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Ballistically, They are near the same. 150-grain bullet at 2800 fps..
Ideal rate of twist (MLP firearms and shooting thread)
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Well, sir... 
Back when the M14 and its 7.62 x 51mm ammo was swapped out for M16 and the 5.56 x45mm (M193, 55-grain bullets), the idea was that the troops could carry more ammo-- a distinct advantage when supply is tough on both sides.
When you added to that the nearly war crime-ish tendency of the M193 to tumble-- especially when fired out of a rifle with a 1:12 twist such as the M16 and M16A1 rifles... well, it made sense and it sure as shit was a real mean team.
When the M16 and its M193 ammo made its debut, the Euros in NATO weren't so hot on this 5.56mm shit.
And the Russians? They laughed like hell! They thought we must have gone nuts!
But then everybody watched as the idea that guys who carry lots more ammo than the opposition tend to prevail on battlefields came true in a really big way... and so it came to pass that the Russians finally swallowed their pride and swapped over to the AK-74 and its 5.45 x 39mm ammo.
They had had their asses handed to them in Afghanistan by Muj types carrying US-supplied M16 rifles, and there ain't no proof quite like dead troops.
***************
At that point, NATO members who'd held off on swapping out to the lighter cartridge type were all in for it except for one thing: they wanted a 62-grain pill and a 1:7 twist because they just weren't really happy to see what you get when you autopsy somebody shot by the M193 cartridge type. So then we all agreed to those 62-grain green tip NATO carts, which had a much greater tendency to just drill a nice, clean hole straight through whoever it hit.
But one thing leads to the next, and I suddenly became aware of complaints from all quarters concerning enemy troops who weren't as impressed by the M855 hole driller as they were by the M193 buzz saw. Not only did they fail to die on cue, but quite often they were still capable of fighting back in an effective manner.
I think that it was around 2005 when I was reading something written by Chuck Hawks, a professional gun writer, who was spitballing and proposing the upgrading of the military cart to something more like a .243 Winchester.
By that time, Rumor Control had it that the military was thinking about this same subject... to come up with a cart that can still be carried in abundance, but which has a bit more ass in terms of terminal ballistics-- more stopping power-- than the M855 NATO cartridge in M16 or M4.
I was a little bit surprised when, about five years ago, I learned that what they wanted to go with was a .277" bullet-- same as the .270 Winchester-- but stick it atop a 7.62 x 51mm NATO cartridge case.
Edro already detailed some of the performance advantages (and disadvantages) in terms of external and terminal ballistics to perfection-- no need for me to belabor this post by repeating the information our man already gave us. But he was on the money up there, so factor that in along with what I'm saying now and a fuzzy picture emerges...
So they kind of could have their cake and eat it too with this new cartridge type... it's not as heavy as 7.62 x 51, and what's more is that it's actually far more controllable in burst fire with the standard infantry rifle designed to shoot this stuff, the Sig XM7.
This new cart is also capable of the same stability and accuracy in performance as the M249 SAW, using the version of the military's new SAW rifle that will chamber this stuff.
That is: there's a standard infantry issue model, the XM7, and then a heavier, SAW version that doesn't seem to have been fully developed yet-- or maybe I just missed it.
One thing I didn't miss is this bit right here: this new XM7 rifle weighs 13 pounds unloaded and about 16 pounds with a mag full of carts locked in!
Man, that's kinda heavy... actually, it's almost ridiculously heavy-- heavier than an AR-10, and so here you are carrying this heavy-ass rifle on the grounds that you can carry more ammo 'cause the ammo is lighter?
Somehow, this does not compute...the cartridge ain't THAT much lighter than 7.62 x 51 NATO, while the rifle is way heavier than an m14!
Seriously, man-- this rifle outweighs an M-14 by almost 5 pounds!
At this moment in time, while they're still talking big stuff about this new rifle, I noticed that the military has acquired only a very few of these suckers, and that the overwhelming majority of soldiers are still being issued the good ol' M4.
I would remind us that this XM7 rifle and its ammo have been around for at least five years already.
Kinda makes me wonder a little.
***************
I am not sure if I'm interpreting the situation correctly and let's face it: the Pentagon stopped telling me anything at all after that disastrous episode in Sierra Leone.
But this XM7 rifle was in production already in 2019 or 2020, and while we might expect 'em to shake out some bugs it doesn't usually take 5 fuckin' years to get into mass issuance.
