#ArmorPiercing

In this episode of TFBTV, James Reeves visits FK Brno at IWA to discuss their newest ammunition. While it’s not quite out yet, FK Brno has successfully developed prototype 7.5mm FK rounds that will defeat Level IV rifle-rated body armor … out of a handgun. This new AP ammo works in the full-size FK Brno Field Pistol and FK Brno PSD pistol and could be released this year.

Finnish  Hydraulic Press Channel is a well-known YouTube channel that puts various objects under the intense stress and pressure of a 150-ton hydraulic press for no other reason than to see what happens. Just last weekend they decided to see what would happen if they tried to pierce an AR500 steel plate with a few different objects including tool steel which is often used as the penetrator portion of armor-piercing ammunition. Although a lot of their videos can be predictable in their results, this one took me by surprise for a number of reasons.

Austin Thomas Jones is an Aerospace Engineer with a less than favorable view of Federal Firearms regulations. It is this attitude that caused Austin to depart from the aerospace industry and enter the firearms industry with the goal of resurrecting armor-piercing ammunition in order to provide equality under the law with regards to armor-piercing ammunition. Austin and Atlas Arms have worked hard to produce what he calls the Dagny Dagger – an unrestricted Armor Piercing ammunition that skirts around the ATF regulations to give “the common” access to reliable AP ammunition.

The first photographs of the tungsten carbide cores for the US Army’s new XM1158 round have surfaced. The Army’s 7.62x51mm XM1158 Advanced Armor Piercing (ADVAP) round featured in the US Army’s Manufacturing Technology program 2018 Fiscal Year Update as one of their successful programs.

A key part of the capability brought to the table by the US Army’s new Squad Designated Marksman Rifle is its chambering for the 7.62mm round. Specifically, this chambering allows the SDMR to fire the (also brand new) XM1158 Advanced Armor Piercing (ADVAP) round, designed to give the squad the capability to defeat advanced ceramic armors at combat ranges. There may be juuuuust one little problem, though: Cost. The US Army’s Ammunition Budget Justification for Fiscal Year 2019 was released this month; in it was procurement information on the XM1158 ADVAP, and a bit of a shocking sticker price to boot:

Until now, the US Army’s 7.62mm XM1158 Advanced Armor Piercing (ADVAP) round has been a mystery. The round, which was rumored to be the basis for the now-cancelled Interim Combat Service Rifle (ICSR) program, is supposed to allow existing weapons in the 7.62x51mm caliber to defeat advanced body armor out to combat ranges. Speculations about its configuration ranged from an improved traditional tungsten cored round to a discarding sabot design firing uranium flechettes, but the answer to this mystery was recently revealed in an issue of the Picatinny Voice. The ADVAP, it seems, is built on the technology of the 7.62mm M80A1 EPR, but using a tungsten core. From the Picatinny Voice article by Audra Calloway:

At an AUSA breakfast conference yesterday, US Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley gave us a hint at exactly what the US Army’s next rifle could look like, and the focus was on extended range capability. The rifle, Milley said, will give a 10x improvement in capability through the type of ammunition, optics, and degree of chamber pressure specific to it, with the aim of providing the soldier a weapon with much more accuracy and range than the current M4 Carbine. Milley also clarified that the term “10x” was not intended to be a precise measurement of the capability growth, but rather a term indicating significant improvement. The new rifle will come as part of an effort that also includes new artillery, tanks, aircraft, and virtual reality training facilities, Milley said.

Is the US Army pushing for a new high-powered 6.Xmm caliber with their new NGSAR program? Recently, the listing for the NGSAR industry day in December was updated with a document describing in part the agenda of the second conference. Scheduled for 9:45 in the morning in the document is a 15 minute long presentation on “Ammunition Data – Surrogate Projectile and Specs”, presented by Todd Townsend, David Charowsky, and Mark Minisi. Minisi’s name may not be well-known, but it will be familiar to astute students of recent wound ballistics literature: It was Minisi who developed the finite element analysis-based tissue damage model, which has been refined over the past decade at ARDEC through PM Maneuver Ammunition Systems (PM-MAS). Mr. Townsend is also likely representing PM-MAS, now under the leadership of Colonel Hector Gonzalez. 

