the A1 and wish we could get it for my civilian job. Sadly we are using M855 out of our 11.5 inch guns.
Its 1600 fps sec min
@@anthonybarker9123At 600 Meters what are the MOA wind constants for each cartridge? I get an 8.5 constant from Mk262 which means I can counter uncertain wind better than other rounds.
We hit a qulat wall with an AT-4 and it didn't even make a big enough hole to fit through. People hear "mud hut" and they think something made of paper.
Yessssss. Thank you for pointing out some reality
Yup there bunkers.
I used to work in bullet manufacturing for a specialty bullet company. We had several .mil type contracts for our bullets, including for Mk262 type 77gr OTM’s.
I probably made millions of them.
Mk262 is actually significantly cheaper to manufacture. It takes 1/3 of the steps to make and maybe 1/5 the amount of man hours to make compared to a polymer tip hunting bullet.
The real advantage of the 77gr OTM is that it’s easy to keep it consistent in the manufacturing process. Weights stayed spot on to two tenths of a grain, and OAL stayed right around an inch. Because of the simplicity of the design, the bullet was easy to produce in great quantity with good quality.
Great info! I don't claim to be a bullet expert by no means. I consider myself just an end user, so any details on actual bullet design and production is cool
IMO MK262 can’t be beat. But for general range use, I usually run M193. Then re-zero with MK262 when I’m done.
@Kevin Almgren
LOL, tell me you worked for Black Hills or Sierra without saying that you worked for Black Hills or Sierra…
I think Jeff Hoffman from Black Hills is very much responsible for that.
@@bluntsmoke1872 The one place that it does get beat in my opinion is with bonded soft points. They are less velocity and barrier sensitive. But I would have no qualms about using either one they're both fantastic
If M855A1 isn't such a big improvement on M855, why is it so hard for civilians to get their hands on M855A1? The exclusivity makes it seem like it's some miracle cartridge that the government wants to keep out of civvie hands.
Reason: Army sold M855A1 hard as the "wonder Bullet"
@@KeterMalkuth pretty sure the govt is prohibited from holding patents
You can get M855A1 but its $3 a round lol . Shark Arms has some
rarity does not equal quality.
Nobody wants to spend the money to ramp up production at this time.
I work for a body armor company, and tests M855A1 almost weekly. To give you an idea of my familiarity with this round, the thumbnail of this video (at the time of this comments posting) is actually showing M80A1 loaded in a magazine, the 7.62x51 version of this round.
I have to say M855A1 (per the BATFE) IS considered an actual AP round while M855 is considered EP or MSC. To note, anything that punches through level III steel can be considered "AP", but for the sake of this conversation, Ill keep that to projectiles with a hardened steel insert that can punch through level III steel.
I've seen M855A1 out of a 20" barrel punch through some RF2 (III+) plates with relative consistency while M855/M193 does not (again take note; RF2, NOT RF1, or NIJ level III, as M855 out of a 20" will punch through RF1/ NIJ III).
There is an enhanced design of this projectile in the form of a kinetic "bump" that is similar to a tank sabot. The rear end of the projectile acts like a hammer while the hardened steel insert punches through a surface making sure there is a little extra umph when it gets through a hard surface like steel.
I don't have any data the army has, nor any anti-personal stats of the round that you may have but don't want people to walk away from this video thinking M855A1 is over hyped. Its not.
IF I had to cite my personal experience with this round, it's that its far more effective than standard MSC/ EP rounds (SS109 and M855), but not as effective as Teflon or tungsten carbide rounds.
What's relevant to this conversation however is projectile availability. While Black tip SS190 (not to be confused with SS109) 5.56 is all but unobtanium, M855A1 falls off the back of the supply truck pretty often.
No, I'm not at liberty to say what company I work for and what plates are defeated, but a simple search online will show this.
Good info in this video from the perspective of a retired SF operator, but not exactly inline with my personal testing and others who have posted results online.
Another (un)fun-fact about A1 is that you have to be careful of the steel penetrator that protrudes out of the front of the projectile. Because its not like normal M855, the exposed penetrator is susceptible to rust from (oxidization) sweat and water and if you keep rounds loaded in mags in humid environments for long periods of time, its likely you could end up with rust deformation and pitting of the projectile that could case an ogive flight path, deteriorating accuracy.
Good information I mentioned it in a few responses.. I'm not really a bullet expert I'm an end user and yes the video is going off of my view of downrange information and not scientific testing.
What a bullet can and can't penetrate on a federasl level doesn't denote whether it's Armor Piercing or not. It's solely based on 1> That it can be used in a pistol (5.56 can), and it's 2 > construction. There's varying gray areas on what the ATF has considered the "core" of the bullet. One could argue that the M855A1's core is copper, and the tip is the penetrator, but the ATF does what it wants.
Do you have any data on what period of time is needed to cause rusting and degradation of the exposed steel? All production M855A1 has a rust inhibitor coating on it..
M193 goes through level 3 steel like butter and it's a copper jacket with soft lead. I guess it's AP. I guess all .270 is AP, too.
@@spraynpray
M193 does not go through level III like butter. Velocity is relevant with M193. M193 out of a 16" or less barrel will not pass through level III. M193 out of an barrel length greater than 16" will pass through with increasing frequency as the barrel length is increased.
Reread what I said:
"To note, anything that punches through level III steel can be considered "AP", but for the sake of this conversation, Ill keep that to projectiles with a hardened steel insert that can punch through level III steel."
In other words, yes the rounds you cited could be interpreted as Armor Piercing, but only in the sense that they pierce armor (as you noted), not in the sense that they are designed to and left the factory with the intention of defeating armor.