I think-- and here I'm just guessing-- but I think that the big wigs might be looking at this rifle and are actually hearing what the armorers, line doggies, and company-level officers are saying-- for a change. Bottom line is: the troops seem to really hate it.
It appears as though the only real advantage to this thing over the M-14 is that it is controllable for 3-round bursts, whereas I've fired enough full auto in shit like M-14, G3A4, FN-LAR, and so forth to say: you can't control that 7.62 x 51mm shit on full auto in a rifle weighing less than ten pounds.
Your first bullet will hit center mass, the second will go about ten feet over the enemy's head if he's at 25 yards and the third one might shoot down a low-flying, stray aircraft. Kicks like a motherfucker on full auto-- all the rifles in the same class as the M14 do.
But this lighter .270-ish thing is apparently good to put smoke on a target for at least two out of three in a burst-- if not three out of three.
And that's the only good thing I've ever read about it.
Now for something pretty weird about this XM7 cart, the 6.8 x 51mm...
This cartridge is capable of developing an astonishingly high chamber pressure of up to about 80,000 PSI!
Compare and contrast that to a .300 Winchester Magnum cartridge, which develops a mere 64,000 PSI as tops.
I don't EVEN want to try and figure out why anybody would think that such incredibly high chamber pressures are okay, even though the cartridge itself doesn't actually outperform any of the belted magnums-- or to even come close.
So I just don't get it-- not really.
Once again stuck GUESSING, I'm thinking that in reality, the XM7 is an early prototype of a rifle that's still on paper or is still under wraps and in development, and that this "future rifle" may be able to handle up to 80 thousand fucking-foot-pounds of pure, raw ass like that.
The pressure is so ridiculously high that the cartridge case itself consists of a stainless steel cartridge head, with a brass cart body-- and these two parts are held together by a steel lock washer...
No really... they are, I'm not shitting you: it's a stainless steel cart head, a brass body, and it's held together by a fucking lockwasher!
***************
And that's your 80K PSI cart for ya.
However, I continue to wonder if there ain't something that's just not right about any of this shit, the rifle or the ammo.
At this moment in time those who are issued this weird rifle and its equally-weird ammo are getting straight-drawn, ordinary brass and they keep the pressure down to about 62K PSI.
So ultimately, it's the existence of this 80K, three-piece cart that has me thinking that this XM7 rifle is more of an interim thing than anything else.
That might also explain why the military has NOT jumped on this cart like a rabid football team sacking a quarterback, and has not busted ass to hand it out to everybody and his brother.
They do talk about this amazing new rifle of theirs... but they don't seem to be handing too many out?
I'm not quite sure what to make of all that. Really, if it's not just part of a larger project I'd say that they just provided the world with the solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
--R
Back when the M14 and its 7.62 x 51mm ammo was swapped out for M16 and the 5.56 x45mm (M193, 55-grain bullets), the idea was that the troops could carry more ammo-- a distinct advantage when supply is tough on both sides.
When you added to that the nearly war crime-ish tendency of the M193 to tumble-- especially when fired out of a rifle with a 1:12 twist such as the M16 and M16A1 rifles... well, it made sense and it sure as shit was a real mean team.
When the M16 and its M193 ammo made its debut, the Euros in NATO weren't so hot on this 5.56mm shit.
And the Russians? They laughed like hell! They thought we must have gone nuts!
But then everybody watched as the idea that guys who carry lots more ammo than the opposition tend to prevail on battlefields came true in a really big way... and so it came to pass that the Russians finally swallowed their pride and swapped over to the AK-74 and its 5.45 x 39mm ammo.
They had had their asses handed to them in Afghanistan by Muj types carrying US-supplied M16 rifles, and there ain't no proof quite like dead troops.
***************
At that point, NATO members who'd held off on swapping out to the lighter cartridge type were all in for it except for one thing: they wanted a 62-grain pill and a 1:7 twist because they just weren't really happy to see what you get when you autopsy somebody shot by the M193 cartridge type. So then we all agreed to those 62-grain green tip NATO carts, which had a much greater tendency to just drill a nice, clean hole straight through whoever it hit.
But one thing leads to the next, and I suddenly became aware of complaints from all quarters concerning enemy troops who weren't as impressed by the M855 hole driller as they were by the M193 buzz saw. Not only did they fail to die on cue, but quite often they were still capable of fighting back in an effective manner.
I think that it was around 2005 when I was reading something written by Chuck Hawks, a professional gun writer, who was spitballing and proposing the upgrading of the military cart to something more like a .243 Winchester.
