If you are a Mini-14, AR or SR-556 owner, odds are you are constantly on the lookout for good deals on ammo and one of the best in recent years has been various versions of the military standard ‘green tip’ 5.56mm. Well, it looks like the Obama administration is pulling at a few threads here to try to do away with this common load and now is your chance to do something about it.
When Eugene Stoner came out with his AR-15 rifle in the 1960s, it was a civilian sporting rifle that was later adopted, in a select-fire version, by the U.S. Air Force Security Forces in Vietnam, then by the Army and the entire U.S. military proper soon after. By the 1970s, other countries were jumping on board with rifles of the same caliber, as of course, if the Americans were using it, it had to be good stuff. This is where the Belgian FNC, the Austrian Steyr AUG, and French FAMAS came in at, following soon by the South Korean Daewoo rifles, and those from HK and Enfield.
However the round used by the U.S. military, the 55-grain M193, which was known for its fragmentation upon impact, was considered too inhumane to use in warfare by our more cosmopolitan Western European allies and a Belgian-designed cartridge with a 62-grain bullet that used a mild steel tip over a lead core to help hold it together was adopted as NATO standard in 1977. This more “humane” round, known in Europe as the NATO SS109, is designated M855 in U.S. military use and is known by its green-painted tip.
Now, some 38 years after this standardized loading was adopted by the U.S. and her Allies, and has been in widespread manufacture worldwide, making it a common import and domestic sporting round, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives wants to rule it “armor-piercing” although, technically, its not.
More in my column at Ruger Talk
Like this:
Like Loading...
