50cal

Teaching Old Shotguns New Tricks

MCWL Tests New Way to 'FRAG'ment Doors

Among the many new experimental technolo-gies at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, the smallest, by far, is the 12-gauge high explosive round called the FRAG-12.
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Designed to function as a shotgun-fired grenade, the FRAG-12 might give the good old shotgun a whole new set of missions. The FRAG-12 gives the best “bang for the buck” by improving the combat effectiveness of shotguns in urban areas by knocking out door locks, stopping vehicles at roadblocks and checkpoints, guarding against barricade attacks, and remote probing of potential Improvised Explosive Devices.
The new round pulls off the “bang” by way of a standard three-inch 12-gauge cartridge case and propellant, firing a fin-stabilized 19 mm warhead. The projectile arms three meters from the muzzle and fires upon impact with sufficient explosive power to make one-inch holes in quarter inch thick cold-rolled steel plates.
When the FRAG-12 round is fired, four fins open to stabilize the round and the safety rotates the firing mechanism into its armed position. After that, all that’s left to do is to strike the target, knocking a fist-sized hole in whatever it hits. Because it is fin-stabilized, it has a longer effective range than most shotgun rounds – reliably hitting window-sized targets at ranges of 150 meters and more. The FRAG-12 also offers an armor-piercing projectile with a shaped charge configuration designed to penetrate a half-inch of steel armor.
After the FRAG-12 completes its safety tests, the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab hopes to field experimental lots of the FRAG-12s and evaluate the rounds against real-world targets. Given the results obtained so far, this may be poised to become a must-have addition to the urban warrior’s shotgun magazine!

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