Once the innovator and world leader in the Non Lethal Training Ammunition industry, SIMUNITION has over the past number of years had their market share consistently eroded by competitive products. The defunct company AIRMUNITION, founded by innovator Mike Saxby, tried to compete with a reloadable cartridge system powered by compressed air. While the AIRMUNITION cartridge failed to effectively challenge SIMUNITION, they did find a major competitor in ATK with their Force-on-Force cartridges, developed by Rick Huffman and his company PDT Technologies. The PDT cartridge fit, fed and functioned in the conversion kits developed by SIMUNITION.
After failed attempts by Huffman to sell his cartridge technology to SIMUNITION, ATK eventually bought it, and after making some innovative design changes, they effectively challenged SIMUNITION in the marketplace.
Following the commercial failure of the AIRMUNITION system, however, Mike Saxby rose again in an attempt to develop a pyrotechnic cartridge design. Using the identical projectile used with the AIRMUNITION cartridge, he named named his new innovation PyroTec. This cartridge also failed to meet commercial expectations, but that didn’t stop Mike. Eventually he came up with a pyrotechnic cartridge that utilized a an innovative dual primer cartridge case design. His cartridge design avoided both the SIMUNITION or ATK patent protections and his new cartridge hit the market.
The new company was named UTM for Ultimate Training Munitions. While the early versions of the cartridge experienced some significant setbacks, UTM endured to successfully challenged SIMUNITION in their lucrative 5.56 US military marketplace, and scored a huge commercial success by winning the CCMCK contract within the US Army, displacing SIMUNITION.
The UTM cartridge had a very unique design utilizing a .22 caliber projectile and two primers. Using a .22 caliber projectile allowed users to swap the bolt in their M16 variants to fire the new UTM cartridges. At the time, SIMUNITION required the replacement of the entire upper receiver, the magazine, and on occasion the buffer. Doing so effectively turned an M16 variant into a 9mm firing rifle. The US military saw value and ease in simply swapping out the bolt, and eventually moved to that concept prompting SIMUNITION into a redesign of their system and the creation of a 5.56 FX Marking Cartridge. Unfortunately for SIMUNITION, it was too late as the military had become enamored with the UTM system.
Functionally, the UTM system for the rifles is quite unique. In the dual primer system, one primer would expand the cartridge case and the other would propel the projectile. In tandem with the rifle concept, UTM developed their pistol ammunition using the same .22 caliber projectile This unique design of the cartridge required the development of unique pistol conversion kits. SIMUNITION was already far ahead of UTM in the development of conversion kits for pistols, and while the 5.56 cartridge scored big with the military, UTM languished in their 9mm pistol cartridges because of the relatively small number of conversion kits when compared to SIMUNITION.
As a result, for handguns, end users were forced to choose between the SIMUNITION conversion kits, and utilizing either FX or ATK Force On Force munitions, or to spend the money necessary to replace all of their conversion kits and move over to the UTM conversion devices. Due to the overwhelming proliferation of the conversion kits manufactured by SIMUNITION, many agencies stuck with the FX system.
Now, in what is certain to be another commercial blow to SIMUNITION, UTM has released a cartridge that will fire in the 9mm SIMUNITION FX conversion devices. This essentially provides end users with a variety of 3 different marking cartridges that can be used in their FX conversion devices. Although SIMUNITION prohibits end users in writing from using “unauthorized” ammunition in their conversion kits, there is no actual legal or safety impediment to using any of the three different cartridge brands.
The RBTA has not yet had the opportunity to test the functional reliability of the new cartridge from UTM or its accuracy and marking potential. But if past history of reliability is any indication, it is highly likely that this new cartridge will prove to be a viable option for those using the FX conversion devices. Early reports from some RBTA members have indicated that they have tried unsuccessfully to order the cartridges, so there seems to be a supply problem. Although this problem is not unique to UTM. All three major companies, SIMUNITION, ATK and UTM typically sell more ammunition that they can make, and with the exploding popularity of opposed force training it does not appear as though this situation will change any time soon.
For a more thorough discussion of the new technology from UTM, check out the following article from RECOIL Magazine by clicking the link below.
http://www.recoilweb.com/utm-releases-simunition-compatible-marking-round-74933.html