Story Time With Luke: XM855 and Steel Wool

With all the recent hubub about XM855 ammo (more about that in Episode 121), I thought about what happened a few years ago after a friend of mine bought his first AR-15.

I recieved a text message from my friend after he had purchased some XM855 so he could take his new AR to the range for the first time. He asked it he was allowed to shoot the XM855 at the local range, because they don’t allow “Armor Piercing” ammo.

I wasn’t sure what the answer was, but we talked back and forth for a while about what armor piercing ammoo was, and that the XM855 ammo wasn’t considered armor piercing, so he should be good to go shooting it at the range.

A couple days later we met up and while BSing, I asked him about how it went at the range with the XM855 ammo, and he made me bust out laughing. He was afraid that someone might see the green tip ammo and freak out, so the night before the range trip he sat down with all of his ammo (400 rounds) and rubbed all of the green tips off with steel wool.

This was several years ago during the days of plenty, so a stop to WalMart would have set him up with a bunch of regular FMJ ammo, but this guy is dedicated…