This week on Tactical Rifleman I wanted to talk about the semi-new rifle round that the US Army is fielding. For decades, the US military has been issuing the M855 “Green Tip” as the standard military rifle round.
While NOT an “Armor Piercing” round, it does very well against barriers, such as car doors, windshields, and thin walls. However, that is not what it was designed for.
Back in the 70s, the military was using the 55 grain M193. This was a bullet built around the M-16 and was a great success. It was designed to yaw & tumble as soon as it hit a soft target; which resulted in great wound tracks and lots of damage. Good for us; bad for the bad guys.
Fast forward to the 80s, and the US Army was adopting the M-249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), which allowed infantry squads to have an organic weapon capable of delivering effect fire well beyond 300 meters. The problem, however, was they were not getting the accuracy at distance that the SAW contract required. Fix? They needed a longer bullet, but without adding much weight. Answer… design a longer bullet; by removing the lead in the front half of the jacket and replacing it with steel (steel is lighter than lead), they were able to keep the weight down to a slight increase to 62 grains. Hence, the birth of the “Green Tip.” Future M-16A2s would be built around this “new” round.
However, the M855 “Green Tip” does not yaw/tumble as well as the old M193, and often would just “ice pick” through bad guys, depending on range to target. It also wasn’t the most accurate bullet available.
Back during one of my last deployments, in Mosul, the Varsity Team was issuing us “Brown Tip” bullets, that had a solid copper/brass slug, similar to Barnes Triple Shock. This stuff was supposed to have awesome terminal performance with the human body and was very accurate. If you fired a 5 shot group; four would be touching and one would be wat two inches out. Crazy right? Well, our snipers figured out, by using a bottle of Witch Hassel from the PX, that if you removed the brown paint they all group perfect. It was the random paint thickness throwing off the random bullet. Back to our story.
Fast forward to 2010ish, and there was a lot of pressure to find a “new” bullet that was “Lead Free.” Bitch if you want, but many military installations are having firing ranges shut down due to too much lead in the berms (leaking into ground water). The current political environment, like them or not, was pushing for cleaner performance. Well, thought the guys at the ammo test lab, let’s check the block and ALSO find a round that performed better in the Human Body. They immediately started looking at the same type of bullets that we were running overseas.
The problem with Expanding bullets is the little Geneva Convention and “Rules of Land Warfare” thing. While we could shoot “terrorists” or a “non-uniformed” enemy with hollow points, in modern warfare you are not supposed to use expanding bullets.
The solution is adding a steel Arrow point to the open cavity. No hollow point, and we still get better barrier penetration. Hence, the birth of the M855A1.
I like this round. It is more accurate. It has a better gun powder, with a flash suppressant (less fire ball). It is built to match the trajectory of the M855, but with the shorter M4s. It penetrates barriers much better. However, the best part and my favorite part… this puppy performs AWESOME inside the human body throughout it’s whole usable trajectory. When it hits tissue, the drag separates the steel tip from the copper tail. The steel arrow point continues straight through (not good for home defense). However, once the steel tip has left, the copper tail now has its open tip exposed, and that puppy expands with massive force, fragmenting in the process. It’s a beautiful thing.
Thanks for watching, TR
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Always love the holier than thou self appointed experts. Really liked that Redneck comment. Extremely unprofessional!
Excellent, brief, concise and you can't argue with those nasty little wound channels caused by the new ammo type.
Why do the videos of the 5.56 testing against ballistic gel never show with the layers of clothing the way they do with hand gun rounds? Wouldn't that be more accurate? Particularly when comparing rounds for Home Defense?
M318 SOST was better. Fight me
62/70 grain TSX if u cant find m855a1 or mk318. A few 40rd Pmags with any of these might be a good thing tonhave around. For day to day putting down stray dogs or keeping a few heads down m855 cant be beat
Where can you get this affordably? The best price I can find is $1.29 for 1000 rounds.
M855A1 operates at a higher camber pressure also.
I desperately wish that ammunition manufacturers would put more effort into making good 5.56 NATO pressure 77 grain ammunition like MK262, obviously M855a1 will be unobtanium for the foreseeable future, but come on let's make cheaper 77gr
Everyone talks about m855 not performing better than m193 at close ranges… idk man that m855 looks more devistating to me
Ok. Now show what the 55 grain M193 5.56 round does in gelatin. The results will be much more impressive.
I just find led just bring heavier then the bronze copper mix a big factor for me. I feel it keeps that momentum going further. Shot both from my hipster Aug a3 and got much better results at 200m
Enjoying your content. Direct, clear, and useful information. Thank you!
Where can i find some m855a1 rounds ?
