Special Operations Community Embraces ‘Wildcat’ Calibers

One phenomenon that has emerged from the U.S. special operations community over the last 10 to 12 years involves exploration and acquisition of small arms in new ballistic calibers.

Rather than the better known weapon designs in 5.56 mm, 7.62 mm, .50 caliber, and even the U.S. Army’s emerging 6.8 mm Next Generation Squad Weapon, the community has embraced calibers like the .300 AAC (Advanced Armament Corporation) Blackout (.300 BLK), 6.5 Creedmoor, .300 PRC (Precision Rifle Cartridge), and both .300 and .338 Norma Magnum.

Often created as so-called “wildcat” rounds, prior to their broader acceptance and expanded production availability, these new caliber cartridges each provide a staggering array of design and performance specifics, experts said.

Recent requests for information released by U.S. Special Operations Command have identified specific command interest in a compact personal defense weapon chambered in .300 BLK.

“We’re dealing in whole different types of mission sets,” explained C.J. Dugan, vice president of business development at Maxim Defense, which has developed its own personal defense weapon designs. “The old way was, if you were doing ‘low vis’ close target reconnaissance or protection, you really only had an MP5 [9x19 mm Parabellum], which is hard to deal with these days because of parts. The only other answers you had were a pistol or a Mk18 [M4A1 (5.56x45 mm NATO) with a Close Quarters Battle Receiver variant with 10.3-inch barrel]. So trying to deal with a weapon system that would give you the right combination of distance and accuracy, and then trying to maneuver in a civilian vehicle with either only a pistol or ‘a 10.3,’ which you then had to keep out of sight, and then deal with and try to react to something, you kind of had limited expectations.”

My son built a .300 blackout “pistol”. But it in reality looks like an AR. Folding stock and a short barrel. He also put a sound suppressor on it.

Firing regular .300 loads through it sounds like an AR. The suppressor helps quite a bit. He put some subsonic rounds through it with the suppressor on.

“pffft”

“Did that fire?”

“Well - it made some noise - so it must have.”

Was perhaps equal to or even quieter than a pellet gun pumped up 10 times.

As to how the round performs I have no idea. He was hitting bottles and cans at 100 feet with no problem. I read where the round is better in short-barrelled firearms than the .223.

“What is called WILDCAT rounds are actually the types that really stops the enemy.
The 5.56 is just designed to wound the enemy and the .308 is the real stopping round + longer range.
So the US military went from the great M1 Garand to the M-16 (5.56 round), the pistol went from the classic 1911 with the 45 Cal to the Beretta 9MM (again less stopping power)!
I keep thinking that the Top Brass is in love with mouse-clicking the enemy with small rounds and not killing & eliminating them.
At least the snipers are (still) allowed to reach out and kill the enemy at long distances.” [prophetic, post 10]

None of these statements are true.

“Stopping power” cannot be quantified. Its use is not permitted as a performance characteristic when the military depts draft Statements of Operational Need.

5.56mm was not designed to wound and not kill. No small arms cartridge can be designed to do that: as a target, the human body simply varies too much in size, weight, organ position, health, physical condition, nervous excitation, etc. A minimum level of transferred energy that will wound without killing cannot be specified. And in action, there are no guarantees that a bullet will hit the right spot.

The military did not adopt the M16 to replace the M1. The M14 officially superseded the M1 in 1957, and the M16 officially superseded the M14 in 1968.

There was longstanding disagreement among senior leaders in the US Army, over the proper size and power for a rifle cartridge, dating to the 1920s: combat in World War One indicated that the 30-06 developed more power than required; its effective range was almost nine times the typical engagement range for rifle fire. The excess was so much waste. But Army Ordnance resisted change.

John C Garand’s earliest rifle designs were for about 25 caliber, with a large detachable box magazine and a barrel exposed from the muzzle backwards for a much greater distance: more like a Mini-14 than the M1 as finally approved.

The 9mm NATO pistol cartridge actually outperforms military loads of the 45 ACP: higher velocity, greater effective range, better penetration of soft body armor. Recall that “stopping power” cannot be quantified. In operational tests prior to the selection of the M9 pistol, it was found that the M1911A1 exhibited a higher malfunction rate than every newer handgun under test. It was determined that this was due to design limitations that could not be corrected. Pistol design had not stood still in the intervening years.

Ground forces no longer fight with rifle fire at any extended range. Even the most backward nations use artillery, rockets, missiles, air support, etc. The footsoldier isn’t expected to hit an enemy soldier 2000 yards away with an aimed shot; he is expected to call for fire support on the radio, from more effective systems.

The Top Brass wanted a shoulder-fired rifle capable of controlled full auto fire. This is physically impossible with a rifle as light as the M1 firing a cartridge as large and powerful as 30-06. The same is true of the M14 (which weighs about the same as the M1) firing 7.62 NATO (almost identical in power to 30-06). 5.56mm M193 fired from the M16 develops about half the power of either earlier round and is controllable on full auto.

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