The United States Marine Corps has finally officially announced its adoption of the 5.56mm M855A1 EPR round, developed in the late 2000s by the US Army, marking an important step towards ammunition commonality between the two services. Until now, the USMC has officially [Read More…]
Manufacturers who are gearing up for the US Army’s Interim Combat Service Rifle competition better know where to get their ammo for testing, and the Army is ready to help. The US Army is facilitating the procurement of 7.62mm M80A1 ammunition to competitors for [Read More…]
The United States government has won a major firearms-related victory in Federal appeals court today, regarding claims of patent infringement by Liberty Ammunition, LLC. Liberty had claimed that the US Army’s M855A1 EPR and M80A1 EPR projectiles infringed on its [Read More…]
It’s not just the Yanks that are getting improved ammunition: Our friends across the pond have developed their own firepower upgrade for 5.56mm and 7.62mm weapons alike. Jane’s has a modest article on the subject, while The Register provides a quite good [Read More…]
While soldiers are typically lauding the M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round, it has come at a cost of long-term durability and reliability of the M4A1. The M855A1 exposed steep tip loading is substantially different from its predecessor, the venerable M855 steel-core, [Read More…]
Previously, courtesy of The Wound Channel we got our first looks at the stellar ballistics of the 7.62mm M80A1 EPR round, which proved to combine excellent fragmentation with good armor penetration and barrier blind characteristics, while being extremely consistent. [Read More…]
We have been covering the US Army’s latest M855A1 and M80A1 “Enhanced Performance Rounds” (EPRs) here at TFB for the past few years. We’ve seen how in independent tests both M855A1 and M80A1 fragment early, thanks to their yaw-independent [Read More…]
Previously, we looked at the incredible damage and penetration caused by the US Army’s new M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round (EPR), thanks to a video published by William of the Wound Channel. What happens, though, when that kind of performance is scaled up to .30 [Read More…]
If you had any doubt at all about the terminal performance of the U.S. Army’s new M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round before, prepare yourself. YouTube ammo tester The Wound Channel has partnered with Aimed Research, who is providing the cameras needed to take [Read More…]
M855A1 is the Army’s new round; it boasts improved accuracy, penetration, and terminal effectiveness vs. the legacy M855 “green tip” round. We previously covered the story of M855A1, and Major Glenn Dean’s history of the round’s [Read More…]
The United States House of Representatives has ordered trials to be conducted to determine the right ammunition for both the US Army and Marine Corps, following on the recent controversy that each service was using its own unique round. Army Times reports: The Army and [Read More…]
Over at WeaponsMan, Hognose broaches the subject of “OTMs” and “JHPs” and that they are not the same thing. He writes: Okay, this is a post about ammunition, and especially, military ammunition, but it also has applicability to police and [Read More…]
The Army and Marine Corps’ ongoing schism over standard issue 5.56mm ammunition came to a head during a recent House Armed Services Committee meeting. The USMC, which still uses the 1970s-era M855 round, supplemented by their Mk. 318 SOST ammunition, were a [Read More…]
Perhaps a downside of trying to make an enhanced performance round meet environmental regulations (which only matters on the training range), is that the two inevitably end up at odds with each other. Case in point, the modern M855A1 and M80A1 rounds have been [Read More…]