AccurateShooter reports on the Army’s new 5.56mm ammunition …

The 62-grain bullet for the new M855A1 ammo is a completely new design. While it may appear to have a plastic “ballistic tip”, that’s deceiving. The new bullet created for M855A1 ammo has a bismuth-tin alloy core with a steel “stacked-cone” penetrating tip. The photo at right shows the version from last year; the final production version may be slightly different (e.g. the final version tip is a different color). Apparently the latest bullet design is a winner. During testing, M855A1 ammo performed better than current 7.62mm ball ammunition against certain types of targets.

Hard target penetration is supposed to be better than the lead-core M855. I just hope it is effective in combat and not just adopted because these days lead bullets are considered by some to be politically incorrect.