Earlier this month, the Serbian Army debuted a new 6.5 Grendel weapon system, developed by Zastava. The rifle, called M17, is a heavily modified variant of the M70 AK family that has been developed by the company for decades. It incorporates a number of significant new features and improvements detailed below. The new rifle comes as part of an infantry upgrade for the Serbian Army which includes new 7.62x54R rifles, optics, helmets, and load-bearing equipment. This development marks the first adoption of the 6.5 Grendel round as standard by a national military force. The new rifle is advertised to be half a kilogram lighter than the previous rifle, although it’s not clear whether that is supposed to be the 7.62x39mm M70 or the 5.56x45mm M21. Reportedly, the rifles and the new caliber have not yet been adopted, but are still in testing.

With Level IV armor rising in availability, calls for “overmatch”, and the increased presence of urban warfare, will designers be able to meet the requirements for future small arms? Forumgoer Poliorcetes raised this question in a discussion at the Military Guns & Ammunition forum:

Being a defense show rather than a firearms industry show, there are a bunch of interesting products to see at AUSA that one might not get a peek at elsewhere. An example of this kind of product is the Modular Interlocking Ballistic Barriers from KF Armory. These barriers are made of a solid proprietary rubber-like material, can absorb impacts up to .50 cal (for the variant rated for that round), and can be assembled into walls and structures in very little time.

In the coming decades, it is likely that one of the biggest challenges facing small arms ammunition designers will be solving the problem of how to deal with advanced body armors. The problem is already percolating to the surface, as Level IV body armor – which is immune to virtually all general issue rounds below .50 caliber – becomes more available and less expensive. Already, an individual can equip themselves with a full set of Level IV plates and a carrier for less than $1,000. As armor improves, it will only get lighter, cheaper, and more resistant to fire.

The effort to deregulate of silencers has reached an important milestone: The Hearing Protection Act has made it out of committee, and been incorporated as part of another larger bill. House Resolution 3668 – the Sportsmen Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act – has been introduced to the House floor with a new subsection, Title XV, Hearing Protection. The new subsection provides for the change in classification of silencers from NFA items to standard firearms such as long guns, just like the HPA. Its text is reproduced at the bottom of this post.

The defense magazine European Security & Defence has published an article detailing for the first time Glock’s Modular Handgun System submission and its Federal-engineered ammunition. The article – part technical overview, part interview, details the recent history of Glock’s MHS submission, the technical characteristics of their Glock 19 MHS and 23 MHS pistols, and the current feeling among Glock executives about their second place finish in the competition. I highly recommend our readers head over the the ES&D website, where they can read the full article for free in text only or PDF form. But, since I don’t want to bury the lede any more than I have, here’s what Glock’s head of International Sales, Richard Flür, had to say on the Glock MHS’s future beyond the US Army:

It’s natural for a manufacturer to want to portray their product in the best possible light. But when the capabilities of your product are technical in nature, it can be tempting to advertise in such a way that less informed consumers might get the wrong idea. AR500Armor makes some very tough steel armor at a reasonable price. Their product is quite solid, really. But their enthusiastic marketing has moved into an area that is frankly misleading. They recently posted a video to their Facebook page that features their level III+ plate being hit by 5.56mm “API”. So far as I am aware, there has never been any “real” armor piercing incendiary 5.56mm issued by any military. When I asked them what the nomenclature of the ammunition was, they deleted my post and blocked me from further comment. When several other users pressed them, they eventually admitted that it was actually a  commercial offering. You might fairly inquire “So what?”. Why would it matter? Because the velocity recorded in their test was only 2,700 fps and the manufacturer of the ammo says that the penetrator is just “an M855 style penetrator”. M855 is easily stopped by all level III steel armor at substantially higher velocity than that seen in this test so the ammunition cannot be considered to be armor piercing either by military designation or by any stretch of the imagination. It is quite literally just a label applied by the ammo maker.  AR500Armor’s III+ plate actually is a very tough plate and has been shown in independent testing to stop actual armor piercing bullets from a 7.62x51mm rifle. Real AP ammo in 5.56mm would have no trouble defeating this plate, though. M995 would slice through like butter. M995 is rare as unicorn farts so it is unlikely that we will see any testing of it, but even the Army’s standard 5.56mm ball cut through their III+ plate so it’s likely that true 5.56mm AP would get through.  To be clear, AR500Armor hasn’t technically lied and they really do make a solid product, but this video seems to be intended to imply to viewers that their level III+ plate is able to stop all 5.56mm ammunition or even that it is able to stop armor piercing 5.56mm. That is most definitely not the case, which is unfortunate, because their III+ plate is otherwise a great plate.