US Army Considers Adopting an Interim Battle Rifle in 7.62NATO: eventually adopt 6.5

[LRRPF52]

It started out as a combination of addressing excessive yaw in flight from tungsten core projectiles they experimented with, and an environmentally-friendly effort to appease increasing pressure from that crowd, since several Army training areas were being threatened with closure by States (MA) that had excessively restrictive policies that the Federal government would have to abide by. This program entered Phase II after the tungsten core key-holing issues, as well as the realization that tungsten might even be worse than lead. All the lead agencies met for Phase II to address how they would move forward with addressing these challenges with 5.56 NATO ammunition.

Project Manager for Maneuver Ammunition Systems (PM-MAS), the Armaments Research, Development, and Engineering Center (ARDEC), the Army Research Lab (ARL), the US Army Infantry Center (USAIC), the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and contractors supporting ammunition design and production like Alliant Tech Systems (ATK) and General Dynamics – St. Mark’s Powder (GD-SMP). (The Marine Corps Combat Development Command was also a participant in this effort, though they were not present at the initial meeting.)

The program leads and contractors were laying out the scope of the effort when the Infantry Center rep spoke up, and said, basically: “Look, we’re in the middle of a war. No one gives a shit about being environmentally friendly right now. Can’t you give us something better, instead?” The SOCOM rep echoed the same sentiment.

Excerpt From: Glenn Dean. “In Search of Lethality: Green Ammo and the M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round.” iBooks.

From this impetus was M855A1 born.