"Thomas J. Paladino Jr." wrote in message
...

"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
...

"Thomas J. Paladino Jr." wrote in message
...

snip


All shooting ranges in the US (and NATO) have stopped using
heavy-metals
in
all of their training rounds (including small arms). DU was never used
as
a
training round to begin with because it is too valuable. The M1 sabot
practice round uses a steel core and behaves exactly as the live round
would.

Not quite. As you noted, lead is also a "heavy metal", and it is still
used
in small arms rounds that are fired during training, albeit in fully
jacketed form.

I actually read recently that all NATO small arms rounds will no longer be
using lead in training, and eventually active service; or at least that it
was being phased out. The so-called 'green bullet'; it uses recycled
tungsten tin or nylon jacketed in copper rather than lead.

Yep, they have been leaning that way--but last I knew the older rounds are
still being fired. Note that most of the ranges mentioned as being closed
were the indoor variety (just about every reserve/Guard armory had an indoor
range, the vast majority of which were closed and underwent remediation to
handle the lead threat). I believe they already have the tungsten penetrator
in service for the 5.56mm (IIRC it is supposed to have better penetration
capability than the regular FMJ), but the 9mm are still firing FMJ's, as are
I believe most of the 7.62mm and .50 cal (that is a LOT of ammo to
replace...). I'd also be surprised if the military double-ought buckshot
loads for the 12 ga shotguns are anything other than lead...

Brooks


This isn't the original artcle that I read, but it came up on a search I
just did and has some good info:

http://www.firearmsid.com/Feature%20...eenBullets.htm