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Are USAF pilots issued hollowpoint ammuniton, ball, or both?

Thanks.

I'd be surprised if it's not ball. LOAC and all....
(That's for combat overseas, where LOAC applies. For example, when not deployed OSI uses hollow points in the M11, but has to switch to ball ammo in the AOR)

Ball. I believe hollow point is against LOAC...something about maiming.

Coach

Yup, ball in theater. Except for that DoS Security guy I worked with.

_________________
\"Those who hammer their guns into plows
will plow for those who do not.\"
- Thomas Jefferson

Ball ammo only, but not because of LOAC. It's due to the Declaration III of the Hague Convention of 1899, which prohibits bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body.

And it applies to the entire military, not just aircrew. If OSI uses them (I can check tomorrow, I work with a former agent), it would be because they are considered law enforcement.

Cheers! M2

ALL STATESIDE MILITARY POLICE CAN NOW USE HOLLOW POINT AMMO SINCE SOMETIME LAST SPRING

The US Air Force has for some time issued Federal jacketed hollowpoint 9mm for the Berettas carded by Air Police and base security personnel. Olin has long since been producing a 185-grain P .45 ACP JHP for Special Operations Command (SOCOM). Domestic agencies assisting military assets in Afghanistan and Iraq in their areas of expertise (interrogation, evidence gathering and analysis) have reportedly been involved in many defensive firefights with their duty weapons, and their American duty handgun loads in jacketed hollowpoint configuration have worked as well there as they do on American streets.

Again, it may be allowed in law enforcement roles; but it is definitely not allowed for use in combat by conventional forces.

True

Actually US Military forces are issued several variants of expanding and/or fragmenting small arms ammunition for general combat use.

A partial list:

M193 5.56mm Ball
M855 5.56mm Green tip Ball
Mk262 Mod 1 5.56mm OTM (standard issue for Mk18 SPR)
5.56mm "Optimized" Brown tip SCHP (standard issue for Mk12 CQB)
Mk318 Mod 0 SOST (USMC's standard issue)
M855A1 5.56mm EPR (US Army's new M4/M16/M249 standard issue)
M852 7.62mm OTM
M118LR 7.62mm OTM
M80 7.62mm Ball (some versions)

The M882 9mm ball cartridge is one of the very few modern US small arms rounds that doesn't have enhanced wounding effects.

BUT THEY ARE NOT HOLLOW POINTS.
THE M855A1 round is the new \"green ammo\"its a bismuth and tin alloy core with a steet tip.
The Marines are useing a open tip round MK318 IT IS A LEAD CORE ROUND WITH A OPEN TIP IN THE COPPER JACKET BUT ITS STILL CALLED A BALL ROUND

its a bismuth and tin alloy core with a STEEL tip

The Mk318 SOST OTM is an almost exact copy of the civilian Federal Trophy Bonded Bear Claw hunting round. It has been designed since day one to expand in soft tissue. It's a hunting bullet. DoD has classified it as an Open Tip Match (OTM) round.

The 5.56mm Optimized/Brown Tip round is a 70gr Barnes TSX solid copper hollowpoint, which was also designed from day 1 for controlled expansion in soft tissue, as it is also a hunting round.

The M855A1 round is designed to fragment after impact.

Well, I asked the former OSI agent I work with yesterday about ammo, and he confirmed they could use JHPs because they were law enforcement. He said when he was a USAF SP, he had to use FMJs.

Cheers! M2

You need to do some more research. For one, the Mk318 SOST OTM is open tip, not hollowpoint...

"The jacket is drawn from the base (instead of the cheaper method of jacket drawn from the nose and an exposed lead base) to the tip of the bullet. The tiny little hole there is just a remnant from jacketing the bullet that way. It isn't designed for expansion or calculated to cause unnecessary suffering, so it doesn't violate the Hague conventions."

There are some similarities to the Federal Trophy Bonded Bear Claw hunting round, but they are superficial.

And the M855A1 has a copper core with a 19-grain steel "stacked-cone" penetrating tip. It is not a hollowpoint either.

Do you not think DoD lawyers haven't scrutinized this to the nth degree?!?

Look, dont get yourself confused by small terminology differences designed to appease JAG lawyers.

Almost every single round used by US infantry forces today is an expanding or fragmenting bullet.

Federal Bonded Trophy Claw- Ie, USMC Mk318 is an expanding and fragmenting design. Fact, stop, end of story. The differences are not superficial at all. It is a slightly modified variant of the Federal bullet. I can link to several articles that all say the same thing. A cross section of both bullets also clearly reveals that case to be true.

The same is true of...

M193 Ball
M855 Green Tip
M855A1 EPR
Mk 262 Mod1 OTM
5.56 Optimized/Brown Tip
Mk118LR OTM
Mk852 OTM
M80 Ball (some NATO versions)

It doesn't matter whether the stuff is designated as a HP, an OTM, or a daisy cutter. It all expands and/or fragments in soft tissue.

OTM is a clever invented term that showed up right around 1990 when JAG ruled that OTM was legal for use by US forces. Prior to that no one even used the term.

Edit to add: In catalogs from the late 80s you'll see the 168gr Sierra Match King bullet (US M852) that was the subject of the 1990 memorandum allowing OTM, advertised as \"BTHP\", for Boat Tail Hollowpoint.