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Posted: 11/11/2007 4:01:08 PM EDT
| I got 500 hundred rounds at the gun show yesterday and they were bagged in 100 rd packs and marked SS109 Penetrator by the dealer. Today I found another dealer that had the same ammo boxed marked M855 so I got another 500 rounds but these have green tips. They are all stamped WCC dated 06 with another small stamp on the rim. Are these the same rounds? The green looks to be painted and it really dosen't matter I just want to know if the rounds are the same or different. |
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All M855 ammunition is SS109. Not all SS109 ammunition is M855 spec. Countries that switched from another caliber to 5.56mm (SS109), did not always use green paint on the tips (Canada, UK, ect). Countries that switched from 55 gr M193 to 62gr SS109 (USA, Israel) had to be able to tell the difference, hence the green paint. The Ammo Oricle covered the differences between M855 and SS109, I believe. |
Right. I was just pointing that out if he had some M193 to compare it to. [ETA] I guess a more accurate description might be to say that the ogives of M193 and M855 are different, and that M855 has a smaller meplat than M193.  M193 on left, SS109 second from left. |
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It was my understanding that the SS109 is the bullet and the m855 is the entire cartridge. Anyone can put an SS109 bullet into a case and have something similar to a m855 but an true m855 round is the SS109 bullet loaded to military/NATO specs. It is also my understanding the green tips are not painted on until after the round is loaded. So anyone buying a bullet with a green tip should look to see if those were pulled bullets and possibly need resizing. |
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SS-109 is the Belgian desigantion for the 62 gr. projectile/cartridge with steel penetrator in the tip. NATO adopted this projectile/cartridge as a standard item. Other countries manufacture thier own versions based on the SS-109, but they are not SS-109. The US made M-855 is not SS-109, nor does it use an SS-109 projectile. It uses the M-855 projectile, which is essentially a copy of the SS-109. Very early lots of M-855 were manufactured using SS-109 projectiles supplied by FN while the US manufacturers were ironing out the bugs of manufacturing the M-855 projectile. It may seem like a picky point or just a matter of semantics, but it is incorrect to say that the M-855 cartridge uses an SS-109 projectile, unless you are referring to those very early rounds. To quote from the book "History and Development of the M-16 Rifle and it's Cartridge" by the late Dave Hughes (who was regarded as one of the top collectors and authorities on the .223/5.56 cartridge): "Then the US loaded SS-109 bullets from FN at Lake City Army Ammunition Plant into LC 81 cases, calling them XM855. Later, the bullet was produced by LC and called the XM855E1 ball and put into production as the M-855. Other countries followed with their versions of the SS-109 bullet. An example is Canada's XC-77 ball that weighed 61.5 grains." It is clear that the US has designated their version of the SS-109 bullet as the XM855E1 and the Canadians call their version of the SS-109 the XC-77. To paraphrase noted British ammunition expert, Peter Labett, from his book on British 5.56 ammunition development, he states the following: "The NATO trial results of 1980 had led to the adoption by NATO of a 5.56ball round based on the Belgian SS-109." "Modeled on the Belgian SS-109 bullet, the L2A1 bullet was boattailed with a gilding metal envelope with one cannelure." "in the period of it's development, the appropriate authority within NATO wished the SS-109 type cartridge to have a green bullet tip to distinguish it from M-193 ball." "...the original Belgian SS-109 and it's equivalents elsewhere..." Unless it was actually manufactured in Belgium by FN, it is not SS-109. D.D. |
I laugh a little every time I say ogive... or meplat. |
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