@@spraynpray Velocity defeats armor, not weight. M193 from a full length barrel is +3000 FPS.
M855A1 might see a longer service life in Big Army far beyond the adoption of 6.8mm because my gut feeling is that the higher-ups will hopefully understand (or maybe planned all along???) that NGSW is better suited to replace the .308 lineup and the 5.56mm SAW rather than the 5.56mm carbine.
Edit: If I remember correctly, Jeff covered this in the Practical Accuracy NGSW vid (link's in the description).
Yes agree
Great insight. We can only hope.
Sounds like they're going to have to improve the bolts and barrel extensions on older M-4s, and maybe go to a stainless hybrid case for M-855a1. Or a1(b) or whatever you'd like to call it.
@@dangvorbei5304 LMT Enhanced Bolt could probably fix all of those problems. I don't know enough about metallurgy to say if you would need a beefed-up barrel extension as well, but if you are breaking those I think you have bigger problems.
@@Laotzu.Goldbug That's an awesome idea, and there's bound to be a way to handle the barrel extensions as well. SIG isn't about to share their secrets, but as LMT demonstrated, they aren't the only game in town. Next, to do something about this BS 5moa rebuild standard.
I don’t know if they are still loading it as hot as the original spec, but that stuff beat our M4s to death. My unit did a series of ranges in Alaska in 2017 and it took almost 10% of our rifles out of the fight over two weeks. We had so many broken bolt lugs, it was incredible.
It made me want to buy an extra bolt and keep it with me.
I carried a spare bolt in my pack on mission, after I broke a bolt on the range in Afghanistan. I figured sure.... I put a new bolt in and doubt it would fail. But I figured all the team's carbines had close to the same high round counts, so just in case a teammates bolt broke on mission, I had one to offer.
@ Riorozen
Combination of “lowest bidder” and the fact that it was developed for a lower level to begin with.
You probably already had significant gas port erosion on your M4's before fielding M855a, and the new higher pressure round just exponentially accelerated the deterioration of your carbines.
@@ModernTacticalShooting It's good to keep stuff in stock because if there was ever a time were you need to start burning the tires in the street, the people you defend your community with might need it.
The original A1 load was about 10% hotter than M855 but later development found a powder charge that would get the same velocity results with only a 5% increase in pressure. That's what was briefed at the Wilson match a few years ago.
I'm a year late to this one, but, from seeing our State's NG shooting team, and working the ranges with them, we definately saw tighter groups going from greentip to A1s. Some of these guys are National-level good shooters and I have seen/scored 5-shot groupings of sub-moa out to 400y. These are out of issued, but in great shape, M4a1s with 4x Elcans. As the EPR round starts to become affordable, and civilian use gets more widespread, be careful to use the 'improved' mag, or at least the new followers, that give the round a slight lift at the nose. It will help prevent the scouring effect on the feed ramps from that sharp point digging in. My personal 14.5" already shows a few scour marks, where the ramp meets the barrel, just from one old GI mag (tan follower) with 30 rds fired. Awesome round though...very flat shooting and fast.
What are the improved mags? Would any modern magpul mag be considered improved?
@@StreetLight099 the "improved" is just a tan color metal gi mag with a no tilt follower that has a slight upward cant so the tip of round doesnt dig in as the round feeds. The tungsten will scour the feed with standard magpul or old GI.
In my experience, M193 outperforms M855 in terms of accuracy. Putting a bunch of different materials in a bullet doesn’t exactly improve consistency.
The accuracy test seemed incomplete in my opinion, having less strings of fire for the M855 and giving what was admitted a data outlier a hugely weighted impact on the average. It looked to me that with more strings you'd be seeing an average of one MOA improvement in accuracy for the M855A1, from about 3 MOA to about 2 MOA. I'd take that improvement any time.
Just like yourself, I'd like to see some more standardized testing instead of the mystical verbiage of "match-like accuracy" and a few anecdotes from the army.
Yes my intent with the video is just to address the Army's "match like" statement I know my testing incomplete. But shooting it for years when I was in, it never impressed me with its accuracy over M855
@@ModernTacticalShooting fair enough, brother. Thanks for the video!
One thing most people don't talk about is the flash suppressant in the powder. It works very well at night
Does it take a break during the day?
I’d rather see mk262 as the standard round. 855A1 eats up barrels.
Marine here, were issued mk262 when I was in Afghan, saw the aftermath of a combatant’s leg afterward and jeez, his whole calf was gone. Didn’t see that type of flesh damage with the army’s m855A1 in my experience
Saw 855A1 explode a dude's face.
Really the takeaway here is that getting shot is pretty trash.
Yeah the Mk262 is a soft bullet and when it hits bone, it fragments. Much better external ballistics. When I was in Afghan, we had the M855, M855A1, the Mk-318 mod 0 and the Mk262. We played around with it at the range at Leatherneck when I got there and told the ammo tech that I’d rather have the Mk-318 mod 0 and the Mk-262. The new Mk-318 mod 1 has a nickel jacket. I got a friend that’s still active at Camp Pendleton. I retired in 2015.
Semper
Just curious, where does lead come from? And why does it offend so many people to put it back in the ground?
Thanks for the first hand report on M855A1. We get so much political "Gas Lighting" from the military "Managers", that I don't have a lot of faith in what they have to say. I had heard that the Army had to reduce the chamber pressure of this round once it was issued. I know there is no way to measure that in the field, but have you heard that too?
