The "Geneva Convention" Myth and other Bullroar Open-tip Military Ammunition FAQ One of the most lamentable traditions among members of the firearms community is the tendency to latch on to a piece of misinformation and endlessly circulate it as authoritative. Nowhere is this more prevalent then on the subject of "dum-dum hollow point bullets" and their being "banned by the Geneva Convention." Sound familiar? It's not accurate, of course, but few, if any, ever make the effort to find out the true facts for the simple reason that the foregoing has so often been casually repeated by "gun persons," that, in keeping with "Goebbels' Big Lie" theory, it has taken on the aura of a verity. For openers, "dum-dum bullets," named for their arsenal of origin in a town near Calcutta, India, are soft-nosed projectiles, not hollow points¹. And their deployment under the "Laws of War" is proscribed by a "Declaration on the Use of Bullets Which Expand or Flatten Easily in the Human Body" adopted at the First Hague Peace Conference of (29 July) 1899 which states: The Undersigned, Plenipotentiaries of the Powers represented at the International Peace Conference at The Hague, duly authorized to that effect by their Governments, Inspired by the sentiments which found expression in the Declaration of St. Petersburg of the 29th November (11th December), 1868, Declare as follows: "The Contracting Parties agree to abstain from the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core, or is pierced with incisions." The present Declaration is only binding for the Contracting Powers in the case of a war between two or more of them. It shall cease to be binding from the time when, in a war between the Contracting Parties, one of the belligerents is joined by a non-Contracting Power. Although not a party to this accord, as a matter of policy the United States has acknowledged and respected its applicability in conventional combat operations since its adoption more than one century ago. Where the U.S. did sign on, however, was with the Hague Convention IV of 1907, Article 23(e) of which Annex states: "...it is especially forbidden - To employ arms, projectiles, or material (sic) calculated to cause unnecessary suffering;" In observance of this, for many years U.S. Military snipers went afield with M-118 ammo, a 7.62 X 51mm 173-grain solid-tipped boat tail round manufactured to much closer tolerances than M-80 "ball." This practice began to change subsequent to a 23 September 1985 opinion issued by the Judge Advocate General, authored by W. Hays Parks², Chief of the JAG's International Law Branch, for the signature of Major Hugh R. Overholt, which stated: "...expanding point ammunition is legally permissible in counterterrorist operations not involving the engagement of the armed forces of another State." On 12 October 1990, another Memorandum of Law from Parks at the request of the Commander of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and coordinated with the Department of State, Army General Counsel, as well as the Offices of the Judge Advocates General of the Navy and Air Force, concluded that: "The purpose of the 7.62mm "open-tip" MatchKing bullet is to provide maximum accuracy at very long range. ... Bullet fragmentation is not a design characteristic, however, nor a purpose for use of the MatchKing by United States Army snipers. Wounds caused by MatchKing ammunition are similar to those caused by a fully jacketed military ball bullet, which is legal under the law of war, when compared at the same ranges and under the same conditions. (The Sierra #2200 BTHP) not only meets, but exceeds, the law of war obligations of the United States for use in combat." Whether it is the overall excellence of the Sierra MatchKing, or its virtual endorsement within the upper echelons of the military, the #2200 boat tail hollow point was the round of preference for snipers and .30 caliber High Power competitors alike. Aside from Federal, Remington and Samson (IMI) both load it in their commercially available "match" rounds, while Winchester uses it in their Ranger line of law enforcement ammunition. More recently (1993), another Parks-authored opinion cleared the way for the U.S. Special Operations Command to procure a Winchester 230-grain JHP ("Black Talon," yet!) for issue with its H&K-manufactured Mk 23 Mod 0 pistol. Now, when the fat guy with the greasy beard who always seems to be leaning on the end of the counter at the local gun store, starts blathering about the Geneva Convention banning hollow point bullets, you can educate him with the right information. "I believe you mean the Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907," you can suggest, and then nail him beneath the bill of his CAT Diesel cap with the JAG's recent opinions that 168-grain (and 175-grain) BTHPs and 230-grain SXTs are in... and the Hague accords are o-u-t! Excerpted from Military rifle bullet wound patterns by Martin L. Fackler The principal provision relating to the legality of weapons is contained in Art. 23e of the Annex to Hague Convention IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land of 18 October 1907, which prohibits the employment of "arms, projectiles, or material of a nature to cause superfluous injury." In some law of war treatises, the term "unnecessary suffering" is used rather than "superfluous injury." The terms are regarded as synonymous. To emphasize this, Art. 35, para. 2 of the 1977 Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12,1949, states in part that "It is prohibited to employ weapons [and] projectiles . . . of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering." Although the U.S. has made the formal decision that for military, political, and humanitarian reasons it will not become a party to Protocol I, U.S. officials have taken the position that the language of Art. 35(2) of Protocol I as quoted is a codification of customary international law, and therefore binding upon all nations. ¹.