I remember reading about what these designators really mean a while back. But It remember where. But this is what I have been informed by a couple of individuals who were directly involved with the procurement process from either side of the contract.
While the "X" may designate ammunition that was "rejected"; the reality is that they were never really rejected in the first place. The way it works is manufacturer "A" is contracted to supply a government agency or organization for let's say, 1 million rounds of 62-grain FMJ for July 2008. But because of strict QC requirements, manufacturer "A" must produce more than the contractual quota of 1 million rounds. They usually produce a certain amount based on their projected "QC failure rate". So for example, if their expected failure rate is 5%, they might produce 10% over the 1 million rounds (or 100,000 extra rounds).
After the first 1 million rounds are accepted by the buyer, the remaining rounds that are not rejected due to any type of dangerous condition are sold to the rest of the world. The better the manufacturer's QC, the more "rejected rounds" they will sell to us. If the actual failure rate is let's say 5,000 rounds, then that means that 95,000 of the rounds they designate as "X" were actually "overruns".
Of course, the guys who told me this could be full of it and I could just be passing on bogus information to take it FWIW!!
We must not believe the Evil One when he tells us that there is nothing we can do in the face of violence, injustice and sin. - Pope Francis I
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