By that time, Rumor Control had it that the military was thinking about this same subject... to come up with a cart that can still be carried in abundance, but which has a bit more ass in terms of terminal ballistics-- more stopping power-- than the M855 NATO cartridge in M16 or M4.
***************
I was a little bit surprised when, about five years ago, I learned that what they wanted to go with was a .277" bullet-- same as the .270 Winchester-- but stick it atop a 7.62 x 51mm NATO cartridge case.
Edro already detailed some of the performance advantages (and disadvantages) in terms of external and terminal ballistics to perfection-- no need for me to belabor this post by repeating the information our man already gave us. But he was on the money up there, so factor that in along with what I'm saying now and a fuzzy picture emerges...
So they kind of could have their cake and eat it too with this new cartridge type... it's not as heavy as 7.62 x 51, and what's more is that it's actually far more controllable in burst fire with the standard infantry rifle designed to shoot this stuff, the Sig XM7.
This new cart is also capable of the same stability and accuracy in performance as the M249 SAW, using the version of the military's new SAW rifle that will chamber this stuff.
That is: there's a standard infantry issue model, the XM7, and then a heavier, SAW version that doesn't seem to have been fully developed yet-- or maybe I just missed it.
***************
One thing I didn't miss is this bit right here: this new XM7 rifle weighs 13 pounds unloaded and about 16 pounds with a mag full of carts locked in!
Man, that's kinda heavy... actually, it's almost ridiculously heavy-- heavier than an AR-10, and so here you are carrying this heavy-ass rifle on the grounds that you can carry more ammo 'cause the ammo is lighter?
Somehow, this does not compute...the cartridge ain't THAT much lighter than 7.62 x 51 NATO, while the rifle is way heavier than an m14!
Seriously, man-- this rifle outweighs an M-14 by almost 5 pounds!
***************
At this moment in time, while they're still talking big stuff about this new rifle, I noticed that the military has acquired only a very few of these suckers, and that the overwhelming majority of soldiers are still being issued the good ol' M4.
I would remind us that this XM7 rifle and its ammo have been around for at least five years already.
Kinda makes me wonder a little.
***************
I am not sure if I'm interpreting the situation correctly and let's face it: the Pentagon stopped telling me anything at all after that disastrous episode in Sierra Leone.
But this XM7 rifle was in production already in 2019 or 2020, and while we might expect 'em to shake out some bugs it doesn't usually take 5 fuckin' years to get into mass issuance.
I think-- and here I'm just guessing-- but I think that the big wigs might be looking at this rifle and are actually hearing what the armorers, line doggies, and company-level officers are saying-- for a change. Bottom line is: the troops seem to really hate it.
It appears as though the only real advantage to this thing over the M-14 is that it is controllable for 3-round bursts, whereas I've fired enough full auto in shit like M-14, G3A4, FN-LAR, and so forth to say: you can't control that 7.62 x 51mm shit on full auto in a rifle weighing less than ten pounds.
Your first bullet will hit center mass, the second will go about ten feet over the enemy's head if he's at 25 yards and the third one might shoot down a low-flying, stray aircraft. Kicks like a motherfucker on full auto-- all the rifles in the same class as the M14 do.
But this lighter .270-ish thing is apparently good to put smoke on a target for at least two out of three in a burst-- if not three out of three.
And that's the only good thing I've ever read about it.
***************
Now for something pretty weird about this XM7 cart, the 6.8 x 51mm...
This cartridge is capable of developing an astonishingly high chamber pressure of up to about 80,000 PSI!
Compare and contrast that to a .300 Winchester Magnum cartridge, which develops a mere 64,000 PSI as tops.
I don't EVEN want to try and figure out why anybody would think that such incredibly high chamber pressures are okay, even though the cartridge itself doesn't actually outperform any of the belted magnums-- or to even come close.
So I just don't get it-- not really.
Once again stuck GUESSING, I'm thinking that in reality, the XM7 is an early prototype of a rifle that's still on paper or is still under wraps and in development, and that this "future rifle" may be able to handle up to 80 thousand fucking-foot-pounds of pure, raw ass like that.
***************
The pressure is so ridiculously high that the cartridge case itself consists of a stainless steel cartridge head, with a brass cart body-- and these two parts are held together by a steel lock washer...
No really... they are, I'm not shitting you: it's a stainless steel cart head, a brass body, and it's held together by a fucking lockwasher!
***************
And that's your 80K PSI cart for ya.
However, I continue to wonder if there ain't something that's just not right about any of this shit, the rifle or the ammo.
