Will the old rifles be put up for public sale??? Army surplus.
Good idea. I have always preferred a 30 caliber rifle.
I seriously doubt it. They are just testing because of new body armor on the market. It’s another good opportunity for 6.5 - 6.8 to shine.
Stopping Power!
So then everyone with .223 or 5.56 now just have rifles, no longer classified as assault rifles right?
Given the choice of carrying 20 Rds of 7.62 or 30 Rds of 5.56, I’d choose the 20 Rds of 7.62 every time.
They did this because of the effective range of the rifle. The old ones didn’t have enough.
They did this because of the effective range of the rifle. The old ones didn’t have enough.
They’ve asked for a quote for only 50,0000.
So, no.
Not in favor of this. 308 cal semi auto rifles are quite heavy and so is the ammo. 5.56 actually performs very well at the ranges it’s normally used at, often it outperforms 308 in terminal ballistics on unarmored targets. The only place it struggles is defeating certain intermediate barriers.
If barrier penetration is an issue, the solution is 6.8 or 6.5. The conversion can be made by swapping uppers and mags. The cost can be defrayed by surplusing the 5.56 uppers, mags, and ammo. Since the uppers are not serialized parts, they can be surplused without running afoul of NFA / Hughes Amendment restrictions.
While I can’t quote it, I remember from the book Blackhawk Down where one guy took a 7.62, the rest took 5.56. They could not understand why until attackers hit with 5.56 kept coming while when a 7.62 hit the attacker went down. They decided (if I am remembering right) that the 7.62 guy was a f@@king genius.
Many years ago I read a long article on the 55 days in Peking. Among the European soldiers defending the international combined legations was a German.
He was so impressed with the American Marines that he made the following statement. “When a marine fired, a Boxer died”.
What were the Marines using? 45-70?, 30-4- Krag?, no they were using 6mm Lee Navy rifles.
This is a wet dream by the old-timers.
7.62x51 will not be a main battlefield rifle ever again.
Most combat is in close quarters and 7.62x51 over penetrates in those applications.....so does 5.56
The next NATO battlefield cartridge will be form 6mm to 7mm in diameter, probably a shorter cartridge. This will give good close quarters combat capability as well as longer-range engagement lethality.
But, we see this nonsense that they 7.62x51 is coming back every few years. It is nonsense.
I wonder if they bring back the Garand action.
Thats the problem with the present weapon. Dust kills it.
This is cannot be parsed.
Here is one of several possible rewrites:
"However, what's misleading is, as current 7.62m is incapable of penetrating these body armors, either with specialty tungsten cored ammunition in both 5.56mm and 7.62mm calibers are capable of penetrating armor of this type."
I removed "-- on the other hand". If one prefers retention of this phrase, here's a grammatical possibility:
"However, what's misleading is current 7.62m is incapable of penetrating these body armors -- either on the other hand with specialty tungsten cored ammunition in both 5.56mm and 7.62mm calibers are capable of penetrating armor of this type."
These parse.
Maybe a return to a version of the AR-10?
This is an “Interim” rifle, not a long term solution. The long term plan is to swap out the 5.56 round for one in the 6.5 to 7mm range. Lower recoil, much better ballistically, and still with plenty of punch. Something along the lines of the 6.8 SPC necked to 6.5 mm would be ideal. 2,700-3,000 FPS with a 100-130 grain 6.5 bullet would certainly work!
The 6.5 to 7mm diameter was identified as the optimum as long ago as before WW II. It’ll be good to see it finally adopted, as it should have been 70 years ago.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/10147/the-army-is-once-again-looking-to-replace-the-5-56mm-cartridge
http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA512331