"Testing the M855A1"

[Slater]

Haven't read all that much about the "good vs bad" of this cartridge, but apparently it puts a lot of wear on M4's:

http://www.americanrifleman.org/arti...all-cartridge/

[SeriousStudent]

Moved thread to the "Reloading and Ammunition" sub forum.

[Uni-Vibe]

The port pressure with M855 in an M4 is already quite a bit higher than that in the twenty-inch M16---and they want to jack it up another 50%? Yikes.

[daddyusmaximus]

Haven't read much on this round either, and being retired for a while, I've never shot it. Still, I'd like to get my hands on a case of it. I like the fact that it will yaw faster and be more effective on skinny targets, but as I said, I'm retired, so I'm not too worried about "skinny" targets here in the states... Now the better steel penetrating ability would be a good thing to have in a 5.56.

[markm]

The port pressure with M855 in an M4 is already quite a bit higher than that in the twenty-inch M16---and they want to jack it up another 50%? Yikes.

Yeah. I'd love to get some of these bullets to load up. But I'd never fire this round in any of my guns.

[daddyusmaximus]

I am thinking this would be a good round in my SBR. It's built around an Arms Tech Compak 16 upper. The gas trap system they use should be able to handle this load well.

[jstone]

Haven't read much on this round either, and being retired for a while, I've never shot it. Still, I'd like to get my hands on a case of it. I like the fact that it will yaw faster and be more effective on skinny targets, but as I said, I'm retired, so I'm not too worried about "skinny" targets here in the states... Now the better steel penetrating ability would be a good thing to have in a 5.56.

There was some gel test online that were promptly removed, by some government entity. The guy posted them on tos, and they were gone in less than 48 hours. The way the steel is inserted into the all copper base it looks like a solid copper vmax with a steel tip. It is supposedly not yaw dependant. The steel tip acts like the poly tips on varmint rounds.

I wish I would have saved the gel pics. I would like to just get the bullets like markm said. I would never fire the loaded ammo, I dont even like m193. So if 855a1 is as over pressure as has been reported I will stay away. To many great bullets available to us as reloaders, to put the extra wear on my personally owned firearms.

[opngrnd]

I wonder what it'd do to your bolt life when fired suppressed in an issued weapon...

[Slater]

"Overall, it was found that M855A1 is more accurate than the old green-tip, but capable of even better accuracy when fired from a 1:9-inch twist barrel."

Maybe there's something to be said for the 1:9 after all.

[USMC_Anglico]

Round beats the hell out of the guns. It is no better than M855 in the real world. Now that the Army lost the patent infringement lawsuit maybe they will go to wider issue of Mk318 a much better round, USMC already got smart about that.