Regarding the 6.8x51 round, all the videos I see are guys shooting the low pressure "Practice Ammo" and not the full power 80,000 to 100,000 PSI "Combat Ammo". I imagine the reason for every rifle having a suppressor is the incredible report from such a high pressure round out of a 13" barrel. I was able to talk to the SIG development team and they weren't allowed to disclose any AP data, as the Army requested that they not discuss it. I did handle all the new weapons and the M5 is ridiculously long and heavy and for CQB, I would say it is less then ideal. Personally I think this rifle is going to be quietly dropped once it gets in the hands of the trigger pullers.
The new 338 machine gun, which is lighter than the M240B and supposedly uses a shorter round than the 338 Lapua Mag, impressed me as the pressure was reasonable and it didn't require the new hybrid case. I could see this replacing the M240B in the Medium Machine Gun role. The 6.8x51 M250 is much lighter than the M249 and if chambered for the 7.62x51 round would be a great squad weapon that can use current ammo stocks and retain NATO compatibility, especially if the sound suppressor was optional. .
I agree I dont see The M5 rifle going force wide with success but who knows
That was very informative. Those photos from your deployments are awesome. I'd have to agree with you. 1MOA is the gold standard for match grade accuracy. Great video.
Gotta buddy who tested weapons at FN. They started failing mil requirements for barrel life once they started tests with the m855a1.
Take it for what it's worth, but the anecdotal evidence of several thousand weapons tested gave around a 35-40% decrease in barrel life.
I personally have no use for it. Especially since the accuracy (in my shooting group) will be neglible on man sized targets and I'm not willing to sacrifice my barrels since I buy them.
Thanks Jeff - that was really interesting. When I was in USMC ITR in 1970 we had those aluminum 20 round magazines and they were complete pieces of crap. They weren't all the same size - so the M-16A1's we had had an adjustment to the magazine latch. Once I was issued two magazines for training. The first was too fat and would not go in the weapon - so I had to adjust the magazine catch to fit it in. When I fired that magazine off - I put the next magazine in - and it was a skinny one - so the bolt going home drove the magazine right out of the weapon and into the dirt ...
I was not happy but at least that happened in training. I never saw combat. My contribution to the Vietnam War was being a sentry in California.
Of course, the Army does not have a good history on things like ammunition. The ammunition Custer's troops had did not have brass casings - they were copper. Which had been bought because it was cheaper. The end result of that was that if you fired the weapon to fast the weapon would heat up and the copper would swell tight against the chamber. The extractor would tear off the base of the round - instead of extracting it - leaving a copper coated chamber that you could not fit another round into. Troopers had to take the points of their knives and try to pry the copper out of their chambers in order to load another round.
When the Army became aware of the problem - they stopped buying the copper cased rounds - but - they issued all the ones they'd paid for ...
.
Back in the day for me (early 90s) when we had the black follower 30 rounder, similar problems. I would take a dozen mags to the range, always a couple that did not work, I would mark those that did and stick to them only. green follower mags came out around 1998, they are still them best GI mag I think.
@@ModernTacticalShooting Yeah. That was smart. We had to turn ours in when they said to so we just had whatever they gave us.
One day after training - it was
"Turn all your magazines in!"
Then
"Don't turn your magazines in!"
Then
"Turn all your magazines in!
Then
"Don't turn your magazines in!"
So - after the last one - I went to the guy I'd turned my magazines in to and he didn't have any more ...
So - for the next little while, I had a one round M-16. I'd get the bolt back and stick a round into the chamber through ... I believe ... the magazine well ... though it could have been the ejection port ... I don't remember. We were just firing blanks, chasing each other around the hills on Camp Pendleton.
*_Bang!_*
*_Bang!_*
_"You're dead!"_
_"No I'm not! I shot you first!"_
Such an "improvement" over when I was 11 and chasing my friends through the woods around the MOQ's on Camp Lejeune ...
Never had problems like that with the Steel (?) Magazines for my M-14's. We spent like 3 weeks (?) at Edson Range and I never had a feed problem with an M-14.
When I was a sentry and we had an alert ( *_Bong! Bong! Bong! Bong!_* ) - you'd grab your M-14 out of your wall locker, pull on your pants and sprint down to the Guard Office where they handed out magazines (two iirc) to the guys piling into the backs of pick up trucks to respond to the alert. Then _Off we'd go ..._
We'd turn those back in when we came back from the alert. So we never got to keep any magazines with our weapons. I'm pretty sure they didn't want us to have loaded weapons in the barracks. The only time I ever had ammunition for a weapon - was when I was ON post. We had 1911A1's for Gate Posts and Roving Patrols - but those weapons (with two magazines ea. and only had 5 rounds ea. to keep the springs from becoming depressed) stayed on post with the relief. Same with the M-14 magazines on Walking Posts and Watch Towers. Never had a feed problem with a 1911 either ...
[shrug]
I don't think I ever knew a Marine (and I served with a LOT of Combat Veterans) who didn't love the M-14 and hate the M-16. I do not envy you guys that weapon or it's descendants. Not one damn bit.
.
Pretty sad how we make life changes to our deployed, without proper testing.
The entire concept of a “green round” (ie environmental round), is asinine. At ranges much of the heavy metal is collected and recycled. And WHO cares on a battlefield?
Give our deployed the most lethal option, period.
It sounds to me that the mk262 should be “standard issue”.
I bought a can of Federal M193 5.56mm stripper clips in 2018 or 2019. A few months ago I got to that can, and I was at the range loading mags when I saw a single M855A1 round on one of the stripper clips. That round is on my wall shelf now lol.
Are you sure it wasn’t an underpowered reduced range training round?
was it worth 100 million dollars to the military? No.
what was it worth 100 million of the US federal budget to keep a factory open in a congressional district and that individual elected to congress every single time? absolutely.