- In an erudite riposte (brilliantly entitled "Will the real Dum Dum projectile please stand up?") to a rec.guns gadfly named Paul Saccani, regular TGZ contributor D.E. Watters wrote: The Indian Army's Dum Dum Arsenal near Calcutta produced a soft point variant of the Mark II, with the design credited to a Captain Clay. This variant was created in response to complaints about the Lee-Metford's lack of "stopping power" during the Chitral campaign of 1895. While the Dum Dum soft point was never adopted by the British Army as a whole, clearly the name stuck. Independently, Woolwich Arsenal had been developing a hollow point projectile for the .303, which was adopted as the Mark III in 1897. However, the Mark III was reportedly not manufactured in any large quantities before it was replaced by Mark IV .303 service cartridge later the same year. Due to problems with jacket/core separation (sometimes within the bore itself), the Mark IV hollow point was replaced by the Mark V hollow point in 1899. Saccani had taken issue with the text on this page which read: For openers, "dum-dum bullets," named for their arsenal of origin in a town near Calcutta, India, are soft-nosed projectiles, not hollow points, terming it "completely incorrect." The so called "dum dum" bullet was the hollow point "cartridge, S.A,. .303" Mk. IV." The hollow was approximately .18" in diameter, and extended for nearly half the length of the bullet. The jacket does not extend to the tip of the hollow, but that does not make it not a hollow point! ².-Colonel W. Hays Parks, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired, served in Vietnam in infantry and judge advocate assignments and was a legal adviser for the 1986 Libyan air strike. An expert with small arms, he has trained and qualified as a sniper. He has lectured on rules of engagement at the war colleges and staff colleges, the Navy Fighter Weapons School, and Naval Strike Warfare Center and authored Deadly Force Is Authorized. Sidebar: In the 1920s and '30s the military was testing bullet shapes to determine ballistic efficiency. They were using hard lead cast bullets as it was easy to make a mold and pore a few bullets to test. The final winning design ended up weighing 180 grains in solid lead. When this shape was converted to a FMJ with a guilding metal jacket (or cupro-nickel) the final weight ended up being 173 grains. That's how we ended up with the 173 FMJ match bullet which was also used in the field in later years. Sierra produced a FMJ bullet for competition shooting in the late '50s that had a similar shape to the 173 FMJ, but weighed 200 grains. Eventually Sierra found that they could make better more accurate bullets by forming a solid base and hollow point with the jacket. They decided to try to make bullets with approximately the same form as the old 173 FMJ, which when made as a hollow point bullet ended up at 168 grains. Voila! The 168 Matchking became the standard bullet by which all others were judged. Then, in NRA High-Power competition, a curious thing happened... the puny little 5.56mm round (.223 Remington) started outperforming the mighty .30 caliber at ranges in excess of 300 yards. Of course the 5.56mm competitors were using 77-grain and 80-grain VLD ("Very Low Drag") projectiles manually loaded one at a time (their overall length precluded their use in magazines) in their tricked out Colt's/Stoner pattern rifles, but disorder and uncertainty was rampant throughout the 7.62mm community. To the rescue came Picatinny Arsenal and Sierra Bulletsmiths at the request of the U.S. Military Ordnance Corps, and before too long the .30 caliber was back in the saddle, led by a super match bullet, the 175-grain BTHP. And while its older 168-grain sibling is still around, the handwriting is on the stat-shack wall: the #2275 175-grainer rules! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MEMORANDUM FOR COMMANDER, UNITED STATES ARMY SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND SUBJECT: Sniper Use of Open-Tip Ammunition 1. Summary. This memorandum considers whether United States Army Snipers may employ match-grade, "open-tip" ammunition in combat or other special missions. It concludes that such ammunition does not violate the law of war obligations of the United States, and may be employed in peacetime or wartime missions of the Army. 2. Background. For more than a decade two bullets have been available for use by the United States Army Marksmanship Unit in match competition in its 7.62mm rifles. The M118 is a 173-grain match grade full metal jacket boat tail, ogival spitzer tip bullet, while the M852 is the Sierra MatchKing 168-grain match grade boat tail, ogival spitzer tip bullet with an open tip. Although the accuracy of the M118 has been reasonably good, though at times erratic, independent bullet comparisons by the Army, Marine Corps, and National Guard marksmanship training units have established unequivocally the superior accuracy of the M852. Army tests noted a 36% improvement in accuracy with the M852 at 300 meters, and a 32% improvement at 600 yds; Marine Corps figures were twenty-eight percent accuracy improvement at 300 m, and 20% at 600yds. The National Guard determined that the M852 provided better bullet groups at 200 and 600 yards under all conditions than did the M118. (citation omitted.) The 168-grain