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Posted: 12/19/2007 2:47:19 PM EDT
| when you look at the head stamp for m855 ball from any given year there are frequently what appear to be a series of dots included in the head stamp. now I never thoght much about it until I noticed that even in the same year there may be a number of variations of these dot patterns around the head stamp. what do these mean? |
crimp marks? I am lost. |
NATO Cross? 
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The dots are used to identify which station the case was made on the high-speed, rotary manufacturing machines used at Lake City. This machine was the result of a program called "SCAMP" dating from the early 1970's. SCAMP stands for "Small Caliber Ammunition Modernization Program". The dots are used in what is called the "octal numbering system". There are 24 seperate, but identical stations on the loading machine. Each one is identified by a number, from 1 to 24. The combination of dots identify which station. Each dot has anumber value depending on where it is located in the headstamp. The dots are valued like this: (approximate clock face orientation) 3 o'clock = 4 5 o'clock = 8 6 o'clock = 16 8 o'clock = 1 10 o'clock = 2 Combinations of these numbers can represent any number from 0 to 31, but only combinations up to 24 are used. Sometimes it looks like all 5 dots are used, but this is from "ghost" impressions. The actual dots to be counted are the ones that are "deep". This loading mahinery was sold to several different countries, so you might see the SCAMP markings on other than US made ammo. Israel is one that uses this machinery a lot. Originally they used actual numbers in place of the dots, but this was too expensive to keep replacing the marking bunters with the harder to manufacture numbers, so they went back to the original dot system. In addition to 5.56, I've seen a lot of Israeli .45 ACP with SCAMP markings as well... D.D. |
There are too many variations in that legnth of time. I would use box lot number as one zero. Once I have fired all the ammo with xXXX identical lot number, then I buy another 1k and zero for that lot. I want ammo off the same machine from the same day. |
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It's all off of the same machine, just different stations. According to my reference material, the reason the octal numbering system was used was to identify which press station was used during the forming of the case itself, not the actual loading operation. Should a lot of ammunition be discovered to have flaws in the brass cases during acceptance testing before issue, then the dots would identify which press station to look at so they could troubleshoot the flaw. Sorting your ammunition by the SCAMP code will not give you any benefit. By the way, the SCAMP machines can produce up to 1,200 loaded rounds per minute. D.D. |
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I like the OLDER head stamp on Lake City M855/M856 like 89 Easy to read and simple! Back in 2001 I bought some WINCHESTER M855 that came on LINKS/Belt There was a LC M856 tracer round every 4th The WIN BRASS DOESNT have The NATO circle/cross HEADSTAMP? The stuff was Very Hot also compared to IMI & LC M855 |
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