Proposed New US Service Rifle Cartridges

Add that to the fact that it feeds reliably in an AR (something 7.62x39 is not known for)
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I have a Bushmaster AR 7.62x39 and i have put at least 10,000 rounds through it and i have yet to have a single feed issue. Most people use crappy steel ammo for 7.62x39 in AR's which is where most people have issues. I run only brass ammo and it works flawlessly. I have tried steel cased ammo and doesnt work so well
 
Brass instead of cheap steel defeats the purpose of a x39 in an AR IMHO. Hell I shoot cheap steel in my 556's...

If I build a 6.5 I'll be looking for the promised wolf, I just bought a AA 6.5 marked lower, but haven't decided what to couple to it yet.
 
The weight carried by a soldier has been relatively constant since the Roman soldier was carrying a gladius, plus a ton of other stuff. Some soldiers carried even more. In 1914, for instance, a British soldier carried over 60 pounds, including clothing and boots. His arms and ammunitions was about 20 pounds of that and that was counting 150 rounds S.A.A. (9 pounds). No steel helmet yet then. But he would then be burdened with probably a shovel, sandbags, gas mask, and even more ammunition. Officer's didn't carry as much. It's no different today if he isn't in a mechanized unit.
 
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insomni said:
For all saying it's not a big deal: Back in Vietnam, and Desert Storm when you wouldn't wear armor, or you'd wear the light flak vest, might not be a big deal. The IOTV (standard Army body armor.... which weighs MORE than the previous IBA) weighs just shy of 30lbs. +3L of water, +GPS, +radio, +kneepads, +helmet, +M4 with attachments (can quickly become a 10 or 11lb rifle), +ammo (nope, a good infantry squad-leader doesn't let his joes skimp by and just carry the 210 rounds basic load), +Night vision, +extra batteries for everything, +flashlight, +aid kit, +flex cuffs, +signalling devices, +smoke, +grenades and/or flashbangs, +flares, +any extra equipment.... we're talking 60+lbs of gear BEFORE we add in a 3day pack, or god forbid a rucksack. Exit 7.62 NATO (.308WIN) from the competition. it is a beautiful monster of a round, but not for line infantry uses.
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I can't believe all the crap the guys carry today. When I was piddling with the Infantry, we had two loads. Our ruck and our "light-to-fight". The ruck might weigh 60-70 lbs, but the light-to-fight was maybe 10-12 pounds. On contact we'd dump the rucks and come back for them later. Our light kit was water, ammo, a couple of grenades and a first aid kit. Steel pot helmet, M16, that was about it.

The infantrymen today are burdened with a lot of gear. They are heroes, each and every one of them.
 
Yeah... weight is of critical importance. That is why the 5.56 is not going anywhere soon. It has a very high "combat effectiveness per pound" compared to the other rounds on the table.

If you read military history, you will be familiar with the phenomenon in WWII and Korea where advancing units were frequently short on ammunition. When they were defending a position, or holding a line, the ammo supply was not usually a problem. But while advancing and attacking, shortages of 30-06 were common and acute. Ammo shortages DID impact the outcomes of battle. Those guys just couldn't carry enough 30-06 in many situations.

Fast forward to Vietnam, and ammo shortages of 5.56 were rare. Same with Panama, Grenada, Operation Desert Storm (Kuwait-Iraq I), Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq II)... Ammo shortages of 5.56 are rare, and I don't recall a single battle being affected by a shortage of 5.56... although the real histories of OEF and OIF have yet to be written.

For a trained marksman whose role is to reach out beyond 500 meters, an alternative to the 7.62x51 might be worth consideration. However, we have to be careful to consider weight. A 6.5mm 140 grain projectile may have excellent ballistic performance, but it isn't going to be much lighter than standard M59 150 gr 7.62x51.
 
I would often think to myself as I was gearing up what I could ditch...and I could never find anything I could drop without any reservations. The showed us "Black Hawk Down" at WLC and drilled it into our heads that the U.S. Army owns the night...if we bring our gear.

My infatuation in the 6.8 SPC stems from the fact that I have a gun back ground. By nature, the trivial interests me. However, that doesn't mean it would be preferred by all.
 
lots of good opinions here so I will not re-hash any. This cal., that cal..
What we need is better/more marksmanship training. Make every shot count.
Sorry if this doesn't belong here but it is I feel a major issue which should be addressed. Having the biggest, fastest specialty caliber doesn't mean squat if you can't hit consistantly with it. Nuff said.
 
What we need is better/more marksmanship training. Make every shot count.
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While I don't think we want, need or are sending any schmucks that can't hit the broad side of the barn out into a battlefield "every shot count" goes against the majority of military tactics today and for good reason. Suppressive fire has it place (a big one) while you maneuver in for the so called kill. Think of suppressive fire as a jab while you set em up for that right cross.