MatchKing was designed in the late 1950's for 300 m. shooting in international rifle matches. In its competitive debut, it was used by the 1st place winner at the 1959 Pan American Games. In the same caliber but in its various bullet lengths, the MatchKing has set a number of international records. To a range of 600 m., the superiority of the accuracy of the M852 cannot be matched, and led to the decision by U.S. military marksmanship training units to use the M852 in competition. A 1980 opinion of this office concluded that use of the M852 in match competition would not violate law of war obligations of the United States. (citation omitted) Further tests and actual competition over the past decade have confirmed the superiority of the M852 over the M118 and other match grade bullets. For example, at the national matches held at Camp Perry, OH in 1983, a new Wimbledon record of 2--015 X's was set using the 168-gr. MatchKing. This level of performance lead to the question of whether the M852 could be used by military snipers in peacetime or wartime missions of the Army. During the period in which this review was conducted, the 180-gr. MatchKing (for which there is no military designation) also was tested with a view to increased accuracy over the M852 at very long ranges. Because two bullet weights were under consideration, the term "MatchKing" will be used hereinafter to refer to the generic design rather than to a bullet of a particular weight. The fundamental question to be addressed by this review is whether an open-tip bullet of MatchKing design may be used in combat. 3. Legal Factors. The principal provision relating to the legality of weapons is contained in Art. 23e of the Annex to Hague Convention IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land of 18 October 1907, which prohibits the employment of "arms, projectiles, or material of a nature to cause superfluous injury". In some law of war treatises, the term "unnecessary suffering" is used rather than "superfluous injury." The terms are regarded as synonymous. To emphasize this, Art. 35, para. 2 of the 1977 Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, states in part that "It is prohibited to employ weapons [and] projectiles . . . of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering." Although the U.S. has made the formal decision that for military, political, and humanitarian reasons it will not become a party to Protocol I, U.S. officials have taken the position that the language of Art. 35(2) of Protocol I as quoted is a codification of customary international law, and therefore binding upon all nations. The terms "unnecessary suffering" and "superfluous injury" have not been formally defined within international law. In determining whether a weapon or projectile causes unnecessary suffering, a balancing test is applied between the force dictated by military necessity to achieve a legitimate objective vis-ą-vis suffering that may be considered superfluous to achievement of that intended objective. The test is not easily applied. For this reason, the degree of "superfluous" injury must be clearly disproportionate to the intended objectives for development and employment of the weapon, that is, it must outweigh substantially the military necessity for the weapon system or projectile. The fact that a weapon causes suffering does not lead to the conclusion that the weapon causes unnecessary suffering, or is illegal per se. Military necessity dictates that weapons of war lead to death, injury, and destruction; the act of combatants killing or wounding enemy combatants in combat is a legitimate act under the law of war. In this regard, there is an incongruity in the law of war in that while it is legally permissible to kill an enemy combatant, incapacitation must not result inevitably in unnecessary suffering. What is prohibited is the design (or modification) and employment of a weapon for the purpose of increasing or causing suffering beyond that required by military necessity. In conducting the balancing test necessary to determine a weapon's legality, the effects of a weapon cannot be viewed in isolation. They must be examined against comparable weapons in use on the modern battlefield, and the military necessity for the weapon or projectile under consideration. In addition to the basic prohibition on unnecessary suffering contained in Art. 23e of the 1907 Hague IV, one other treaty is germane to this review. The Hague Declaration Concerning Expanding Bullets of 29 July 1899 prohibits the use in international armed conflict: ". . . of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core or is pierced with incisions." The U.S. is not a party to this treaty, but U.S. officials over the years have taken the position that the armed forces of the U.S. will adhere to its terms to the extent that its application is consistent with the object and purpose of Art. 23e of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, quoted above. It is within the context of these two treaties that questions regarding the legality of the employment of the MatchKing "open tip" bullet must be considered. 