I really like when special forces soldiers make videos like this. You know you aren’t getting BS’d
M855A1 sounds like a very, very nasty thing that nobody wants anywhere near them. It's game over when the US Military can legally shoot this shit. I'm an aussie but I'm not being negative towards the US Military for shooting stuff like this. Hell. Who's going to stop the Iranians or the Chinese Military from shooting nasty bullets. I'd much rather trust our allies to use fragmenting ammo on a military op than any adversaries. God Bless our US Allies on any adventures they find themselves on.
It's not NEAT that you can "turn it". 🤣 It's terrifying. I don't want any "play" on ANY part of ANY bullet I am firing. That gives more room for failure. A bullet needs to be solid. No part of it should be able to move up, down, in, out, or around! It's scratching ramps because the steel tip is MOVING and SHIFTING while it's being shipped, unloaded from box, dumped on table, loaded into mag, chambered, then shot from firearm. This isn't the US Military finding a better ammunition; this is BIDEN'S MILITARY finding a CHEEPER AMMUNITION.
At close range the m855 result looks as good if not better than m855a1, however the jawing and fragmenting is severely lowered (or pushed further back into the length of the bullet traveling through flesh) the lower the velocity, which leads to said wounding effects stopping at around 150-250yards depending on velocity (barrel length). Where m855a1s very early fragmentation continues well past 150-250yards through the same barrel lengths, and allows the bullet to deal considerably more damage against 'thinner' body parts (legs, arms, shoulder, neck) than the m855. Interms of wounding capabilities, m855a1 is a strict and massive upgrade over the m855 at all velocities (and therefore ranges) except, potentially at the close ranges as shown in this test.
As much as I love m855a1, I live in the suburbs so it's just 7.62×39 hp for me
Look at the ballistic gel damage from the M855A1. See the big expansion chamber about 6-7 inches in?
I’m here to testify that in reality, that big cavity is usually only an inch or two below the skin. Sometimes, the entry hole looks like a blown out exit wound. But that penetrator sure does zip right through leaving a tiny exit hole. Weird physics.
M249
Looks to me the green tip did more damage. If it's not broken don't fix it
Green tip 556 n a blic 2
These tests are interesting but what is missing on almost every ballistics test on YouTube is comparisons at range, 100 yards, 200, 300 etc. Performance can change allot, and a round that seems unimpressive at 25 yards suddenly can look fantastic compared to others at 400 yards. I believe that is something you would see from M855a1 also, consistent larger wound cavities where standard m855 isn't going to have the fragmentation or secondary wound cavity, but instead a clean strait wound channel in and out, still maintaining decent penetration at distance but minimal tissue damage.
Those are for piercing armor. They are great on just flesh.
Can you do a ballistics test on the Hornady BLACK 62gr 5.56 🙏
I didn't know Norm was into firearms
Can y’all imagine getting hit by one of those
A 9 mm can penetrate both car doors a green tip is going to definitely do more than penetrate car doors my dude
Better than listening to the fbi talk about it. Thanks brother
Thanks for this comparison; the time, effort, and expense to produce it. Sure looks like similar terminal behavior. I'll tell you what: if a conflict were to break out and I were called to battle, I'd use either one😁. I'm not too picky about it, whichever is closest to my rifle. Thanks again!
The copper core and the steel arrow tip are loosely held by the copper jacket and when the jacket separates the core and tip also separate making a LOT of fragments
Holy cow, that thing almost acted like a hollow point. nasty round. deffinately wouldn't want to get hit by one.
Green tip is crap. Waits 7 inches to do anything, that’s already thru a skinny dude.
Can I get some of this ammo without a licence?
Hey man I love the content. You honestly giving me Norm Macdonald vibes, like I’m hoping there’s a punch line at the end of the video 😂
Thanks for the minimum jibber-jabber. Well done video.
Green tip is not good ammo dude 😂😂😂 it’s trash 🗑 but if it’s all you got better then nothing
I have been told that Win M855 62gr is weak walled in the casing? I can't confirm it but there are gun people out there who will claim this to be true. THANK YOU
The A1 did 2 inch target at 600 yard
Thank you so much for using two separate blocks. When folks are testing different ammunition on YT my biggest complaint is that they don't use a different block for each type of ammo.
The 855 was made to pen and old (now) Russian steel helmet at 300 or 500m.
People underestimate the performance of M855 especially when you add the elasticity and the bones and different structures of the human body. When that projectile starts to yaw and tumble the results are devastating. Only thing variable is the rifle and twist your using will vary the yaw. Personally I prefer the MK318 and MK318NL to M855 and M855A1
Alpha 1 is roughhhhhh on feed ramps.