Military Bleg (KS)

Lately, I've heard few stories about how the US military is using non-lead bullets.  I've also heard that they don't use lead in the cartridges because of some environmental concerns.  Is this true?  I've searched a few sites, but I can't find anything definitive. 

If anybody has any info or can point me in the right direction, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance, ya'all.

Comments

[Everlasting Phelps]

Read it and weep:

http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2010/04/army_deadlier_round_040210w/

[KingShamus]

Everlasting Phelps: Oh. My. God.

My Dad was the one who mentioned the MT story to me, but I didn't believe it. I thought he must've gotten it wrong somehow because it was just too ridiculous to believe.

Now I trust my Dad even more...and the environmentalists even less.

[Rebeluniv.blogspot.com]

The US military currently uses a variety of bullets. The current assault rifle ammo is the M855 cartridge with the SS109 bullet. That bullet is mostly steel, not lead and is longer to make it heavier (at 62 grains) than the older 55 grain bullet. This was done for increased penetration, not environmental reasons. The larger 7.62 cartridges are still mostly lead, with some exceptions for specialized ammunition. The Army does have "lead free" environmentaly safe ammunition but it is mostly an oddity and not used for any practical purpose in training or combat.

It is an old myth that in the battle of Mogadishu, US troops were using environmental "green" ammo and that resulted in enemy soldiers not being killed when hit. In fact, the "green" ammo was the "green tip" ammo (ss109) that I described above. It's greater penetration has the undesirable effect of putting a small hole in skinny people at close range without doing sufficient damage to put them out of action.

[DonS]

What makes 5.56 mm ammo highly effective (for the bullet size) is bullet fragmentation. The older US M193 55 gr bullet and the newer 62 gr M855 BOTH fragment at close range (usually), creating a large wound channel.

The older M193 55 gr has a higher muzzle velocity so it is a tad more reliable at fragmentation because of that, and also the more complex M855 bullet tends to display more varibility since, well, there are more variables in its manufacture.

The problem in Mogadishu was most likely caused by the Delt Force operators using very short barrel carbines which produced lower muzzle velocities than the 20" M16 or 14.5" M4. Back then, the importance of fragmentation was not well known. Further, sometimes people take a hell of a lot of hits before they go down. Bullets are not magic.

Once additional point is that in A'stan, they figured out that the longer, heavier match bullets (typically 75 gr or 77 gr HPBT bullets with lead cores) work better than either the M193 or M855. They fragment out farther, due to the longer bullet and thin jackets.