Lol we spent a million dollars in one day swapping out APR-39 signal processors that kept frying due to a short. That was for ONE single SOF helicopter. 100 mil in DoD bux is small potatoes. The enormity of DoD spending is only realized in places like Aircraft mx, Space operations and DARPA.
Considering how much money we send to other countries that’s money well spent compared to the usual spending
Without being military (outside of ROTC, was RE4 due to an eye injury) I can say based on the ballistic data and combat reports plus personal testimonies from soldiers I have talked to that YES it was worth the 100 Million Dollar Switch.
M855A1 EPR is more than just a new 5.56 and 7.62 round (M80A1 EPR is the 7.62 NATO version)... this new round is THE GENERAL PURPOSE design for the foreseeable future. It improved accuracy, GREATLY improved barrier defeating performance, and also better armor penetration even though its not an AP round, the design just makes it better at it, and finally its TERMINAL performance is superb with how it shreds the jacket and creates multiple permanent wound cavities in the target, all while adhering to the Hague Convention standards that we never ratified in the first place.
I'll stick to my 223, 556, 7.62x39 and 7.62x51. Be safe my friends.
This will be good!
ETA: Good summary. We didn't noticed any performance improvement over M855 when we used it for our deployment in 2017.
I hope!!!! BTW Thanks again for the mag!
I suspect A long winded way to say NO! Guns breaking even faster (via glorified "Proof Loadings") in A military that already poorly services and maintains weapons and keeps them in service too long ............... VERY BAD IDEA! The shorter barrel fetish should necessitate A change of caliber.
@@ModernTacticalShooting happy to help.
Tactical Hive tested M193 out of 14" ,16" , 20" barrel's using 2" reems of paper, twelve inches in front of a steel target from ten yrs out. The 14" went through 4 reems hitting the steel target staying intact. The 16" went through 3.5 reems fragmenting into small pieces. The 20" went through 3 reems totally fragmentation turning into dust) . As Coach said " The hundred pound heads" knew what they were doing with maximum velocity in the shortest barrel too achieve the greatest damage without over penatration, the 16" barrel was the ticket=(The Vietnam era) Later on, Urban combat required a shorter 14" barrel fighting in buildings where walls were much thicker able to stop rounds passing through , the 14 inch became the new fighting weapon for close quarters combat= CQB.(Afghanistan era)
Ream
One of the biggest issues (speaking as a current active duty armorer) is chamber and throat erosion, especially in the 249. If a 249 goes to the range, one of the barrels will almost certainly be deadlined because of the gouges that M855A1/M856A1 (tungsten tracer)
Great video. In the Army Infantry. We were issued tan follower mags when i got in in 2012 and up till 2016, then they started issuing everyone Gen 3 PMAGs
This is accurate. Don't forget the magpul stanmags as well in between. They are the Tan metal mags.
My experience over the past 10 or so years with it is it's no more accurate than the old green tip. Does is go through car doors well, yes however so did the old stuff. It's just ball ammo with spiffy marketing nothing more nothing less.
For getting through the Kalat walls we found "pick and hammer"(.50 & 40mm) was the best way to get through it if you weren't running tow-2 BB.
That's nonsense. M855 was terrible on ballistics gel and M855A1 was amazing.
If anyone misses with M855A1, you're either using the wrong barrel twist or you can't shoot.
Considering that M855A1 is 62 grains, which means it wants a 1/9 barrel twist......
@@Seth9809 I have great accuracy with 62gr 5.56 and .223 out of 1:7 barrel. 55gr mil-spec ammo shoots 1”-1 ¼”, 55gr varmint ammo(Hornady, Sierra) shoots 1” or a tad less. I have noticed that .223 tends to have better accuracy, as long as I stay 55gr or heavier. I just got some 73gr loads to try.
That Mark 262 performs very well out of my suppressed Centurion cold hammer forged CL'd barrel. I'm glad I stocked up on that stuff.
855A1 terminal performance seems to do prett well. Out of 14.5 barrels it I've seen it fragment in gel.
5:22 Isn't 1.8in@200 yards expecting sub-MOA accuracy?
Yes it's more accurate than 855, even in your tests shown, which was limited. It has a better BC than 855, which is notorious for being not very accurate, due to concentricity issues in placing the steel penetrator in the tip.
Yes it is more lethal than 855, and your bit about how you're not getting attacked by a car doors or windshields is pretty reductive. The Marine corps specifically wanted to develop a new round because of its poor performance against cars and other light cover in Iraq, hence Mk318 mod 0 and mod 1. Also why M995 was produced and issued more. You can literally find dozens of gel tests, and I'm sure you can find some live tissue tests as well, within normal parameters 855A1 is more lethal and will readily expand and fragment more reliably than 855.
The body armor thing is a non-starter, even 995 cannot penetrate an esapi plate backed by soft Kevlar. Steel body armor and UHMWPE plates are a different story, I have personally put 855A1 and 995 through AR 500 steel 'body armour'. Our small arms ability to penetrate 'near-peer' enemies body armor is somewhat irrelevant. What causes most casualties on the battlefield during a large scale conflict? Not small arms. Even with that being said 855a1 has a larger chance of incapacitating an individual wearing body armor due to greater backface deformation than 855.
Also you make some pretty weak arguments about how 'in Afghanistan we weren't being attacked by a car doors' and then turn around and say just because people weren't wearing body armor in Afghanistan doesn't mean that body armor penetration is irrelevant'. You contradict yourself.
The round is an improvement, it successfully eliminates a lot of lead from our ranges, which is very costly to remove, it has increased accuracy, lethality, and barrier penetration abilities. Was it an expensive program? Yes. Were there better options like Mk 318 mod 1, mk262, or even 70gr tsx 'brown tip'? Yes of course, But in true Big army fashion they wanted to spend a bunch of money creating something new to benefit the MIC and justify their jobs (and funding) in research. It will continue to serve alongside the new NGSW cartridge and program far into the future, along with other cartridges.
