BREAKING: ATF Halts Plans to Ban M855 “Green Tip” Ammunition

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) announced less than an hour ago that it has decided to hit the brakes on its proposal to ban the commercial sale and importation of a popular type of AR-15 ammunition, M855 “green tip” rounds.

The news that the federal organization was backing off its new framework for determining whether certain projectiles were “armor piercing” came by way of the official ATF Twitter account.

You spoke, we listened. @ATFHQ plans more study on the proposed AP Ammo exemption framework. See more http://t.co/SmRKMYvw7J

— ATF HQ (@ATFHQ) March 10, 2015

The tweet linked to a press release from the bureau’s Public Affairs Division, which stated that the ATF had received more than 80,000 comments about its proposal since the plan was unveiled in late February. The “vast majority of the comments received” were critical of the framework, indicating perhaps that mass mobilization efforts on behalf of gun owners and gun rights groups had paid off. The release further stated that the “ATF will not at this time seek to issue a final framework.”

For the time being, it appears as if the popular 5.56x45mm M855 round isn’t going anywhere. However, the ATF stated that it plans to “further evaluate the issues raised” in its press release, indicating that additional proposals regarding so-called “armor piercing” ammunition may be in store.

At the height of panic-buying induced by the ATF’s proposal, M855 was selling for over a dollar per round—it typically retailed for thirty to forty cents per round prior to that.

Matt Korovesis

I've been a history and gun enthusiast since I was a kid. I love to shoot just about anything, from silenced bolt-action .22s to fully automatic heavy machine guns, and I love even more when I get to write about them. My main interests are modern small arms and the military small arms of World War II and prior conflicts, with a particular focus on Russian and Finnish firearms. Reading about guns like the Mosin-Nagant rifle in books and on the internet got me interested in collecting, shooting, and writing about them, and I hope to do the same for others through my work.

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