and yet Stoner ditched it on the AR180 and the Stoner63 weapon system in favor of a piston...
Posted on 03/24/2015 6:35:39 PM PDT by Redcitizen
The U.S. Army is considering several upgrades to the M4A1 Carbine that could improve its accuracy and performance and change the weapon's appearance.
Army weapons and contracting officials recently launched a market survey to see what the small-arms industry has to offer as far as better rails, triggers, charging handles and sights for the M4A1.
"The government is seeking to procure M4A1-Plus (abbreviated as M4A1+) components as non-development items ... for improvements to the M4A1 Carbine," according to the March 13 document posted on FedBizOpps.gov. "It is anticipated that the M4A1+ components will be evaluated as a system. The system must then install on/interface with stock M4A1 Carbines."
The Army decided to replace the standard M4 with the M4A1 in 2013 after the service abandoned a five-year effort to replace the M4 with a brand-new carbine.
(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...
The AR-15 is a civilian version of a military carbine that Armalite was (unsuccessfully) trying to sell to the Pentagon’ Is it still a viable candidate (technically, not politically) for the Army now?
Anything - as long as they keep the field proven direct impingement system and don’t put any of those new-fangled gas pistons in there.
I haven’t heard as much about the gas pistons lately. Fad? Or slow to catch on? I know those Korean Daewoos have them and they work good with a gas piston system.
The AR-15 is the civilian version of the M16. A shorter version of the M16 is the M4. Civilian versions of the M4 are available, and they are a lot of fun to shoot.
...all components desired are currently available at Brownells.com...
They could do a lot worse than a Colt AR-15 HBar. I had one, actually several, and loved it. Extremely accurate and that 20 inch barrel is still pretty short.
Since it would not be as handy as an M4, every soldier could be issued one of those FN pistols which hold a huge number of rounds.
Some could be issued a highly accurate longer barreled scoped semi auto in something like the 6.5 Carcano or 6.5 Greek .243 etc.
Just fun to try to figure out especially since I won’t have to use them.
The first step would be to move up to a caliber that ends a fight with one hit.I gave up on 5.56 as a serious caliber years ago,give me a 7.62x51.
Go with the 3.8 pound OIP variant in .243 Winchester with th HK piston design.
http://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/oip-3-8-pound-ar-shot-show-2015/
and yet Stoner ditched it on the AR180 and the Stoner63 weapon system in favor of a piston...
Very nice! I could go for a AR rifle in that caliber.
Found an article touting the usefulness of the .243 as a service round.
http://www.chuckhawks.com/243_service_rifle.htm
There's a lot of truth to that statement.
Weight reduction and reliability, performance and a 1000 yard max effective range, common caliber for a squad automatic weapon.....whats not to like....:o)
I love the 243 .....
Stay Safe , thanks for the link.
I wonder if anyone has done much work with the 6.5 Jap? I know it is a fairly short case and would work in a lot of standard actions.
I think the main problem the Japs had with it was it did not work as well with tracers as a .31 caliber.
One of my college professors had a 6.5 Carcano. We took it out one day and he shot right through a pine stump. That was with surplus ammo.
There are more and more gas piston models going on sale.
The AR is the only major direct impingement rifle on the world market, most everyone else except the Germans uses piston drive.
Trying hard to remember, but i think the Brits wanted something like that rather than the 5.56 but the US steamrolled them with the tiny cartridge. Might not have been .243, but was bigger than .223.
The British have wanted to go to a .280 even back to the early 20th century. There was never anything wrong with the caliber, it was just world events etc. which kept them from going to it.
I think you are right about them wanting it again in the 1950s but it was the .308 which we forced on them, not the .223.
I always thought that for a combination of weight and punch, the .250 Savage would be a decent service round. The commercial loadings don't take full advantage of the cartridge and are watered down a bit to accommodate some of the older model Savage 99s floating around out there, but with a higher pressured loading it would make a nice replacement for the 5.56.
You are probably right, just remembered them being forced into something back when. Probably liked to my reading that the FNLAR was originally designed for a lighter round than the .308, maybe this .280.
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