Hey Guys, I was having a discussion with a fellow officer who is also in the guard. He is a Colonel and deals alot with the training of his people.
Anyway, our discussion came around to him wanting to purchase simunition kits for his units M-16’s. I know there are a few military guys that might have some insight into the matter, so I thought I would check with you all.
Are there any good simunition kits out there for the AR or M-16 that we have knowledge of? I did a google search and found some easily but am unsure of the quality of the kit or the reliability of even having a simunition kit for this platform.
So, if there are any that know, please chime in and let me know what you guys think. Thanks in advance.
~D
Side by side I tested the Simunition and the UTM bolt carrier conversion. The other option is the Simunition complete upper that uses the standard Simunition 9mm FX round. The bolt only conversion was much more attractive to us because you use your own rifle and it uses standard magazines.
The 5.56 Simunition conversion won out with us. The UTM was less acurate and had a greater point of aim/impact varience from real rounds. Additionally the UTM left a lot of junk in the barrel. If you are familiar with Simunition 9mm FX you know they leave a lot of plastic in the barrel. Not so with the 5.56 FX. It leaves almost no fouling in the barrel. The only down side is it travels at about 650 fps which requires extra protective measures for those receiving impacts from this round.
I’ve used both. The UTM is just a bolt swap and uses the same magazines. However, Ive had the UTM rounds pack into my barrel which could not be removed and I had to scrape the barrel. The Simunition round is the one I prefer in both the M4 and M9. Pistol mags are the same but you have to use a different rifle mag to feed the rounds and they are larger then a USGI 20 rd.
I have used the “9mm” conversion upper for M4s as well as the 5.56 conversion. With the 5.56 Sim it’s just a BCG swap- everything else remains the same. I still recommend having a set of tranining mags for sim use- I just use blue tape and those mags are only used for Sim work. While the sim bolt won’t let you fire a “live” 5.56, it’s a good safety layer in my opinion.
The 5.56 is way better but there is enough variance in POA/POI for it to be viable to do a quick and dirty zero with the sim at 25 yards or so to ensure proper optic use crossover.
The additional velocity isn’t much of an issue. At first I thought that the 5.56 hurt a little more, but after having recived a few hundred hits (I am usually an aggressor) I now think that the 9mm is actually a little more noticable.
I encourage anytone condicting sim trining to clearly identify the training objective and actions desired. I have seen too many amateurish executins of sim that would have been equally effective if the shooters were running around pointing their fingers at each other and yelling “Bang”. Aggressors must have a clearly defined role and purpose. Trying to throw two elements at each other and expecting any kind of real training to come from it is laughable.