Quote:
Originally Posted by The Dark
It's been in use since 2010 (the Army announced the first shipment to a field unit on 23 June 2010) and at least a couple hundred million rounds have been ordered (~150 million in FY13 and ~65 million in FY15; I haven't run across numbers for other FYs yet). For current use, I'm more in favor of the Mk318, which is around half the cost of the M855A1, is a 62 grain round, and fires at around 2900 FPS from an M4 and 3100 FPS from an M16, using a solid copper slug behind a copper/lead point for use as a barrier blind round. The bronze tip might end up being better in the long run, but that 13% chamber pressure increase gives me the heebie-jeebies.
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This is typical US Army thinking... we'll just test it in the field.