4. Bullet Description. As previously described, the MatchKing is a boat tail, ogival spitzer tip bullet with open tip. The "open tip" is a shallow aperture (approximately the diameter of the wire in a standard size straight pin or paper clip) in the nose of the bullet. While sometimes described as a "hollow point," this is a mischaracterization in law of war terms. Generally a "hollow point" bullet is thought of in terms of its ability to expand on impact with soft tissue. Physical examination of the MatchKing "open tip" bullet reveals that its opening is extremely small in comparison to the aperture in comparable hollow point hunting bullets; for example, the 165-grain GameKing is a true hollow point boat tail bullet with an aperture substantially greater than the MatchKing, and skiving (serrations cut into the jacket) to insure expansion. In the MatchKing, the open tip is closed as much as possible to provide better aerodynamics, and contains no skiving. The lead core of the MatchKing bullet is entirely covered by the bullet jacket. While the GameKing bullet is designed to bring the ballistic advantages of a match bullet to long range hunting, the manufacturer expressly recommends against the use of the MatchKing for hunting game of any size because it does not have the expansion characteristics of a hunting bullet. The purpose of the small, shallow aperture in the MatchKing is to provide a bullet design offering maximum accuracy at very long ranges, rolling the jacket of the bullet around its core from base to tip; standard military bullets and other match bullets roll the jacket around its core from tip to base, leaving an exposed lead core at its base. Design purpose of the MatchKing was not to produce a bullet that would expand or flatten easily on impact with the human body, or otherwise cause wounds greater than those caused by standard military small arms ammunition. 5. MatchKing performance. Other than its superior long range marksmanship capabilities, the MatchKing was examined with regard to its performance on impact with the human body or in artificial material that approximates human soft tissue. It was determined that the bullet will break up or fragment in some cases at some point following entry into soft tissue. Whether fragmentation occurs will depend upon a myriad of variables, to include range to the target, velocity at the time of impact, degree of yaw of the bullet at the point of impact, or the distance traveled point-first within the body before yaw is induced. The MatchKing has not been designed to yaw intentionally or to break up on impact. These characteristics are common to all military rifle bullets. There was little discernible difference in bullet fragmentation between the MatchKing and other military small arms bullets, with some military ball ammunition of foreign manufacture tending to fragment sooner in human tissue or to a greater degree, resulting in wounds that would be more severe than those caused by the MatchKing. [FNaaa1] Because of concern over the potential mischaracterization of the M852 as a "hollow point" bullet that might violate the purpose and intent of the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Expanding Bullets, some M852 MatchKing bullets were modified to close the aperture. The "closed tip" MatchKing did not measure up to the accuracy of the "open tip" MatchKing. Other match grade bullets were tested. While some could approach the accuracy standards of the MatchKing in some lots, quality control was uneven, leading to erratic results. No other match grade bullet consistently could meet the accuracy of the open-tip bullet. 6. Law of War Application. From both a legal and medical standpoint, the lethality or incapacitation effects of a particular small-caliber projectile must be measured against comparable projectiles in service. In the military small arms field, "small caliber" generally includes all rifle projectiles up to and including .60 caliber (15mm). For the purposes of this review, however, comparison will be limited to small-caliber ammunition in the range of 5.45mm to 7.62mm, that is, that currently in use in assaultor sniper rifles by the military services of most nations. Wound ballistic research over the past fifteen years has determined that the prohibition contained in the 1899 Hague Declaration is of minimal to no value, inasmuch as virtually all jacketed military bullets employed since 1899 with pointed ogival spitzer tip shape have a tendency to fragment on impact with soft tissue, harder organs, bone or the clothing and/or equipment worn by the individual soldier. The pointed ogival spitzer tip, shared by all modern military bullets, reflects the balancing by nations of the criteria of military necessity and unnecessary suffering: its streamlined shape decreases air drag, allowing the bullet to retain velocity better for improved long-range performance; a modern military 7.62mm bullet will lose only about one-third of its muzzle velocity over 500 yards, while the same weight bullet with a round-nose shape will lose more than one-half of its velocity over the same distance. Yet the pointed ogival spitzer tip shape also leads to greater bullet breakup, and potentially greater injury to the soldier by such a bullet vis-ą-vis a round-nose full- metal jacketed bullet. (See Dr. M. L. Fackler, "Wounding Patterns for Military Rifle Bullets," International Defense Review, January 1989, pp. 56-64, at 63.) Weighing the increased performance of the pointed ogival spitzer tip bullet against the increased injury its breakup may bring, the nations of the world-- through almost a century of practice--have concluded that the need for the former outweighs concern for the latter, and does not result in unnecessary suffering as prohibited by the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Expanding Bullets or article 23e of the 1907 Hague Convention IV. The 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Expanding Bullets remains valid for expression of the principle that a nation may not employ a bullet that expands easily on impact for the purpose of unnecessarily aggravating the wound inflicted upon an enemy