Quote Originally Posted by grizzman View Post
When discussing fragmenting bullets, by default I consider them to be SMK and other open tip match bullets, lightly constructed varmint bullets, and M855. The M855A1 seems like an entirely different animal, and not exactly readily available.
The OP didn't specify readily available, and M855A1 was designed to fragment much better and at much lower velocities than M855. M855 had a much longer neck and wouldn't frag past 80-120m out of an 14.5 barrel, from what I can tell M855A1 frags with no neck at least to 300m, probably further. And it punches through barriers better than 7.62x51. You're right about SMK's being the previous leaders in fragmenting designs, but M855A1 and M80A1 have shown you can have the best of both worlds now.