Military ammo has been synonymous with full-metal jacket bullets for more than a century, due to treaty provisions and a general consensus among combatants, as unlikely as that sounds. However, as the United States Army looks at adopting a new pistol, hollowpoint ammunition may become standard. Here’s the latest on this issue from Grand View Outdoors.

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In a surprising break from decades of compliance with a 19th century treaty, the Army has said it will likely allow its troops to use hollow-point and frangible ammunition in its handguns, arguing the rounds are commonly used by law enforcement and for self defense and pose less of a risk to bystanders than fully jacketed rounds.

The previous ban on the use of hollowpoint ammunition for military rifles and handguns stems from the first Hague Convention of 1899, where ammunition that “expand or flatten easily” was banned for use in war. Though the United States never ratified that part of the treaty, the U.S. military has generally complied with the restriction for its conventional forces.

But as the Army is leading the way to a replacement for the 1980s-era Beretta M9 standard-issue handgun, service officials say they’re open to using hollowpoint ammunition as standard issue for the new XM-17 pistol.

“There’s a myth that [hollowpoints] are prohibited in international armed conflict, but that doesn’t make any sense now,” Richard Jackson, the Army’s law of war expert, told Army Times newspaper.

The new openness to issuing hollowpoint ammo to troops is “a significant reinterpretation of the legal standard,” he added… [continued]

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