soldier. Such a bullet also would be prohibited by article 23e of the 1907 Hague IV, however. Another concept fundamental to the law of war is the principle of discrimination, that is, utilization of means or methods that distinguish to the extent possible legitimate targets, such as enemy soldiers, from noncombatants, whether enemy wounded and sick, medical personnel, or innocent civilians. The highly trained military sniper with his special rifle and match grade ammunition epitomizes the principle of discrimination. In combat, most targets are covered or obscured, move unpredictably, and as a consequence are exposed to hostile fire for limited periods of time. When coupled with the level of marksmanship training provided the average soldier and the stress of combat, a soldier's aiming errors are large and hit probability is correspondingly low. While the M16A2 rifle currently used by the United States Army and Marine Corps is capable of acceptable accuracy out to six hundred meters, the probability of an average soldier hitting an enemy soldier at three hundred meters is ten percent. Statistics from past wars suggest that this probability figure may be optimistic. In Would War II, the United States and its allies expended 25,000 rounds of ammunition to kill a single enemy soldier. In the Korean War, the ammunition expenditure had increased four-fold to 100,000 rounds per soldier; in the Vietnam War, that figure had doubled to 200,000 rounds of ammunition for the death of a single enemy soldier. The risk to noncombatants is apparent. In contrast, United States Army and Marine Corps snipers in the Vietnam War expended 1.3 rounds of ammunition for each claimed and verified kill, at an average range of six hundred yards, or almost twice the three hundred meters cited above for combat engagements by the average soldier. Some verified kills were at ranges in excess of 1000 yards. This represents discrimination and military efficiency of the highest order, as well as minimization of risk to noncombatants. Utilization of a bullet that increases accuracy, such as the MatchKing, would further diminish the risk to noncombatants. 7. Conclusion. The purpose of the 7.62mm "open-tip" MatchKing bullet is to provide maximum accuracy at very long range. Like most 5.56mm and 7.62mm military ball bullets, it may fragment upon striking its target, although the probability of its fragmentation is not as great as some military ball bullets currently in use by some nations. Bullet fragmentation is not a design characteristic, however, nor a purpose for use of the MatchKing by United State Army snipers. Wounds caused by MatchKing ammunition are similar to those caused by a fully jacketed military ball bullet, which is legal underthe law of war, when compared at the same ranges and under the same conditions. The military necessity for its use-- its ability to offer maximum accuracy at very long ranges--is complemented by the high degree of discriminate fire it offers in the hands of a trained sniper. It not only meets, but exceeds, the law of war obligations of the United States for use in combat. This opinion has been coordinated with the Department of State, Army General Counsel, and the Offices of the Judge Advocates General of the Navy and Air Force, who concur with its contents and conclusions. An opinion that reaches the same conclusion has been issued simultaneously for the Navy and Marine Corps by The Judge Advocate General of the Navy. FNa1. The M118 bullet is loaded into a 7.62mm (caliber .308) cartridge. In its original loading in the earlier .30-06 cartridge, it was the M72. FNaa1. While this review is written in the context of the M852 Sierra MatchKing 168-grain "open-tip" bullet and a 180-grain version, the MatchKing bullet (and similar bullets of other manufacturers) is also produced in other bullet weights of 7.62mm rifles (.308, .30-06, or .300 Winchester Magnum). FNaaa1. For example, 7.62mm bullets manufactured to NATO military specifications and used by the Federal Republic of Germany have a substantially greater tendency to fragment in soft tissue than do the U.S. M80 7.62mm ammunition made to the same specifications, the M118, or the M852 MatchKing. None fragment as quickly or easily upon entry into soft tissue as the 5.56mm ammunition manufactured to NATO standards and issued to its forces by the Government of Sweden. Its early fragmentation leads to far more severe wounds than any bullet manufactured to military specifications and utilized by the U.S. military during the past quarter century (whether the M80 7.62mm, the M16A1, M193 or M16A2 5.56mm) or the opentip MatchKing bullet under consideration. Related News: The Department of Defense and the U.S. Army Operations Support Command have selected Alliant's Reloder 15 as the new propellant for the 7.62 (.308), M118 Special Ball Long Range Sniper Round. This cartridge will feature Reloder 15 with a 175 grain Boat-Tail bullet. It will become the standard issue, long range, .308 round for use by all military services. In addition to the 15, the newest powder in the series, Reloder 25 is the slowest burning powder and ideally suited for heavy magnum loads with large case capacity such as .30-.378 Weatherby Magnum. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- According to the above criteria, heavy match ammunition used for long range shooting in 5.56 mm (.223) rifles should also be allowed. My favorite long range round is a Speer .223 70 Gr soft tip semi-spitzer. I guess that I will just have to use this until I am issued a military weapon with ball ammo. I wish abide by the rules of land warfare and not cause any un-necessary suffering.