Encyclopedia > Full metal jacket bullet

  Article Content

Full metal jacket bullet

A Full Metal Jacket bullet (or FMJ) is a bullet that is encased in a copper-coated steel or gilding metal jacket, designed to stop the bullet from fragmenting within its target. The jacket prevents deformation of the bullet in the barrel or feed mechanism, from dirt overpressures or damage outside the gun. This reduces misfires. The jacket also prevents fragmentation, and the coating helps prevent damage to the gun barrel.

FMJ ammunition was introduced for ostensibly humanitarian reasons, as the Geneva Conventions prohibit the use of expanding or fragmenting bullets in warfare.

They have the advantage in warfare that they often injure their target rather than kill outright, creating a casualty that needs to be cared for, rather than a corpse. In this way, FMJ bullets can be more effective at consuming an enemy's resources than fragmenting bullets, yet the outcome of the victim is usually the same, death. Furthermore, because the bullet does not expand, FMJ bullets are much more effective at armor-piercing[?] than hollow point bullets.

Full Metal Jacket, a film by Stanley Kubrick, is named after FMJ ammunition.

External links:



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Thomas a Kempis

... be supplemented by counsels for integrity, bravery and constancy in the struggle of daily existence to which the vast mass of mankind, who can not be recluses, are ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 44.9 ms