2 Dec 03=20

This is a portion of note sent by an active-duty friend to his junior officers. They will be deploying shortly:

"For those 'who don't know what they don't know,' I offer the following explanation: 55gr FMJ (Full Metal Jacket) is the old M193 ball ammunition th at we used to issue before the new, 62gr FMJ (M855) was issued with M16A2 rifles. The M855, 62gr bullet has a steel core 'penetrator' (a hard dart imbedde d in the middle of the bullet) and is boat tailed at the base to provide maximum stability in flight. The 1:7" twist (or, one complete revolution in seven in ches of travel down the barrel) of the M16A2 barrel is severe, by any standard. The bullet revolves nearly three times before departing the barrel of an M16A2 ( 20" barrel), and two complete revolutions from an M4 (16" barrel).

This provides great stability for the bullet during flight, too much as it turns out, because the bullet uniformly fails to subsequently destabilize an d tumble upon impact with living issue, as did the old, M913 bullet. It is basically a fast-moving ice pick. While it will make them bleed, it fails to generate a large, permanent wound cavity.

While the M855 bullet (with its imbedded penetrator) will penetrate some solid barriers that will not be penetrated by the M195 bullet, it consistent ly fails to penetrate most layered barriers (car doors, cinder block, etc) at a ny range.

Since, when we're deployed to Iraq, we probably won't be able to get sufficient quantities of the old M193 ammunition, and the M193 bullet render s poor accuracy (and sometimes self-destructs) from a 1:7" barrel anyway, we will b e using the M855 round for the foreseeable future. We will therefore have to t rain our men to plan on hitting bad guys multiple times and not to expect much in the penetration department. That will be the case until we're issued the new caliber (or reissued M14s), which may be months (or years) away.

I can go into another diatribe about our 9X19mm FMJ pistol ammunition and it s notoriously poor terminal performance also, and, yes, we're looking forward to improvements there too. In the interim, constantly remind your men and yourselves that the Marine is the weapon. The rifle or pistol are merely too ls. The poorest performing bullet in the world, when it hits, will render infinitely better results than will 'wonder bullets' that miss! "

Comment: My heroic friend is trying to make the best of an unhappy situation . We were told that the new M855 bullet would solve both the range and penetration limitations of the M193. As was the case with the Patriot Missil e in 1991, we were (knowingly) lied to!

The Patriot Missile didn't work back in 1991, but, generals and presidents alike spent too much time reading their own press releases! It was only whe n Patriot batteries failed utterly to protect Tel Aviv from Scud missiles that the lie began to unravel. We later learned, to our horror, that the success rate of the Patriot system in intercepting and destroying against incoming Scud missiles was, in truth, close to zero!

By the same token, the hardened penetrating dart, imbedded within each M855 bullet, weighs only ten grains. There is no way a ten-grain projectile is go ing to penetrate anything! The truth is, neither range nor penetration limitations have been adequately addressed by M855 ammunition. It is woefull y inadequate on both counts and vastly inferior to the M193 round it replaced.

I'm not sure I'm the world's expert on ballistics, but I have been an infantry officer involved in significant and continuous fighting, and I know that rifles carried by infantrymen need ammunition that will shoot through things ! Even in the USA, there still no species of political alchemy that will rende r "golden" performance from "leaden" ballistics!

/John

2 Dec 03

Sage advice from a good friend:

"I know you don't like Wolf ammunition, and I discovered why last weekend. I was shooting it through my G36 at a local range, and, sure enough, I got to practice a lot of stoppage reduction drills!

A sobering bit of reality hit home during one of the many stoppage exercises: an empty case first stove piped, and then somehow got completely turned around and forthwith went into the chamber backwards. The slide immediately went forward striking the case mouth, thus wedging the entire case tightly into the chamber. Of course, the extractor was incapable of pulling it back out, and I was left with a pistol that would not shoot and could not be restored to action quickly.

This somber event reminded me (luckily on the range) that perfectly good pistols can be rendered useless by this phenomenon in the blink of an eye. I, then and there:

(1) promised myself always to carry a backup gun! I will no longer walk around with just one gun.

(2) ordered a Dejammer from Mas Ayoob, which I will carry faithfully, as you do. I once wondered why. Not any more!

(3) decided I've used Wolf ammunition for the last time!

Lesson: Pistol cases wedging into the chamber backward (as described above) is something we see all the time. If you routinely carry a range rod (I like Mas Ayoob's Dejammer), knocking the stuck case out from the front is easily and quickly done. If you don't, you'll have to locate one before your pistol can be returned to action. Thus, routinely carrying a range rod makes a lot of sense.

Backup guns are a really good idea, as we can see. NYPD guys taught us long ago that the fastest reload and also the fastest stoppage reduction is smoothly producing a second pistol!

/John