The FTM-95 is a frangible hollow-body projectile containing a binary thermobaric micro-canister, designed for the TPIR-1 'Hollowpoint' rifle. The round functions as a conventional ballistic projectile during flight, but on soft-tissue impact, the frangible body shatters and the internal membrane separating two thermobaric reactants ruptures. The resulting reaction — a rapid exothermic expansion consuming available oxygen — occurs inside the wound channel, producing a localized thermobaric event within the target's body.

The binary reactant system is elegantly simple: two stable compounds separated by a pressure-sensitive membrane that ruptures specifically under the deformation stresses of soft-tissue impact. Hard-surface impacts — hitting walls, armor plate, or bone at an oblique angle — produce insufficient membrane stress and the round acts as a conventional frangible projectile. This material-selective activation means the FTM-95 is specifically an anti-personnel round that reserves its thermobaric effect for soft-tissue targets, which is precisely what earned it its classification under the Anti-Atrocity Statutes.

The reaction delay of 38-42 milliseconds post-membrane rupture means the thermobaric event occurs after the projectile fragments have dispersed into the wound channel, maximizing the internal surface area exposed to the reaction. The effect is a localized pressure wave and thermal event inside the body that produces catastrophic tissue disruption far beyond what the round's 9.5mm caliber would suggest. The 15-round thermally regulated magazine maintains ammunition temperature between 4 and 22 degrees Celsius, as the binary reactants become unstable above this range — a design constraint that makes the FTM-95 unsuitable for sustained operations in hot environments without supplemental magazine cooling.