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Posted: 1/11/2005 7:23:39 PM EDT
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From an article posted on DEBKA.com reporting on the situation with Syria In this regard, DEBKAfile’s military sources note four important points: 1. 1. It will not take place before President Bush is sworn in for his second term on January 20 or Iraq’s general election ten days later. 2. The Americans will not start out with a large-scale, orderly military offensive, but rather short in-and-out forays; small US and Iraqi special forces units will cross the border and raid bases housing Iraqi guerrillas or buses carrying them to the border. If these brief raids are ineffective, the Americans will upscale the action. 3. The Allawi government will formally request the United States to consign joint Iraqi-US forces for action against Syrian targets, so placing the US operation under the Baghdad government’s aegis. In other words, Iraq will be at war with Syria without issuing a formal declaration. 4. It is fully appreciated in Washington, Baghdad and Jerusalem that intense American military warfare against Syria could provoke a Hizballah backlash against Israel. (First of all, I found it interesting that DEBKA states that Allawi will be in charge of the Iraqi Government AFTER the January 30 elections, but that's for another discussion)  Israel believes that Syria’s option to “activate” Hizballah will widen the war to Israeli targets in lieu of American or Iraqi. Some people scoffed at this report but, Israel is cancelling their contracts with Winchester to supply M193 which may coincide with the switch over by The IDF (and possibly all the activated US Army National Guard units serving in the Iraqi theater) from 1/12 twist barrels to 1/7. Could it be that all future Israeli 5.56 ammunition will be M855 ala Federal’s Lake City plant switch over to M855 production exclusively with no plan to resume production of M193. Side note: It is also believed that Bushmaster received a “GOVERNMENT” contract for 20" 1/7 barrels for the M16 series rifle. Goodbye M193.................................  |
Agreed, and there have been people in the military that have been loudly saying the same thing. But it would take a minimum of a year to get such a factory up and going I would guess, and the money to do so has to come from somewhere. In the short term, it's easier to buy foreign ammo. -Troy |
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My point is, at some point in time the US military will standardized on barrel twist (1/7) and the 55 gr M193 round will be declared obsolete. All production of M193 will cease and only M855, 62 gr ammo will be produced for the Military. Hence no more M193 ammo for us peons. |
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Most of our (meaning: civilian) "M193" comes from two factories: Lake City and IMI. The folks who operate both factories (Federal/ATK and the Israeli government) as well as the people who contract them for ammo (Winchester/Olin) like the money they make from civilian sales of their ammo. It's the best-selling ammo on the civilian rifle market. They'll make it whenever they can. The reason for the short supply right now is because neither plant has excess capacity to make ANYTHING for the civilian market. So the M193 vs M855 issue is moot. -Troy |
| No M193 for us peons? No big deal, just roll your own. Depending on the factories to keep you supplied with decent spec ammo, ( not the PD crap ) is foolish. Like what is going on right now with the scarcity of XM-193, Q3131A, ect. All it takes is a war on a couple of fronts, and mass training of reserve forces stateside to put the brakes on civilian ammo production. It is a similar scenario to WWII, when automobile production for civilians was halted to concentrate on the war effort. |
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I posed much the same question (but without all the political intrigue) in this thread but it didnt get much traction.... Then I see these very interesting facts above
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So, I gotta ask a couple questions: Why don't other manufacturers (Remington?) jump in and make Lake City quality M193? How does Federal American Eagle 55gr 223 compare to M193? I see it listed on the Ammo_PriceList, but little mention is made of it in the Ammo Oracle. |
Simple: they don't want to spend $40M to buy the machines needed to make it, nor the money to house and run it, when they see no assurance that they'll sell enough ammo in the long run to make a profit. The machines currently used can't make ammo that would pass Mil-Spec. Sealant is the main issue, but crimping and brass quality are also issues. Plus, the domestic companies have machines that are designed for much lower volume production, and they need every available minute of those machine's time to make the ammo they are already making. Our markets, in nearly every facet, must be EFFICIENT. Competition forces this. But when you are efficient, that also means you have very little surge capacity. Right now, we have a surge in demand, but no surge capacity in production.
It compares poorly. It's not "5.56", it's ".223", meaning commercial, and meaning it is loaded about 200 fps slower than M193. Though a few recent batches used LC brass, the older stuff and the most recent batches use the HORRIBLE "FC .223" brass. This stuff should NOT be reloaded, and many times the primer pocket will expand so much that reloading is impossible anyway; the primers will just fall out. It's generally good for plinking and such, but it isn't M193. -Troy |
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When M193 retails for $0.17 per round, the margins are probably not terrific. Especially when you can sell some sucker 300 RUM rounds for $2 each. It would be somewhat risky to invest money to increase capacity, because you never know when a few hundred million rounds of surplus will show up and flood the market. |
BH 55gr reman. is loaded for maximum accuracy. It's slower than XM193. At 225yds, the whited out area is where 55gr BH struck with the rear sight set at 8/3 plus 2. You will need to rezero. Without having an A2 rear sight in front of me, I figure a 6MOA difference between the two.  For (non)fragmentation info see www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=3&f=16&t=215996 |
I frankly don't care WHERE its made... as long as it is M193 spec (not just 5.56 NATO). So, what IS the next best thing to M193 (assuming Fed XM193 and Win Q3131A are gone for now)???? |
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The 2004 NDIA Small Arms Symposium had a lot of discussion of the problem with small arms ammo production base disappearing. They had a chart showing how they had gone from around 18 small arms ammo plants in WWII down to 1 in 2004. The good news is that almost all of the solutions they recommended involved supporting the civilian/commercial industry by establishing liasons and occasional contracts to maintain surge capacity. At the same time, they also proposed allowing commercial enterprises to lease government ordnance facilities for a set-term provided they agree to maintain a certain production capacity as terms of the lease. During low-government need the facilities could sell excess production commercially. They also specifically mentioned gun control as a problem that was eroding the small arms production base in the U.S. By the way, Debka is hardly a reliable source for anything. Just follow them for a year or so and you'll figure that out pretty quick. |
+1  Besides, twist rate doesn't effect how the bullet performs on a live target. The twist rate only reflects how the bullet fired out of it will be stabilized. All bullets (FMJ) will "tumble" when they strike a denser medium (like a person). The 1/12 won't help a bullet do this. It would only help the heavier/longer projectiles to become less stable in flight, rendering them less accurate. I don't care if you have a 50 BMG. If you can't hit anything with it, it is worthless. I would rather have a 22 long rifle that I can shoot a bad guy everytime then a 30-06 that I miss every shot with. How about asking for a more effective bullet be issued to our troops? Something like an 75 gr OTM?  edited because I can't spell |
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