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U.S. Army plans switch to ‘green’ bullets

Home - by - July 25, 2013 - 09:30 America/New_York - 25 Comments

SNIP: And yes, they suck.

DC

The U.S. Army is taking the expression “get the lead out” quite literally and switching to lead-free, environmentally-friendly bullets.

The Army’s Picatinny Arsenal is working on a “green” version of the M80A1 7.62 mm bullet, which troops are supposed to start being issued in 2014, according to an Army press release.

The Army has been looking to “green” small caliber ammo for some time now. In 2010, the Army began switched to the greener 5.56 mm M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round.

“The EPR replaces the lead slug with a copper slug,” said Lt. Col. Phil Clark, product manager for small caliber ammunition in the Program Executive Officer Ammunition. “This makes the projectile environmentally-friendly, while still giving soldiers the performance capabilities they need on the battlefield. So far we have eliminated 1,994 metric tons of lead from 5.56 ammunition production.”

“Thirty-two grains of lead are eliminated per M855A1 projectile, and 114.5 grains of lead will be eliminated per M80A1 projectile,” according to the Army.

The Army projects that the use of green 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm ammunition could eliminate the purchase of 3,683 metric tons of lead between 2013 and 2018.

Green bullets, like the M855A1, have been touted for their enhanced performance standards, such as  better hard-target penetration, more consistent performance against soft targets and significantly increased distances of these effects.

Officials also expect a similar “greening” to occur with the 7.62 mm version. However, reports from after the M855A1 ammo came out cast some doubts on green bullet performance.

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» 25 Comments

  1. J Frank Parnell

    July 25th, 2013

    Does that mean Lake City and Fed stockpiles will begin releasing non-Gaia compliant M80 and M855 to the civilian market?

    You know, so we can stockpile for Obama’s Race War.

    Noteworthy Comment Thumb up +16

     
  2. Bayouwulf

    July 25th, 2013

    Sign me up for 10K rounds of that ol’ lead filled surplus stock! Wouldn’t want to have any our troops come down with lead poisoning.

    Thumb up +8

     
  3. Chris.in.N.Va.

    July 25th, 2013

    Next up:
    Eliminating that nasty ol’ CO2-generating gun powder and filling the shell casings instead with pixie dust.

    Yuppers, should work wonders…

    Noteworthy Comment Thumb up +13

     
  4. Tired American

    July 25th, 2013

    Hell, let’s just make our bullets biodegradable and edible- and just for all the pacifist, let’s also make them bounce softly off anything they hit!

    Noteworthy Comment Thumb up +12

     
  5. Mals

    July 25th, 2013

    Aren’t copper rounds considered armor-piercing?

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  6. Boobie the Rocket Dog

    July 25th, 2013

    Where are they going to get all this copper for the price of lead?

    Noteworthy Comment Thumb up +12

     
  7. eternal cracker p

    July 25th, 2013

    The dry ice projectile was considered but later disregarded as a global health risk based on the increased volcanic seismic sea ice.

    Thumb up +3

     
  8. Reaganaut

    July 25th, 2013

    Lead free powder loads for construction have been available for years, but people don’t like to use them -unless forced by law- because there are a lot of duds. Now what does that tell you?

    Thumb up +6

     
  9. MadJack

    July 25th, 2013

    The whole damn world is going mad. Environmentally friendly bullet??? :roll: Do these assholes in charge think our fighting men and women give a damn about the environment when they are being shot at??? Do we give a damn about these shitholes like Afghanistan, or Iraq or any other Shitstan country? Liberals are bound and determined to fuck up everything in the entire world. :mad:

    Noteworthy Comment Thumb up +11

     
  10. hanoverfist

    July 25th, 2013

    @mals

    I dont know about armor-piercing but they
    are great on big-game animals.;-)

    Thumb up +3

     
  11. chickenhead

    July 25th, 2013

    from the epa website: http://www.epa.gov/air/lead/

    “Lead (Pb) is a metal found naturally in the environment as well as in manufactured products.”

    so if lead is found naturally in the environment…?

    Thumb up +6

     
  12. Unruly Refugee

    July 25th, 2013

    Green MOABs will be filled with thousands of delightfully colored party balloons and apology notes.

