M576 40mm grenade
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The M576 is a US Army designation for a type of 40mm grenade. The M576 is a buckshot loading for the M79 single-shot grenade launcher. It was designed to give the soldier carrying the M79 a powerful cartridge for close-quarters combat such as found in clearing buildings, bunkers, and trenches, as well as thick vegetation.
The US Army uses two types of 40mm grenades: a lower-velocity 40x46mm designed for use by an infantryman, and a higher-veolocity 40x53mm for use in mounted weapons such as the Mk 19 automatic grenade launcher. The M576 is a 40x46mm grenade, although it is not a grenade in the explosive sense. It is basically a very large shotgun shell, able to launch twenty-seven pellets of 00-buck at some 900 feet per second (275 meters per second).[1]
By comparison, the typical American police tactical shotgun load is a 12-gauge shotshell loaded with nine pellets of 00-buck moving at about 1,300 ft/s (395 m/s).
The M79 and the high-explosive 40x46mm grenades can been seen in the movies Casualties of War and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The same 40x46mm grenades are also used by the M203 grenade launcher mounted underneath the M16 assault rifle.
Currently, studies are being performed to study the suitability of the M576 cartridge in the M203.[1]
