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The Army adopted its battle rifle in 1963 and has spent 55 years looking for a replacement for the M-16 and its variants. They might have found it in Martin Grier’s Colorado Springs garage. Grier, a self-described inventor who has worked at a local bed and breakfast, built the new “ribbon gun” with a hobbyist’s tools. It looks like a space-age toy drawn by a fifth-grader. But goofy origins and cartoon-looks aside, this could be the gun of the future. The Army is studying Grier’s gun and has ordered a military-grade prototype. ... The specifications are incredible, four 6 mm...

The new U.S. Assault Rifle, the XM8, is a modular weapon that can be fitted with three different barrels (9", 12.5", 20".) The 9" barrel is for a very compact weapon for tank crews or commandoes. With the nine inch barrel and the butt stock retracted, the weapon has an overall length of 21 inches. The 12.5" barrel is the standard, for use with the assault rifle or, with the butt stock retracted, it serves as a carbine. The 20 inch barrel is thicker as well and used for the light machine-gun version. There is also a lighter 20 inch...

The 6.8mm Remington SPC The long-rumored .270 military cartridge is fact. Here's how it performs in the field.

Initial reports favor Heckler & Koch, which is building local plant for rifle assembly George Thorogood's growling rock classic, "Bad to the Bone," set the mood Wednesday as two squads of soldiers leaped out of their Stryker armored vehicles at Fort Benning's Redcloud Range. As the music from the loudspeakers faded away, the 29th Infantry Regiment troops hit the ground in a prone position and proceeded to blast away at green targets on a hillside about 100 yards away. Dirt kicked up as one nine-man squad did their damage using the Colt M4 Carbine rifle that currently is the weapon...

<p>U.S. soldiers have been waiting for a long time for weapons to replace current ones that rely on Vietnam-era technology. And the new weapons are right around the corner. One of these weapons is the XM-8 (search), a rifle with chameleon-like qualities that allows soldiers to interchange parts, outfitting it for urban warfare or long-range sniping. Military and civilian weapons experts are still working out the kinks in the XM-8, which will replace the M-16. "The ability to reconfigure the weapon to the mission was very, very important. ... It grew out of soldiers telling us they need these kinds of capabilities," said Col. Michael J. Smith, project manager for Soldier Weapons. The XM-8 is designed to be lighter and more user-friendly than current weapons. It is part of a new family of weapons, including machine-gun type weapons like the XM-307 and XM-312 that are lethal at more than a mile away. In addition to being lighter, the new technology in the XM-8 makes hitting targets extremely easy. The rifle could be in soldiers' hands as early as next summer.</p>

Purpose. The Small Arms Assessment Team was formed to support Project Manager Soldier Weapons (PMSW) assessment of small arms performance during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Tasks were to assess the current state of weapons, ammunition and accessories directly managed by PMSW: M9 Pistol to MK 19 AGL and determine what worked well and what did not. Background. Since the initiation of OIF, a number of reports have come from the theater describing problems and lessons learned on a variety of soldier equipment including weapons. PM Soldier Weapons chartered a weapons team to conduct a comprehensive assessment of weapons performance in...

WAVE OF THE FUTURE: The XM-8 Battle Rifle   Question: Can you build an all-purpose battle rifle that can change colors, barrels, and weapons packages on the fly, comes equipped with a grenade launcher and shotgun that can take out Sigourney Weaver's aliens, and jams far less frequently than the M-16? Answer: The new XM-8 rifle by Heckler and Koch. Photo by Heckler & Koch, USA For almost 40 years, the M-16 5.56mm combat rifle, in all its incarnations, has served as the United States military's primary battle rifle. To give you an idea of how long a time...

The U.S. Army has asked Congress for an extra $26 million to buy 7,000 XM-8 rifles next year. These weapons would be used to equip to infantry brigades and thus give the rifle a wide scale test. The money requested would also pay for the staff needed to monitor the testing. The rifle has already undergone thousands of hours of user testing and there have been some recommendations, all minor. The buttons on the sight are to be rearranged, to make the sight easier to use. There were also complaints about battery life for the sight, and a new battery...

<p>The replacement, called the XM8, is under development at Picatinny Arsenal in Morris County and is being tested at Fort Benning, Ga.</p> <p>Developers say the rifle with the futuristic-looking curves is a marked improvement over the M-16 because it is shorter, lighter, easier to clean and unlikely to jam in a firefight -- an M-16 shortcoming illustrated in the ambush that wounded former POW Jessica Lynch and killed 11 of her comrades in Iraq.</p>

Caliber: 5.56x45 mm NATO Action: Gas operated, rotating bolt Overall length: no data Barrel length: no data Weight: 2.67 kg empty Rate of fire: no data Magazine capacity: 30 rounds (STANAG) The development of the XM8 Lightweight Assault Rifle was initiated by US Army in the 2002, when contract was issued to the Alliant Techsystems Co of USA to study possibilities of development of kinetic energy part of the XM29 OICW weapon into separate lightweight assault rifle, which could, in the case of success, replace the aging M16A2 rifles and M4A1 carbines in US military service. According to the present...