    Thumb up +6

     
  13. Houston

    July 25th, 2013

    @Chickenhead

    Exactly, a natural element which is bad for the environment.

    On the flip side, maybe this will finally halt climate change.

    Thumb up +3

     
  14. Callmelennie

    July 25th, 2013

    I know certain German cities during the Forties would have welcomed a more environmentally friendly aerial bombardment. I’m sure there was lots of unhealthy cordite and dust residue afterwards which played havoc with the pulmonary health of civilians as they sat in their bomb shelters.

    Of course, there was some unhealthy activities going on in numerous camps in Germany and Poland which might have persisted until 1950 if we had been more enviro-friendly in our air campaign.

    So, whaddya gonna do?

    Thumb up +4

     
  15. norman einstein

    July 25th, 2013

    I’ve GOT it…they can make them out of “Nerf”.
    That should do it.

    @Reaganaut, “duds”. Sounds about right, for this outfit.

    Thumb up +3

     
  16. Stranded in Sonoma

    July 25th, 2013

    I will say it again.

    The military is NOT an engine of social change! Its job is to kill people and break things! Anything that does not assist the military in its job should be discarded as useless.

    That is all.

    Thumb up +9

     
  17. Unruly Refugee

    July 25th, 2013

    Lead is denser than copper, so copper projectile weight will be lower or the bullet will have to be longer.

    Hornady make some solid copper bullets for pistol loads that I might want to try when reloading supplies become available again. They are said to retain their full weight upon impact.

    Barnes banded solid projectiles are copper and zinc. The ATF is trying to ban some of them as “armor piercing” ammunition, as they have very good ballistic performance.

    Thumb up +1

     
  18. Bayouwulf

    July 25th, 2013

    @Mals, True,just not how you might imagine. Copper is used to line the hollowed out funnel shape of the explosive charge, such as an RPG. The projectile will have a false pointed nose, i.e. aluminum. When it hits the target, the explosive inverts the copper lining and becomes a stream of molten metal and burns a small hole through the armor and into the interior of the vehicle. Not a good place to be. :eek:

    Thumb up +1

     
  19. Jeff

    July 25th, 2013

    So who stands to make money from this switch from lead to copper? Dropping bombs from the sky, artilery and morter rounds would not be considered as “environmentally friendly”. Naplamn is NOT healthly to living things. Neither is blowning things up with depleted urainium rounds.

    Again Kipling’s verse:
    If any question why we died, tell them because our fathers lied.

    Thumb up +1

     
  20. timt

    July 25th, 2013

    Maybe Obama will make em start throwing water balloons ya know just to cool them off and make em like us….Oh wait you mean the enemy will still use lead?

    Thumb up +1

     
  21. Blink

    July 25th, 2013

    This is just swell. I’m sure DHS is next. DHS spent trillions of our $ for trillions of rounds of ammo. Now its declared to be non-green ammo and must be destroyed. DHS will spend millions of our $ to destroy the non-green ammo. Then place new orders for the green ammo to replace the non-green ammo. I’m sure the green ammo will cost more than the non-green ammo so replacement cost will be higher than initial acquisition cost.

    And why the hell does the DHS have their nose every local event from single car accident to major event come with a report from DHS summarizing the event. Do I need the feds telling me the traffic from the high school basketball game is moving smoothly? And why is DHS supplying internet servers to the local library? Must be to help the NSA out.

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  22. Major Mal function

    July 25th, 2013

    So who stands to make money from this switch from lead to copper?

    Chile? Copper is 3X the cost of lead.

    Thumb up +1

     
  23. Four .45's

    July 25th, 2013

    …wouldn’t want to give the enemy lead poisoning…

    Thumb up +1

     
  24. Jack

    July 26th, 2013

    The new Enhanced Performance rounds basically just put a larger steel core backed by solid copper. This can potentially make the rounds penetrate much more than lead core bullets, allowing for shots through barriers like glass and concrete blocks. The downside is that when you are clearing houses in urban warfare, you are much more likely to kill innocents and soldiers by over penetration.

    Thumb up +1

     
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