At this moment in time those who are issued this weird rifle and its equally-weird ammo are getting straight-drawn, ordinary brass and they keep the pressure down to about 62K PSI.
So ultimately, it's the existence of this 80K, three-piece cart that has me thinking that this XM7 rifle is more of an interim thing than anything else.
That might also explain why the military has NOT jumped on this cart like a rabid football team sacking a quarterback, and has not busted ass to hand it out to everybody and his brother.
They do talk about this amazing new rifle of theirs... but they don't seem to be handing too many out?
I'm not quite sure what to make of all that. Really, if it's not just part of a larger project I'd say that they just provided the world with the solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
--R
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This, I know. Shoulder-fired 7.62 on full-auto with damn-near anything is just a waste of ammo. I have heard though, that the old Armalite AR-10 was somewhat better at it, due to its straight-line stock-to-bore geometry.
Yes. They do. Early M-14's came with a full auto lock-out the noncoms had a key for. "panic lock", let's call it.
With a soldier's rifle in 7.62 NATO, there's no shot recovery. No retaining a sight picture. On semi, you can easily recover your sight picture, aim, shoot the next target. Full auto, it's one round downrange, 19 in the air, and you are now changing mags. They would be 10x more lethal with a bolt-action.
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I love my M1A – civilian M-14 – and I gotta tell you that any battle rifle heavier than that is a stupid idea.
I can see why the M-16 was hated so much, and I’ve heard all of those stories from its introduction and use in Vietnam.
I understand light weight being of supreme importance on the battlefield, and I certainly appreciate the ability to carry far more ammunition on my back.
But ballistically, we went a little too far.
Well, over the years the AR platform got refined and improved. Guys understood the ammo better.
It works.
I think there’s universal agreement that an ideal compromise would be something AR-ish with a little more ballistic punch.
I like 5.56 ammo just fine.
It has plenty of uses.
I have a few rifles that run it.
I also like plenty of American hunting calibers in the .30 range.
7.62 or .308 has a lot going for it.
One quick way to demonstrate the differences in weight and mobility?
I can show you the shelves where I keep ammo in both 5.56 and 7.62.
Lift this box.
Now, lift that box!
Then I’ll hand you a couple rifles to compare
If the difference is that obvious - in the climate controlled luxury of my modest home - it’s going to be exponentially more obvious when shit goes sideways.
I can see why the M-16 was hated so much, and I’ve heard all of those stories from its introduction and use in Vietnam.
I understand light weight being of supreme importance on the battlefield, and I certainly appreciate the ability to carry far more ammunition on my back.
But ballistically, we went a little too far.
Well, over the years the AR platform got refined and improved. Guys understood the ammo better.
It works.
I think there’s universal agreement that an ideal compromise would be something AR-ish with a little more ballistic punch.
I like 5.56 ammo just fine.
It has plenty of uses.
I have a few rifles that run it.
I also like plenty of American hunting calibers in the .30 range.
7.62 or .308 has a lot going for it.
One quick way to demonstrate the differences in weight and mobility?
I can show you the shelves where I keep ammo in both 5.56 and 7.62.
Lift this box.
Now, lift that box!
Then I’ll hand you a couple rifles to compare
If the difference is that obvious - in the climate controlled luxury of my modest home - it’s going to be exponentially more obvious when shit goes sideways.
Mike I
Gold Supporting Member
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In other news, the Australian state of Victoria, is banning machetes.
They have a program to turn in your machetes before the law becomes effective at the police stations.
After the law goes into effect, owning, buying, or possession of one can get you two years in prison and a fine of around 31,000 USD.
They have a program to turn in your machetes before the law becomes effective at the police stations.
After the law goes into effect, owning, buying, or possession of one can get you two years in prison and a fine of around 31,000 USD.
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Man is digressing back to stone age....carrying clubs and shit....
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Well, sir...
Back when the M14 and its 7.62 x 51mm ammo was swapped out for M16 and the 5.56 x45mm (M193, 55-grain bullets), the idea was that the troops could carry more ammo-- a distinct advantage when supply is tough on both sides.
When you added to that the nearly war crime-ish tendency of the M193 to tumble-- especially when fired out of a rifle with a 1:12 twist such as the M16 and M16A1 rifles... well, it made sense and it sure as shit was a real mean team.
When the M16 and its M193 ammo made its debut, the Euros in NATO weren't so hot on this 5.56mm shit.
And the Russians? They laughed like hell! They thought we must have gone nuts!
