The US Navy defines blended-metal bullets as, "projectiles which utilize cores manufactured with materials other than lead, using processes other than melting." The solicitation elaborates as follows: Blended-metal rounds are commercially available at this time in limited quantities from independent dealers in a variety of calibers, and sintered non-lead bullets have been available for

handloading Handloading, or reloading, is the practice of making firearm cartridges by manually assembling the individual components ( metallic/ polymer case, primer, propellant and projectile), rather than purchasing mass-assembled, factory-loaded com ...

since at least 2006.

RBCD Performance Plus, Inc.

One now-defunct company, RBCD Performance Plus, Inc. of

San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

, produced

ammunition Ammunition, also known as ammo, is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. The term includes both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines), and the component parts of oth ...

marketed as blended-metal bullets. However, RBCD's "Blended-Metal Technology" (BMT) was a trademark and not a description of bullet composition. Independent testing by Gary Roberts showed that RBCD ammunition was, "nothing but lightweight, repackaged varmint bullets disguised with a black coating of moly, and driven to higher than normal velocities with concomitantly higher than normal pressures." Roberts cites a

USSOCOM The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM or SOCOM) is the unified combatant command charged with overseeing the various special operations component commands of the United States Army Special Operations Command, Army, United Stat ...

and

ARDEC The United States Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center (CCDCAC), or Armaments Center, headquartered at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, is the US Army's primary research and development arm for armaments and munitions. ...

study published in 2007 which supports his findings.

References

Projectiles {{ammo-stub