I met him because he was at the SOCOM sniper competition last week, and came in 4th (against bolt guns) with his combat-proven SR-25. The folks who beat him had the product of the booth I was strap-hanging in on the butts of their rifles, and he wanted one. That's how I met him. He was out at SHOT looking for team gear. (Kasey Beltz of Accu-Shot liked my book enough that he invited me to sell my books out of it. Was I lucky or what?) Thanks Kasey!
[Accu-Shot is an up-down mono-pod that attaches to the standard swivel mount on the back of most rifles. The winners at the SOCOM shoot had them, and K.E. wants them for his QRF company's snipers, that's how we met.]
Anyhoooo.... Getting to the point. K.E.'s SF company has racked up beoucoups missions of the CQB variety, taking down structures from the outside, and killing all the bad guys inside. He moves close behind the entry team, he is not a distant stand-off kind of sniper. He ends up using his .308 SR-25 for CQB. (He uses the flipped up lens caps of his big scope as his "battle sights" for inside work.)
He goes in with the entry guys, because he says it's very common that as a structure is secured, they will take rifle fire from other buildings several hundred yards away. The M-4 guys can't do much to suppress that fire, but his SR-25 quickly puts a stop to it.
In fact, he says that with the IR illuminator, his spotter can see the "trace" of his bullets. The boat tail end of a Sierra Match King is shiny brass, and it reflects back the IR illumination, and is seen in the NODs as a clear green light.
Now, on to the main point: he is adamant that 5.56 out of an M-4 is not an adequate round. He says that he cannot count the times a bad guy has been stitched 3-4-5 times across the chest, has crumpled down, been bypassed, and then recovered and fired again at the SFs. They DO NOT TRUST the 5.56 to kill a man or put him down definitively in a fast-paced CQB environment. K.E. says "308 kills 'em, 556 wounds 'em." He says the current 556 out of an M-4 makes "ice pick wounds."
At this point, his SF CRF company is attempting ad-hoc piecemeal to cobble together a full loadout of 6.8mm uppers. He laughs about begging for more 6.8mm uppers to "T&E" which is in fact code for putting them to immediate use in combat.
Another visitor to the booth at another time was an older gentleman from Crane Indiana, a govt. small arms ordnance type. He says the Army is NOT putting in any serious quantity orders for 6.8mm uppers. He says the SFs are doing this all on their own, begging for scraps and odds and ends on their own. This confirms what K.E. says about begging for "T&E" 6.8mm uppers.
Apparently the Army doesn't want to hear what the SF guys think about the 5.56. They use it frequently in CQB, and have NO faith in it. Not when you and the bad guy are in the same room or hall or stairwell. It might suit "Big Army" when the enemy is not so close, but at room distance it's not working, according to K.E.
They want the 6.8s even with greatly reduced mag capacity, a sign of their strong desire to dump the 5.56mm. The ordnance guy from Crane (K.E and him were never at the booth at the same time) pointed out that the 6.8 may not feed reliably from a 5.56 mag. The double stack mag is designed to work tightly packed with rounds touching tops and bottoms. Spaced out in a mag, half way between double and single stacked, the rounds are pushed hard outward, causing binding. That was a point the ordnance man made, that K.E. didn't mention.
Sorry for going on and on, but I thought you guys would appreciate hearing this story right from the mouth of the 5th SF's ME QRF company. The guys has done four deployments in the ME since 9-11 going back to pre-Kabul, and I have 100% faith in his honesty.
NOTE: if you pass this info on, please remove K.E.'s initials and unit information. I felt okay burying this info deep in this "specialist" FR thread.
5th SFG has some good folks . I worked JTF 6 with some of those from ODA 591 for a bit in early 90's.
Thanks again Travis for the SHOT show report.......any new toys that stuck out this year ??
Stay safe !