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British on board for ATK SOST Ammuntion...

KevinB

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A welcome change...

Paging Canada  ;)
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/06/military_uk_new_bullet_060610w/

U.K. joins Army, Corps in hunt for new bullet

By Andrew Chuter - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Jun 6, 2010 14:43:19 EDT

LONDON — Britain has joined a search for a better-performing 5.56mm bullet, contracting with supplier BAE Systems, which intends to deliver 1 million rounds of a new ammunition to the Ministry of Defence for testing by year’s end.

The high-performance ammunition offers better range and lethality, and has the bonus of being lead-free, making it environmentally friendly for use during training exercises.

The British are following in the footsteps of the Pentagon, which is now starting to field deadlier ammunition amid concerns that the NATO-standard SS109 bullet — known as the M855 in U.S. military service — is not effective against adversaries such as the Taliban at anything but short range.

In March, Army Times reported U.S. troops’ complaints that the M855 was ineffective against “barriers such as car windshields and often travels right through unarmored insurgents with less than lethal effects.”

British troops use the 5.56mm rounds in SA80A2 assault rifles and light machine guns.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Defence purchased more than 400 7.62mm rifles from U.S. company Law Enforcement International as an urgent operational requirement to allow troops to fight Taliban insurgents at longer ranges than the standard 5.56mm weapon.

Yet both BAE and MoD spokesmen denied that their work on a new round is related to the current war.

A BAE spokesman said the development of its new round is not related to “operations in Afghanistan, although it does make progression of development at a good speed more desirable.”

A company executive said the round will offer “improved lethality against unprotected targets and improved effectiveness against light vehicle targets.”

One industry executive said the standard round would likely become increasingly ineffective if used against conventional troops wearing body armor.

An MoD spokesman said the BAE work was nothing to do with Afghanistan and was part of a continuous ongoing development program for small-arms ammunition.

“We work closely with industry to ensure there is a continuous process of improving and upgrading our equipment. Our troops in Afghanistan are provided with a range of weapons they can use when fighting the Taliban.”

The MoD is having the new ammunition subjected to detailed independent analysis by defense research company QinetiQ.

BAE, which has a 15-year contract with the MoD to supply the bulk of its munitions requirements under a deal known as the Munitions Acquisition Supply Solution, is spending 83 million pounds ($121 million) to expand and modernize its Radway Green, England, small-arms ammunition plant. The refurbished plant will be able to produce more than 300 million rounds of small-arms ammunition a year.

Current annual production is around 200 million rounds split roughly 70-30 in favor of 5.56mm over 7.62mm. The company says it will switch all of its 5.56mm production over to the new round if the high-performance ammunition is adopted by the armed forcers here.

The new technology replaces the traditional steel tip and lead core with a single steel core, while retaining the gilding metal envelope.

Work is currently being undertaken by BAE to produce the new round. A low-rate production batch of 1 million rounds is scheduled for delivery to the MoD around the end of the year.

The spokesman said that if development of the new 5.56mm round is successful, the company would consider undertaking similar work for its 7.62mm ammunition.

In the meantime, the new development closes the performance gap between the two calibers while retaining the benefits of the smaller, lighter 5.56mm weapon, he said.


 
Wait, hold on... You say that the Brits are on-track for SOST, but SOST ala USMC is a conventional lead-core gilded-metal jacket bullet... The article describes the Brit round as being a steel-core lead-free bullet.

Completely steel-core round? How does this affect bullet weight and the overall performance? I'm sure you could almost sell this one on the "green" appeal alone here in Canada if the performance gains were significant.
 
The high-performance ammunition offers better range and lethality, and has the bonus of being lead-free, making it environmentally friendly for use during training exercises.

Asking cause I honestly don't know, but the "environmentally friendly" thing sounds like BS. Are lead bullets THAT much of an issue?
 
There is some belief it more akin to Tungsten than steel with a reversed drawn bullet jacket over it. The TOTM 77gr USMC original Barrier Blind Round was lead free, not sure what is in it, but it was the predecessor to the SOST round. 

And the TOTM had a bonded jacket - and from the data I have seen a better round than the SOST, but the trajectory did not track with the ACOG's - which are in both USSOCOM and the USMC, so it was refined.


 
Hmmm copper over steel core, gee where have I heard that before....Sounds like early 1950's calling with heavy Russian accent.

Steel is less dense per volume than lead, so unless they increase the length of the bullet that means a lighter bullet. An increase in length is restricted by the magzine, which means the bullet takes up more of the case, which means they will have to muck with the powder type and weight to get the desired result. Should be interesting. I wonder if the Russians will reverse engineer it and sell a copy on the market?
 
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