Talk:Headstamp

NATO

The NATO circle-cross DOES mean that the round meets NATO specifications. It does not mean that the round is a tracer round.

Information moved from article

The paragraph below (taken from the article body) appears to be intended as a contribution to the discussion, not the article itself. I'm moving it here and deleting the page content.

"The information about the military headstamp below the picture is not correct. The "L C" does mean it was manufactured at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant. The 2 digit number does mean the year it was manufactured. However the symbol of the cross hairs inside the circle DOES NOT mean the round meets NATO specs, it does however mean that the round was a "TRACER" round. Tracers are a type of Incendiary round that when fired displays a trail of light showing the bullets flight path. The purpose of these rounds is so it can be seen actually hitting the target. For the US Military, there are 3 types of regular 5.56MM rounds in "common" use, these rounds are as follows. XM193 which is the 55 grain stanard use round. XM855 which is a 62 grain steel core "light armor" penetrating round which is easily capable of piercing 1/4" steel and possibly thicker, the XM855 is identified by a Green tipped bullet in which green paint is applied to the tip. XM856 which is a tactical tracer round that is a type of Incendiary round in which a "trace" of light is emitted as the bullets goes through the air, the major problem with trcers is the fact that they work both ways as not only do you see where the bullets are actually going but the enemy actually sees where you are shooting from. Also to clarify both XM193 and XM855 have the same head stamps while the XM856 has the cross inside of the circle added to the head stamp."

The contribution was not mine, I'm simply shifting it about. 131.171.50.15 (talk) 18:13, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Article issues

This is a worthwhile topic and thanks to the editors who've worked on it. There are some issues with it, however, that keep it from being as good an article as it could be. They can be described in three categories:

1. There seems to be a lot of overlap between this article and List of military headstamps. Perhaps this could be addressed by moving all of the military headstamps on this page to that one? Maybe any commercial headstamps could go to a parallel article, like List of commercial headstamps, and keep this article limited to a general discussion of headstamps, their history, purpose, etc. Another options would be to merge that article into this one and have a single article which covers the topic completely.
2. Most of the sources are not up to Wikipedia standards. More specifically, almost all of them are self-published sources (WP:SPS) written by people who cannot claim to be recognized experts. The solution to that is simple: delete all of those citations, then search for reliable sources to take their place.
3. The article seems to stray from the topic now and then, such as including bits of company histories. This is a relatively minor issue that could be addressed at the same time as the others or later.

In general, it's worth remembering that Wikipedia articles should be written for the general public, not just for those, like collectors, interested in niche topics. Rezin (talk) 17:27, 31 December 2014 (UTC)