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Army working on ‘green’ slugs

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Army ammunition officials hope to field a new, environmentally friendly 5.56mm bullet this summer.

“One of our big efforts right now is to develop green ammunition,” Lt. Col. Jeff Woods, product manager for Small Caliber Ammunition, said at the National Defense Industry Association’s International Infantry & Joint Services Small Arms Systems Symposium.

The Army began working on its lead-free bullet program in the late 1990s to help reduce the tons of environmentally harmful lead being shot into the soil of training ranges across the country.

The first attempt featured a tungsten alloy that didn’t perform well and proved to be almost as harmful to the environment as lead, Woods said.

The new M855A1 lead-free slug will be made of a bismuth alloy that works much better and is designed to work specifically with the M4 carbine, he said. It will provide more “consistent performance” than the current M855 round and perform better against hard targets, Woods said. It will also use a propellant that reduces muzzle flash. It’s not a true “green ammunition” yet because there will still be trace amounts of lead in the primer, Woods said, adding that there is an effort to remove all lead from the cartridge in the future.

“It’s good for the environment,” Woods said, estimating a result of “2,000 metric tons [of lead] per year not going into the environment once this round replaces the M855.”

The plan is to start issuing the first of 20 million of the M855A1 lead-free slug cartridges in August, Woods said.