BTW yes they issue out the brown EPM mags to most infantry units, or tan Gen 3 Pmags are procured for units as well. Thanks for dispelling the stupid internet myths of feed ramp damage, it's crazy to see that still going around.
They really could have just gone with a TSX style round and called it a day. Those do have a tendency to shear off petals through hard barriers, though. For what it was designed to be, a lead-free round that increased terminal performance consistency and was barrier blind and maintained armor penetration at range, it actually does pretty well.
"But in true Big army fashion they wanted to spend a bunch of money creating something new to benefit the MIC and justify their jobs (and funding) in research." been in 14 years and this is indeed the way of the army lol
@@adharjanadb YEP! Spend it or lose it!
Me and my little brother joined the Army together back in 1995. I got assigned to the 4th ID and then the 3rd ACR at Ft. Carson and he went on to be an SF Supply Sergeant for the 82nd and then for the Ranger Training Battalion at Eglin AFB in Ft. Walton Beach. As the Supply Sergeant for the SF unit at Bragg and then a Ranger Battalion, he was authorized to buy nonissue gear from civilian manufacturers, while all other units were limited to only authorized unit issued gear and supplies. Basically anything a SF soldier wanted, he could get! If a single soldier wanted say, a particular multitool or style and brand of sunglasses, he would order them by the case! Which did make it easier for him to blow his budget than Supply that’s limited to basic issue and unit specific gear/supplies. I may or may not have received some nice “care packages” several times a year’, but I WAS a pretty popular guy in my platoon! At the end of the year he was literally ordering the most expensive dispensable equipment, gear and accessories he could find, just to spend every penny of his budget! Funny how case of the top of the like Leatherman or Gerber multi tools would show up at my unit!
This “spend it or lose it” rule is why there is SO much waste of taxpayers money! If a company or battalion does not spend their entire budget they will get less money the next year! My brother said he would use less than HALF of the budget he had keeping the units WELL equipped and then would go around asking guys what they want and going on shopping spree! So instead of awarding a good supply sergeant for saving the military money and then maybe even allowing them to use even half of of what they saved for Post recreational events like Post Family Day, the annual Military Balls or whatever the Post Commander decides, they PUNISH them by cutting their annual budget! So you get EVERY Supply Sergeant in EVERY Unit scrambling to spend every penny on anything they can! Especially on high loss or disposable gear! I had so much gear and cases of MREs when I got out I had to rent a storage unit! It was crazy to actually SEE the amount of money the military forces it’s Supply Sergeants to waste!
@@GrumpyGenXGramps I did a stint In 3rd batt and our gear was same we had very different access to needed equipment. When I was in the 82nd it was much more standard and same type of thing use it or lose it. I'm in the middle east and I asked for summer uniforms which they issue new recruits in the states and we were denied it. Fracu only but we are authorized to buy our own and wear them. I'm in one of the hottest places on the planet and our supply has a big use or lose budget but won't approve gear designed for this exact circumstance.. this right here is why I'm dropping paperwork and running like hell after I'm back
Johnny’s reloading bench has an entire series based around the accuracy of m855a1 rounds
i follow him great info!!
Do you have any experience using M955 black tip? The tungsten steel tipped rounds
Would love to hear your thoughts on that
Just comparing it to M855A1on steel, they perform the same it seems.
5 MOA acceptable ?!? LOL That's equal to an AK. It negates the longer range accuracy of the AR Platform. Which was a huge advantage over the AK platform
Yes it's dismal
Military spec only requires 3 MOA
Great work again Jeff. A complete work up on the SOST MOD1 would be greatly appreciated. I've been amazed with this round for a while now. I was lucky to get some of this ammo before the price went crazy and availability dried up.
Be safe out there
Honestly I probably won't be doing a video on that seeing how I have no real experience with that ammo
$100,000,000 to develop this round? holy crap you think anyone lined their pockets with some of that money 💰
I'm an old Vietnam vet and wondering how much ammo do troops carry on a day patrol nowdays? We carried several
hundred rounds, but we stayed out in the bush for weeks and we didn't get reapplied everyday.
Well I carried 11 mags on me for multi-day Ops. After 2 days on ground in SF, we had it set up for air resupply, if teams needed it. This included ammo speed balls at least a fresh basic load of 7 mags per man. Plus there was always a on call emergency ammo resupply if there was a large firefight
I was an 0311 and went to afghan a few times (Helmand). Anyways riflemen had 180 rounds (6mags) and us saw(m249) gunners had between 600-800 linked 5.56.
3MOA at 100 is what even my most budget AR-15s(I'm talking del-ton, PSA, S&W builds) are capable of with standard 55gr plinking rounds.
Yeah the vast majority of ARS, even high-end ones in my experience are 1.5-3 moa with 55gr.
But my Colt 6920 and Geissele Super Duty are MOA/Sub-MOA with several different loads
Most "plinking ammo" isn't loaded nearly as consistently and for the most part is 2-3 MOA ammo
M855A1 has higher chamber pressure and exposed penetrator or tip and will tear up your gun faster than other ammo. Nothing new here.
1sfg/7sfg maintainer here. When we had the a1 issued to us we saw a massive jump in bolt breakages. New and old bolts were subject to this.
Good to know!
@@ModernTacticalShooting my pleasure, it was a blight when they rolled into the training fold. It pushed teams to shoot mk262 for basically 8 ish months before the powers that be deemed it cost ineffective. From a maintainer standpoint we had issues in a few arenas from bolts, gas rings and barrel wear and tear.
