Frangible Ammunition

Frangible ammunition is a type of firearm ammunition designed to break up upon impact with hard surfaces. Frangible ammo has become immensely popular in the realm of space based combat, as it dramatically decreases the risk of breaching the hull of a ship or space station, while still retaining enough force to penetrate soft tissue. Frangible ammunition is also popular in law enforcement and crisis response operations as frangible ammo rarely ricochets or overpenetrates its target, reducing the risk of collateral damage to hostages or bystanders. Frangible ammo does, however, create wounds that can be very difficult to treat as fragments break up inside of the body and tumble off at different vectors.
Most current generation frangible ammunition uses a granulated form of copper or other malleable alloy surrounded by a jacket of bonded polymer and copper filament.
One drawback of frangible ammo is that its inability to penetrate hard surfaces makes it ineffective against targets in body armor or within vehicles. Criminals and terrorists expecting to face well armored security forces will tend to favor armor piercing ammunition over frangible ammo. This leaves considerably more collateral damage and hull penetrations in shootouts where one or more party doesn't care about overpenetration. Choosing to use armor piercing ammo over frangible ammo has been used as evidence in cases of Malicious Venting.

Item type

Ammunition