That's the stuff that one of the potential M4 replacements uses. It's supposed to not heat up much when fired, but obviously I've never tried it. They sure are proud of it.
Sounds like a bunch of snake oil. “Prevents wear on the firearm by negating heat transfer from the cartridges” what?? All these pictures of CNC stations and robot arms like they make each round individually. It looks an awful lot like a company putting on a front to get private investors or .gov investments. They’re also catering to “civilian long range shooters”. I can’t say that that’s a good crowd to cater to. You can’t reload the polymer cases, you’re just buying factory match grade ammo that you can’t tailor to your rifle.
I may be wrong, but I don’t think LE is gonna want to throw a small fortune out of their tight budgets to purchase some fancy pants new ammo, esp when their current stash is proven and affordable.
I could see the DOD being a possible customer, but I doubt this company can produce the millions, if not billions of rounds the DOD procures every year from big dogs like Federal and Remington. And their miraculous weight saving claims aren’t as impressive as they seem. They claim their stuff is 30% lighter than brass case. So your average dude in the military gets on average 6 magazines and the ammo to fill them. That’s at least Marine Corps policy, but I know that gets bent. I’ve seen some grunts around Marjah with 8-9 magazines. But, let’s say 6 30 round mags, loaded with standard 55gr fmj bullets. Each loaded round weighs roughly 190 grains. Multiply that by 180 rounds and divide by 7000 grains to a pound and you get a whopping 4.88 pounds. These new polymer bullets would weigh in at 3.41 pounds for a full battle load. I don’t see anyone buying into that.
I just don’t see the point, nor do I see the end goal as feasible.
I may be wrong, but I don’t think LE is gonna want to throw a small fortune out of their tight budgets to purchase some fancy pants new ammo, esp when their current stash is proven and affordable.
I could see the DOD being a possible customer, but I doubt this company can produce the millions, if not billions of rounds the DOD procures every year from big dogs like Federal and Remington. And their miraculous weight saving claims aren’t as impressive as they seem. They claim their stuff is 30% lighter than brass case. So your average dude in the military gets on average 6 magazines and the ammo to fill them. That’s at least Marine Corps policy, but I know that gets bent. I’ve seen some grunts around Marjah with 8-9 magazines. But, let’s say 6 30 round mags, loaded with standard 55gr fmj bullets. Each loaded round weighs roughly 190 grains. Multiply that by 180 rounds and divide by 7000 grains to a pound and you get a whopping 4.88 pounds. These new polymer bullets would weigh in at 3.41 pounds for a full battle load. I don’t see anyone buying into that.
I just don’t see the point, nor do I see the end goal as feasible.
Weight savings is never about individual warfighters, it's about how much you can get on a transport. If, f'rinstance, you can get 100,000 rounds of M855 ball on a pallet, that's roughly 3,000lbs. If the poly ammo weighs 30% less, you can get almost 150,000 rounds on that same pallet, or you can still ship the same 100,000 rounds but only have to move 2,100lbs of ammo.
That said, I think poly ammo is an answer that's desperately searching for a question. It might go somewhere, but it seems more likely to end up in the "well, that was a neat idea" pile with caseless ammo.
Years ago I bought some polymer cased 5.56 ammo. It was lightweight, it fed into the chamber well and all went bang. The problem was the case head separation. Every other round would extract only the case head and leave the body stuck in the chamber.
Maybe these guys have solved that problem.
Maybe these guys have solved that problem.
Time to stop trying to solve the cartridge casing problem and start trying to solve the primer shortage problem.
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I still have several boxes of that polymer-cased 5.56mm...NATEC PCA-Spectrum. Most of what I have is loaded with 69gr match bullets. I, too, had some issues with case head separation though not as much as @EKing did.
As a matter of fact, I just shot a box of it several months ago thru a friend's AR with a FRT installed. All 30 rounds worked perfectly.
Like some other things (EVs for example), I'm not opposed to it if it works and it's practical. I don't care what the case is made of as long as it works and it's available at a competitive price.
As a matter of fact, I just shot a box of it several months ago thru a friend's AR with a FRT installed. All 30 rounds worked perfectly.
Like some other things (EVs for example), I'm not opposed to it if it works and it's practical. I don't care what the case is made of as long as it works and it's available at a competitive price.
Pretty sure I've seen several tests with "match bullet" versions of this that always seem to group as well as ball ammo.
"The company's 75 employees have more than 200 years of combined military service...". Yeah, that's 2 years 8 months a piece there chet. It reminds me of the Countersniper scopes of a decade ago with their 'beryllium argon hydrogen monkey poop lens coatings'. Snake oil at its finest.
"The company's 75 employees have more than 200 years of combined military service...". Yeah, that's 2 years 8 months a piece there chet. It reminds me of the Countersniper scopes of a decade ago with their 'beryllium argon hydrogen monkey poop lens coatings'. Snake oil at its finest.
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It works pretty well...biggest benefit is weight savings. I never believed the heat transfer stuff-kinda gimmicky, but uniform burn, accuracy, repeatability really is a thing with this ammo. The cases are all uniform. Case head separation has been reduced but still may be a thing, I'll have to ask. I know some dudes there and some who've left, and I've shot it a few times at ranges; I had no issues with it.
My thing is the cartridge for the Army that's in the ad...I don't think it will be successful along with the gun. Same with the Textron gun and it's Case Telescoped ammunition. I think the Sig is gonna be it; it's the closest thing to an M4 and traditional cartridge IMHO. In the end, it's soldiers shooting these in tests and with todays technology and the balls some of these fellas have, they have no issue telling someone if their stuff is junk.
My thing is the cartridge for the Army that's in the ad...I don't think it will be successful along with the gun. Same with the Textron gun and it's Case Telescoped ammunition. I think the Sig is gonna be it; it's the closest thing to an M4 and traditional cartridge IMHO. In the end, it's soldiers shooting these in tests and with todays technology and the balls some of these fellas have, they have no issue telling someone if their stuff is junk.
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