@@Foxholefirearms Yes I always assumed more damage and my team we shot a shit ton, I was surprised to not see more guns go down on my ODA.
@@ModernTacticalShooting luckier than our guys, granted at the time all this was going down at 1sfg I was at the GSB as a civi augmentee, but I can say one thing that made a bit of difference was the roll out of the URGI with its mid length gas system. That little extra dwell time cut back on bolt lugs shearing thankfully
In my somewhat limited experience with match grade shooting, there is no way that an off the shelf round, loaded by mass production, to a fixed length and without culling components for consistency - can result in "match grade accuracy." Match accuracy shooters spend enormous amounts of time and money to generate their best loads - and they certainly are not made in a factory.
The tan mags did make it to unit issue, my BN got sent to Germany in march and we got 500+ of them, I tried to get them to order Pmags but they didn't like listening to a E4 armorer
I carried a Mk18 with 77 gr mk262, got a hold of the M855A1 after arrival in Camp Brown and before moving to TK and other VSO camps between Cobra and TK. There was no noticeable shift from the zero I had with mk262 at 100 meters and could use the same holds all the way up to 400 meters to hit an ammo can. I say it was pretty accurate compared to M855 and decent compared to mk262.
VSO...Horrible idea
@@ModernTacticalShooting lucky for me, I was just delivering and installing new equipment, showing the snipers how it worked and moving on. The VSO was not an easy mission for sure.
You will get lead poisioning from all the 45 cal slugs on some ranges at bragg ......yes 45
Better chance of lead poisoning from military housing than going out to the range
Crazy how MK262 is the only obvious choice. Both big infantry’s should have adopted that and been done with it.
I think the Army and Marines were put off by the price of it. Wonder if they could’ve gotten the price down by ordering a whole bunch of it at once.
@@JG54206 it’s possible. I also think it’s gotta be more complicated than I can understand. Black Hills might not have wanted to do it in massive quantities or let someone else do it with them. Who knows.
MK262 under penetrates after hitting barriers. If you look around on Google images, there is a photo of MK262 penetrating literally only 4" after hitting a loaded AK mag at 3 meters. M855 does better than it in that respect, and M855A1 much better
@@Whiskey.Tango.Actual Black Hills has come a long way. But I don't think they have the capacity for huge ongoing contracts like Lake City or other almost unknown plants.
@@KP-ty9yl that's fine. But I usually shoot for the face.
When I worked at the Pentagon, HQDA spent $1.4 million to decorate about 100 feet of hallway outside a general’s office. $100 million is a steal for something actually useful.
None of M855 or M855A1 can ever be match ammo, especially not from 1:7 twist barrel s. This are composite projectiles (steel in front, lead in rear) and must be very precisely made regarding rotational symmetry and keep it such during flight
The Military Industrial Complex MIC. $100,000,000 Bullet. Your tax dollars at work. Spent down range.
What did you get for this reckless expenditure. You got this video. You may need hemroid cream.
Its worth noting... the "green bullet" wasnt just about the environment. It was also about logistics, independence, and national security.
When this program started, there was only one lead refinery in the US. That refinery not doing well financially, and everybody saw the writing on the wall. The environment was a good political story. But this was done so we wouldn't have to rely on foreign powers, should our last lead refinery go under. And it did.
I absolutely absolutely obliterated bad guys with it in 2010. Through cars too (we had a very urban experience unlike a lot of other places) Our accuracy was notably better. After afghanland I went to AMU and they we did more testing for MCoE with it and it performed well above green tip but it caused logistics issues in wear and tear on guns.
At 27:38 you say that (5.56x45mm) M855 A1 is going to be replaced in 2024 by the 6.8 ARC. Did you mean to say that? I am aware that Hornady has introduce the 6mm ARC and I am aware that as part of the NSGW (XM-5) introductions that those weapons will get a new cartridge called 6.8 x 51mm which SIG appears to have named the 277 SIG Fury. I do not know what the US military is going to call the 6.8 x 51 mm.
M-855 was meant for the M-16A2 with it's 20"barrel with the M4s shorter barrel it gives up way too much velocity to do as it was meant this is not opinion this is fact
I think they should have taken either a 6 ARC or 6.5 Grendel and added about a millimeter to the case length and bumped up the pressure a bit and called it a day. Then make a nice lead bullet with a hardened steel tip and a special version with a coated tungsten tip for when they need improved penetration. Make the regular one with a green or blue tip and the special one with a red tip.
The target range is already permanently full of lead. Lead comes in different forms and some forms are more dangerous than others. The regular metal like with bullets is not even that bad. You're not getting lead poisoning walking around a shooting range. Unless you want to get down there and lick the ground. It's the liquid form of lead that is really dangerous. Lead has the weight that you need for kinetic energy.
Just make a new upper that they can slap onto the original M4 and M16 lowers with a VLTOR A5 buffer assembly. They didn't need to spend this much time and money to improve performance. The government likes to make things way too complicated and expensive.
If they had a little extra money to spend they could have upgraded the trigger to a geissele G2S trigger or even just an ALG ACT trigger. I think the guys would have been perfectly happy with this setup and it would have been easier to handle the recoil than the monster that they made.
I have a "20" Grendel with a rifle buffer and you can't tell the difference from 5.56 and if it were 10% more powerful, it would still be easy to shoot.
Such big differences between sf and big army experience.
There was a major problem with 855 that 855a1 fixed. 855 didn't burn powder completely in short m4 barrel it was made for 20in 249 barrel. This caused loads of malfunctions in extended firefights due to excessive fouling and multiple cases of soldiers being found dead with jammed weapons.
