Early 5.56mm

[smle2009]

Hi to all,
got these two early British 5.56mm through the post this morning(thanks Mark) which have 'stirred up' up a couple of questions now.
The earliest one RG 81 5.56, has a few differences to the others I have in this series,the most obvious is the 'nickle' primer, RG 82 5.56 and so on have brass primers,the bullet jacket is GM (no magnetic attraction),the rest are GMCS.
The biggest diffrence is the bullet when pulled from the case,it is tiny!
So looking for info as to the hows whys and whens please.
The photo of the bullets are,from right to left, RG 81 5.56,RG 82 5.56,RG L2A2 and a RG L17A2(current)

 

[TonyE]

Early? Early? They're not early:tinysmile_twink_t2:

I have RG 68 and RG 69, but the very first experimental production was 1966 at RG. Very few of those were made and they had an engraved headstamp and a non standard flat based bullet.

Your 1981 round is a copy of the normal (at that time) American M193 load and the "tiny" bullet is the regular M193 bullet for that load. British production of this had started at RG the previous year for some of the M16 rifles we had in service.

The caps are nickel because RG did not have the facility to make Boxer primers in 1981 so imported these from Hirtenberger. RG installed new Finnish machinery in 1982 and brass caps began to appear that year.

Meanwhile the NATO trials in 1978/79 had resulted in the adoption of the new 5.56mm as the future NATO round with a Belgian SS109 bullet. Britain produced their own version of this and it was approved as the Ball L2A1 in 1984. RG had been producing early versions without the steel tip filler since 1980 and you have an example of these in the 1982 case.

Regards
TonyE

 

[smle2009]

Many thanks TonyE,
your'e a star

Tony