Going to sound a little odd, but got into a debate last night at work about the makeup of the M855 round. Specific question is:
What type of steel is the penetrator in the bullet made of? Or is it an alloy?
Searched it and only found “steel” as the answer. Curiosity on my part.
All kinds of steel are alloys. Iron+Carbon is the minimum for steel. SS109 penetrators are “normal” steel. It is not specially hardened and I am very sure it is not stainless.
The steel is the size of a sharpened pencil lead. Just a teeny conical piece, doubtful it matters what quality steel it is
Right, mistake of the use of “alloy.” Meant like a steel tungsten alloy or something.
Thanks for the responses.
I believe that it uses a tungsten steel alloy. I can’t remember the definitive source for that.
SS109 uses a mild steel, (A36), penetrator wrapped around a tungsten core.
FN briefly offered a variant of the SS109 that used a hardened steel insert: the P112. In addition, they offered the L102 tracer, which was shorter than the L110.