Also they were still issuing us the green tip crap in Afghanistan as late as 2020 because some bureaucrat dipshit wanted us to use it up for training, to include using it to zero our weapons. For those who aren't gun enthusiasts zeroing a weapon with a different round than one you will actually use to shoot is incredibly dumb.
why didnt they just stick with a m262. Its accurate. Its good.
I'll take a m193 over 855 any day. Far more accurate. If i cant hit something, i dont care if its a howitzer round.
On the new bullshit rifle and cartridge? they should have made it a 6mm x 45.
Military needs 6.5grendel. Not suped up 556. 22 caliber battle cartridges have to many limitations. 6.5grendel is the do all cartridge. Perfect for 99% if battlefield requirements.
There’s no way that projectile with the rotating steel tip is going to be match accuracy. There’s a reason after a decade this stuff is impossible to find in my opinion, and that is it don’t live up to the hype. If the military wants a green friendly projectile there are plenty of all copper bullets that are match proven and some get extremely good penetration and some give explosive expansion. Personally at 600 I’ll take accuracy every time.
The first PMAGs would brake when dropped on concrete loaded. They improved after 2004
Great video and very informative. Good to hear first hand knowledge and not internet lore. Also, thanks for the mention.
Alot of internet lore going around in all things firearms related
I got my hands on a few m855a1 rounds and they put a larger pit in my ar500 targets and that is good enough for me to put them in my home defense rifle. I would put them in all my rifles if they were not so hard to get and so expensive. I'm guessing that more damage to ar500 means a higher chance of defeating body armor of a criminal kicking down my door at 4am shooting my dogs and trying to take my guns. I also have better guns for going through both sides of body armor but they only hold a few rounds and take longer to reload and if much less maneuverable in cqb. Hopefully I never have to find out.
Idk haven’t shot a person with it but m855a1 on animals ( pigs and deer) it fragments and penetrates 100% in animals tissue. The m80a1 really does a number on anything. I would love to have a few cans in the Ukraine. Afghanistan is old history. My understanding is that in a real war the tips would be turned to tungsten easily.
If they use key phrases and terms instead of data or real facts, then the person is usually embellishing or lying.
Wow, those are thick walls. Probably the only way they can stay cool. Concrete has a cooling effect until it heats up lol. Seriously though, that thick it would stay cool I'd think. Damn, you'd want some real firepower with .50 cal being the bare minimum.
This lacking Army foresight you speak of is why "generally" they phase new things in over time. They assumed they had a winner and went with it this time. Well, we all know what happens when you assume, don't we??
The top brass should, they're the ones that came up with that stupid "make an ass outta you and me" cliche!
I used a ton of M855 in training and deployed, and a good amount of M855A1 from several different AR type rifles, and both failed to impress me in accuracy, esp. as compared to MK262 or those 75 grain Hornady rounds that were around for awhile (love those). Definitely NOT "match like" accuracy. I was issued the LWRC M6 at a place I worked OCONUS, and our ammunition supply process was unpredictable- you never knew what you may get when forward deployed, so sometimes we would get MK 262, sometimes green tip. We were specifically told not to use the M855A1 round through those M6 guns. I also told our leadership if that was the case to not put it on our resupply pallets if they didn't want it getting used. I have noticed getting consistent yaw with the 75 grain Hornady rounds on pigs and deer. And I have never seen a jacketed 5.56 round NOT go through a standard vehicle door. And even 40mm HE wouldn't penetrate a afghan mud wall, and that has an explosive charge in it. And there sure is lots of body armor in circulation now- not to mention armored vehicles (thanks brandon). I do like the M193 as a general purpose round- accurate enough, mild to shoot, not hard on steel. I think I'll stick with my PMAGS. I noticed on many of the M4's in my unit, they would still be grouping good, but would fail chamber erosion. I never saw a shot out M4 barrel that PASSED chamber erosion testing.
Given the upcoming switch to 6.8x51mm, obviously the answer is NO!
M855a1 seems to do better than m855 in ballistic gel. At much reduced velocity’s to.
M16/ A1 also had 1:12 twist barrels which are perfect for M193. The longer twist rate plus the 20" barrel still stabilizes that round but requires less effort from the propellant to push the round through the rifling resulting in higher velocities.
The big one here. . .20 inch barrels. Makes such a big difference, and with xm193 is an absolutely capable fighting rifle. It's when we shortened up the standard barrel that we tried to get something for nothing. Increasing bullet weight to make up for decreased velocity is like saying "well my heavy truck rolls better down hill than my light commuter car, so it gets better mileage" there is no free lunch. Shorten the barrel, and you lose power. Simple as that.
@@life_of_riley88 well said
@@life_of_riley88 Its amazed me for years how guys put a 10" or 12" barrel on their killer build,.....THEN think and start worrying about lower velocities and expansion. I just shake my head and chuckle at the TikTok warriors.
The #1 preferred weapon in SOG was the 11.5" XM177E2, which was used to stack NVA like corkwood.
@@LRRPFco52 and none of us are SOG fighting in the jungles of Vietnam. Short rifles are objectively worse performers for standard infantrymen, hence the movement away from the M4 by the DOD.
Some lead at the firing range. Forget about Camp Lejeune tap water and the crisp clean Hawaiian water near red hill and the burn pits. And numerous other major health and environmental impacts that has and will cause many ailments and death. Besides. Some lead bullets in a dirt berm should be 4th concern to accuracy lethality and cost
"Yep! We also just spent millions more on a new platform with an even more expensive bullet to make up for it!"
Are you kidding me? The A1 is no better in tissue etc to green tip?! 😂😂😂😂 are you serious? A quick search will show you that its THE BEST 5.56 round you can get PERIOD….. like wtf?!
