JIT manufacturing? Not live ammo? This sounds like they are talking about storing the components and then them assembling them as needed. This is nuts. It sounds good but is stupid. In a real war you fight for the first 6 months(if that long)with what you have ON HAND. If you run out you are SOL. And they want to risk that with AMMO? The new cases may work great and be better then brass. But fully assembled and stored as live ammo ready to ship and use.

Plastic to Brass. How are they attached? Glue? It seems that fully plastic ammo might be better. The poor grunt would be really screwed if the bases started comming off.

Sounds like the bean counters are going to screw the military again.

I hope this turns out to be more successful than the NATEC plastic-cased ammo (with a brass base).

The ammo didn't cycle that well in dirty chambers and wasn't nearly as accurate as XM193 (didn't try 62gr M855 variant).

Bill Wiese
San Jose CA

Oh my God! Terrorists will be able to sneak ammo on plane! Quick, BAN IT NOW!

Shh!

Quiet, Jim!

Say What????

The art of storing gunpowder in brass cases with copper jacketed lead tops has been used to for 100 years. The shelf life and reliability is unsurpassed. So we are going to change that process?? For what? Why? I will never trust my life to a plastic case glued to a brass bass. It will be years before we know the self life of the glue or the plastic. I see chemical reactions between the powder and the polymer case if not the adhesive that connects the case to the brass base. I foresee the polymer failing and the extractor pulling the case in half or at least bulling the brass base out of the case. Will the neck of the case maintain a constant pressure on the projectile? I can imagine the lack of accuracy. Will a hot chamber melt the case? Will the polymer case maintain it's cylindrical shape when stored in magazines for long periods of time under spring tension?

Just Askin!

What's the point? H&K gave us caseless ammunition for the G11 years ago! Works well, too.

Hmmm...I run plastic ammunition through my shotgun all the time. Why do so many reject concepts out of hand, just because they may have been imperfectly tried before?

Good luck to everyone involved with this project.

@Mark

Sure, no problems with plastic shells if the shells are end to end. Put them in a magazine like that of the Saiga-12 shotgun, and the problem quickly becomes apparent - leave the shotgun loaded and the round under the bolt will deform and jam the weapon.