LK
 
on some news footage of the current sit. in Afghanistan it showed our guys holding their guns above the berm firing blindly over it. How effective is that?
 
If it keeps the bad guys down behind their berm while another fire team maneuvers around to hit them with aimed fire, then pretty darn good.
 
on some news footage of the current sit. in Afghanistan it showed our guys holding their guns above the berm firing blindly over it. How effective is that?
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As SPE stated if it does the job it does the job. But there is a big BIG difference between making "every shot count" and shooting with your eyes closed. You're at 2 extremes and there is tons of ground in between. Just because they choose to send off rounds from cover doesn't make them bad marksmen. It makes them smarter than average especially in a situation where we're gonna be bailing out in a short time.

LK
 
*Dons old ACUs with SGT stripes still velcroed on the chest*
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Oh where do all the years go?

How can any ACUs be "old"? It was just yesterday that Woodland was the way to dress.

And stripes on the chest? I can remember when only Euro-troops did that.

Bart Noir
Who predates Woodland camo but is not so old that Sgt's had stripes pointing down.
 
Well, old in the since that they have been hung up and are no longer worn.

I'm a Frat Boy now, even on the weekends.

But in my defense, I atleast got to experience BDUs through OSUT.
 
This former grunt gets the concept of suppressive fire, but even suppressive fire has to be accurate. Maybe not to the level of point firing, but the concept remains the same.

Sign me up for the 'more emphasis on training and less on cartridge/caliber' side.
 
While everyone seems to agree that total weight as carried by a foot soldier, I'm not sure that reducing either the weight of the rifle or the ammunition is the way to do it. Either way, I still don't think that is the key issue with the infantryman's rifle. But that isn't the only weapon an infantryman takes into battle as far as small arms go.

There are machine guns, for area targets, including targets further away. I wonder about the wisdom of having a squad automatic, which is a machine gun with another name, in an intermediate cartridge. The Germans never did it with the 7.92x33, yet the Soviets did very quickly after the AK got off the ground. Today everyone has something like that, so I guess it isn't a bad idea.

There are designated marksman for engaging point targets beyond the (effective) range of other infantry. They have, presumably, more powerful rifles and more powerful optics and hopefully better shooting abilities.

The rest of the infantry will be fighting relatively close and would want something with firepower. Infantry combat isn't deer hunting. Before the first intermediate cartridge and the rifle that used it, a submachine gun was the thing for close-in combat. Everyone had them, eventually, and if they didn't, they learned the hard way that they could sometimes be a handy thing to have. They came in .45 ACP, 9mm and 7.63 Tokarev mostly, all pistol cartridges. The 7.92x33 is less powerful than either the 5.56 NATO or the 7.62x39 but it's still twice as powerful as any pistol round.

What we are talking about is a controversy that started in the 1950s, maybe earlier, when NATO was trying to settle on a common rifle cartridge. The 7.92x33 was well thought of in the West for its characteristics and some new weapons were chambered for it. But it all came to nothing and essentially it really influenced nothing after that. The Soviets had already settled on their own, slightly more powerful cartridge. There is no doubt a story of how Eugene Stoner decided to design the AR-15 around the .222 Remington but I don't know it.

I think an opportunity was lost at that point. There's more to the controversy of the 5.56 and the AR-15 than just the caliber of the cartridge of course but it is surprising that no attempt was ever made to simply use a larger (.30 caliber) bullet. There may have been but that's another story I don't have to tell. At this point in history it would be hard to change. Even the Swiss use the 5.56.
 
Stoner designed the AR-10 first. The AR-15 was a modification to change the rifle to a caliber. The reason the rest of nato uses the 5.56 is because the US crammed it down their throats. Just liked we crammed the 7.62x51 and the fal was born. The britished had proposed a lighter round...the .280 british. US thought that was too small a round and instead chose 7.63x51, only to jump through their butts later and get stuck with the 5.56 varmint round. Now, 50 years later...
 
Eugene Stoner was a definite .30 caliber fan.

He never designed a new rifle for anything less than .30 caliber.

The 5.56 rifles with his name on them (not literally!) are downsized versions, as mentioned above.

Many books have been written about the caliber changes and decisions made in the late 1940s and since. Someday there will be new chapters about what is going on right now.

Bart Noir
Who thinks that we will just keep trying to find the ideal bullet in 5.56x45 caliber. Maybe little ripples on the outside like the hulls of racing boats, for less drag?
 
I think they're already perfect 5.56x45 rounds out there.

They are made by Remington-UMC, Winchester, Federal, and Hornady. They all sort of expand and deform when they hit something like a hog or a deer and do all sorts of nasty things inside of said animal, putting them down quickly and humanely. Shame the Hague prevents us from using those.
 
ACUs?...... BDUs?......fatigues?

"Old Soldiers" go back to HBTs (Herring Bone Twill), brown boots and 10 pocket cartridge belts for our M1s.
 
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