M855a1 does go through level 3+ which is better then most Russian and Chinese plates
What's the barrel life with M4 heavy barrel using m855a1
Good question? I don't know
@@ModernTacticalShooting Well…heard people said hvy barrel is tough ,so maybe it can handle more rounds than gov profile
Nice video bro . Love these types of videos . I'm a small Arms geek for sure . Yeah I'd say that's some pretty bad ass shooting to get those groups at distance with M855 or M855A1 . Then again Colt SOCOMs can be insanely accurate. I know the 4 or 5 SOCOMs I own are definitely some good shooting barrels for being C.L.. Hell I used to use my Colt SOCOM that I chopped to 12.5" for 2Gun Matches because it was the most accurate barrel I owned at the time . This 5+ years ago .
I picked up 10 rounds of M855A1 couple years ago . I'll probably never shoot them because I was told it would blow up my Colt M4s lol. I got them to be cool . This was before CV and those suckers were still $3 a round lol..
I saw some where that Okay Ind / Surefeed is stopping production. Surefeeds and Pmags are literally all I use .
Questions ..
Didn't regular Army boycott Pmags in 2010ish time period . I remeber reading an article about it years ago online but never knew if it was actually true..
Yes, The Army didint allow Pmags to be sold on post I think for a short time, along with some other AR15 type items. I think it was a very brief period, never effected SF.
The 1MOA requirement is clearly in controlled environment i.e. indoors
I was a small arms repairman and m855a1 killed barrels very quickly making them lose putting small dents in the back end of the barrel. But most of all it destroyed feed paws on SAWs like nobodies business
I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on the new 6.8x51 round even though you probably never used it.
There is a link to a video on my thoughts about 6.8 in the description
@@ModernTacticalShooting You mirrored my thoughts on it from my security job days overseas. Logistics was the other issue. At least in the private sector.
It's only money. Just look at DC giving away money on stupid stuff.
It’s been 9 months since this has come out and we have seen the quality of the Russian body armor in the Ukraine war. The m855A1 looks like it would tear that stuff up.
I thank you for this video and the fact that you have real life experience with it and chose not to use it tells me a lot. And thank you for your service.
Kinda sounds like the ole boys who think anything new is worse 🤷🏼♂️
If they're not publishing MOA data, it must not be that much better if at all.
Mk262 Mod1 is the answer to a lot of ballistic issues in today's military. I just can't figure out why the military doesn't ditch the stupid M855 series and just go to Mk262. Frangable training rounds for general purpose close quarters training is readily available. Considering the training course and how the shots are all into the same area, even lead abatement is pretty easy. Just stupid.
Likely due to two things: mk262 is not a “green” round like what the military was looking for (to protect the health of soldiers on the range) and the exorbitant cost difference.
Mk262 is not barrier blind. You want rounds that can go through intermediate barriers, light cover and vehicles as a general purpose round for the infantry
@@user-oy8dl1er5h listen to his video again. This guy killed people in war zones for a living and didn’t care about that. He carried Mk262. I agree with him.
I don't know why they don't take the new SIG case technology with the steel bottom and the brass case and apply it to the 5.56x45 essentially raising the pressure's and maybe using a heavier projectile to achieve faster fps and longer range I would hope.. Just saying
If the army really wants a more penetrating round it should take a lesson from the germans use a steel
Very informative video. Your ammo assessment is spot on, except your take on 5.45x39. The consistent tumble effect through soft tissue came from the Russian incorporating a hollow cavity right behind the tip of the bullet. When it hit soft tissue it deformed the tip, forcing a tumble. The early AR15's had a 1 and 12 twist which barely stablized the bullet which was used to create the tumble effect. Lastly, people seem to forget about how important the barrel is. Accuracy comes from the barrel and ammo being harmonically tuned to one and other. You can have two identical barrels, produced back to back right off the line, but their harmonic nodes will be completely different.
M193 is short, base heavy, and has a particular ogive that facilitates yawing. Combined with the cannelure being right at the typical break point, it has always been our best killer on soft targets.
We NEED to go green. Electric tanks next, what could go wrong.
The 77 grain out of a 14.5 is accurate ok but its velocity is a TURD…… I dnt see it sorry
100mil isnt really that much in the context of military acquisitions
m855a1 is all I use now. it's an incredible round.
It saved my life in Afghanistan I fired three rounds of it at 35 meters and doped the bad guy like a sack of potatos.
Love your knowledge on this bullet! But one goal WAS met: Lead free.
Where’s the Army’s new “Rainbow Round”…🌈
I used the 7.62 version of that round and i loved it in Afghanistan
Looks like the .8 grouping skewed the m855 results. If we consider the larger…as well as the 300yd results…it looks like a 33% increase in accuracy. Also, It does not say M16A2 accuracy..but m855. It might be from a test barrel. Also, im not sure if the standard deviation is total size…or from center. If from center it is closer to 2moa…which from a test barrel could be possible.
The barrier penetration came from Iraq with VBIED and checkpoints being more common.
Im not sure where the data of M855a1 “ice picking” comes from. By all available data it shows destabilizing within the first 2” of travel and fragmentation down to approximately 1700fps…. That is significantly better than m855, m193, or the Russian 7n6.
Presidential directive required the Army to develop “green” ammo. The “green” ammo was coming, so the Army used the program to attempt to rectify the issues with M855 in the process.
I believe the operating pressure has actually been reduced a bit since inception.
The m855 comparison really not needed I just did it for the heck of it it doesn't affect how tight m855a1 shoots which is the important part
what I liked most about afghan mud houses were that you could shoot anywhere inside pretty safely, so you didn't have to worry about backdrop or over penetration so much