Kermit knew it and the Bamster is fighting an uphill battle getting us all to abandon our nasty internal combustion engines and electric lights, but here's a victory in his battle:
New Green Ammo for M4
Why do I have doubts?
There's not much in that item beyond propaganda. Is the change in composition of the alloy really going to make a 62 grain poodle-shooter able to penetrate the same way a 7.62 round will? There is no way that 62 grains of throw weight is going to pack the punch at end game of 174. Velocity is not significantly different and weight is roughly three times as much.
Less muzzle flash? That's good, but flash hiders are pretty much standard and if it is really dark, then any flash is a flash.
Bismuth is the major component change to replace the lead. It has a lot of similarities to lead in terms of weight and density, but it is brittle so expansion could be problematic. Maybe the real issue is that Wikipedia lists it as "twice as abundant as gold" in the earth's crust. Excuse me, but that seems to mean expensive.
Probably the real question is whether the amount of lead being deposited in the war zones by US troops is really an environmental hazard worth worrying about. Put in the perspective of events like World War II, you would have to ask if this is an issue. The amount of DU scattered around Iraq had the greenies disposable panties in a knot, yet no one seems to be as harmed from that as they were from Sadaam's torching of the oil fields.
I like the M4 and the various attachments that can be hung on it. But, I'm not in combat with it. I can well understand the desire of real operators for a round that can reach out and not just touch someone but put them into cardiac arrest. The 7.62 has already got a lot of equipment that supports it. Even the AR platform does the job. Without doubt there are a lot of existing service rifles that handle that full sized round better than the AR.
The 6.8 SPC is also a contender with significantly more bang for the bucks. That fits perfectly in the AR with just a different upper.
I'm not impressed with the whole idea of a "green" cartridge. I am not convinced that it offers significant advantage and I'm not sure there is a compelling benefit to be realized for the cost expended.
3 comments:
What BS....stating that a "Green" 5.56 round out performs a 7.62 round.
The only thing that round will do better is the 5.56 won't be guilty of "Over Penetrating".
Political correctness at the expense of our armed forces :P
On the subject of the "EEEEEEVIL" lead, it like many other things in the news media has been hyped beyond all reasonable limits. Lead is toxic yes but not so much so that it needs to be as feared as these wussies are making it out to be.
This is just another case of the Nany state trying to control yet one more item in the world.
WV: Bambil...I've shot many of Bambils brothers and sisters with lead bullets and have yet to be poisoned by it.
An agency that I used to work for used to use a local military range for our personnel to qualify with our rifles. We were required by the military range personnel to use only this "green" ammo for environmental purposes. The "green" ammo is expensive and hard to get in quantity since the military buys almost all of the production.
We got around it by keeping one opened case of "green" ammo in our loading area in case the range staff stopped by to spot-check us (which they did). If they came by, we'd point to the "green" crap and say that it was what we were using. As soon as they left, we resumed firing all of the surplus ball ammo that we'd gotten from the same military base by the truckload for free only a few months prior.
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