I want someone to confirm what I'm thinking.  I was watching ? History or TLC and they were talking about the 'new' 5.56 tungsten/nylon training ammo the military is using.  These do not fragment.  Correct?  Just curious.  

Don't think the new "green" environ-friendly round is Tungsten/nylon, tungsten tin alloy is what I've seen reference too for the training/practice round that is lead free.

It's tungsten/tin powder bonded together with nylon.  It does fragment, just not as well as standard M855.  It also costs 2x as much as M855.

The steel penetrator is still there, they just replaced the lead with the alloy.

"It also costs 2x as much as M855."
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Right now the ammunition costs about 2 cents per round more than what the Army spends on lead ammunition, but once it is manufactured in mass the price tag will be one to five cents less per round than the lead ammo.


"It does fragment, just not as well as standard M855."

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The Alaska Army National Guard fired more than 5,000 tungsten bullets during its annual qualifying exercises in August 1998 and reported no difference in the performance of the rounds. Tests conducted by the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Ind., also found the projectile was even slightly more accurate than standard lead-core ammunition at more distant targets.

This is the new round for the military. Training and warfare. The Tungsten-Tin core is a drop in replacement for lead. The nice thing is, that they can change the ratio of tungsten/tin/nylon to fit the application.

Just remember that most of the world's tungsten comes from CHINA, and that they can cut us off, should they want to.  Not too smart allowing a probable future opponent the ability to cripple your service rifle ammo production...

Sources

Tungsten is retrieved from the ore minerals scheelite (CaWO4, calcium tungstate) and wolframite ((Fe,Mn)WO4, iron-manganese tungstate). Of the world’s tungsten reserves, over 90% are outside the United States. Of these resources, nearly half are found in China, and Canada and Russia also have large reserves. About one-third of the U.S. imports of tungsten are from China, Russia provides about 25%, and a variety of other nations provide the rest. A significant amount of tungsten is recovered through recycling of scrap tungsten products. Recycled tungsten in the US accounts for nearly one-third of the tungsten consumed. Major production of tungsten concentrates come from Austria, Bolivia, Canada, China, Portugal, and Russia.

[blue]Tungsten is the only material used to make light bulb filaments[/blue].

Thanks for the numbers. I didn't know the exact numbers, and this clears it up.

What, you mean planning for and being ready for strategic national defense is more important than worrying about alleged lead contamination? Who says the liberal enviro-nazis aren't important or to be taken seriously, after all who else would rather seek to jeopardize the ability of the US to defend itself because of some alleged "contamination" from lead bullets?[rolleyes]