But then everybody watched as the idea that guys who carry lots more ammo than the opposition tend to prevail on battlefields came true in a really big way... and so it came to pass that the Russians finally swallowed their pride and swapped over to the AK-74 and its 5.45 x 39mm ammo.
They had had their asses handed to them in Afghanistan by Muj types carrying US-supplied M16 rifles, and there ain't no proof quite like dead troops.
***************
At that point, NATO members who'd held off on swapping out to the lighter cartridge type were all in for it except for one thing: they wanted a 62-grain pill and a 1:7 twist because they just weren't really happy to see what you get when you autopsy somebody shot by the M193 cartridge type. So then we all agreed to those 62-grain green tip NATO carts, which had a much greater tendency to just drill a nice, clean hole straight through whoever it hit.
But one thing leads to the next, and I suddenly became aware of complaints from all quarters concerning enemy troops who weren't as impressed by the M855 hole driller as they were by the M193 buzz saw. Not only did they fail to die on cue, but quite often they were still capable of fighting back in an effective manner.
I think that it was around 2005 when I was reading something written by Chuck Hawks, a professional gun writer, who was spitballing and proposing the upgrading of the military cart to something more like a .243 Winchester.
By that time, Rumor Control had it that the military was thinking about this same subject... to come up with a cart that can still be carried in abundance, but which has a bit more ass in terms of terminal ballistics-- more stopping power-- than the M855 NATO cartridge in M16 or M4.
***************
I was a little bit surprised when, about five years ago, I learned that what they wanted to go with was a .277" bullet-- same as the .270 Winchester-- but stick it atop a 7.62 x 51mm NATO cartridge case.
Edro already detailed some of the performance advantages (and disadvantages) in terms of external and terminal ballistics to perfection-- no need for me to belabor this post by repeating the information our man already gave us. But he was on the money up there, so factor that in along with what I'm saying now and a fuzzy picture emerges...
So they kind of could have their cake and eat it too with this new cartridge type... it's not as heavy as 7.62 x 51, and what's more is that it's actually far more controllable in burst fire with the standard infantry rifle designed to shoot this stuff, the Sig XM7.
This new cart is also capable of the same stability and accuracy in performance as the M249 SAW, using the version of the military's new SAW rifle that will chamber this stuff.
That is: there's a standard infantry issue model, the XM7, and then a heavier, SAW version that doesn't seem to have been fully developed yet-- or maybe I just missed it.
***************
One thing I didn't miss is this bit right here: this new XM7 rifle weighs 13 pounds unloaded and about 16 pounds with a mag full of carts locked in!
Man, that's kinda heavy... actually, it's almost ridiculously heavy-- heavier than an AR-10, and so here you are carrying this heavy-ass rifle on the grounds that you can carry more ammo 'cause the ammo is lighter?
Somehow, this does not compute...the cartridge ain't THAT much lighter than 7.62 x 51 NATO, while the rifle is way heavier than an m14!
Seriously, man-- this rifle outweighs an M-14 by almost 5 pounds!
***************
At this moment in time, while they're still talking big stuff about this new rifle, I noticed that the military has acquired only a very few of these suckers, and that the overwhelming majority of soldiers are still being issued the good ol' M4.
I would remind us that this XM7 rifle and its ammo have been around for at least five years already.
Kinda makes me wonder a little.
***************
I am not sure if I'm interpreting the situation correctly and let's face it: the Pentagon stopped telling me anything at all after that disastrous episode in Sierra Leone.
But this XM7 rifle was in production already in 2019 or 2020, and while we might expect 'em to shake out some bugs it doesn't usually take 5 fuckin' years to get into mass issuance.
I think-- and here I'm just guessing-- but I think that the big wigs might be looking at this rifle and are actually hearing what the armorers, line doggies, and company-level officers are saying-- for a change. Bottom line is: the troops seem to really hate it.
It appears as though the only real advantage to this thing over the M-14 is that it is controllable for 3-round bursts, whereas I've fired enough full auto in shit like M-14, G3A4, FN-LAR, and so forth to say: you can't control that 7.62 x 51mm shit on full auto in a rifle weighing less than ten pounds.
Your first bullet will hit center mass, the second will go about ten feet over the enemy's head if he's at 25 yards and the third one might shoot down a low-flying, stray aircraft. Kicks like a motherfucker on full auto-- all the rifles in the same class as the M14 do.
But this lighter .270-ish thing is apparently good to put smoke on a target for at least two out of three in a burst-- if not three out of three.
And that's the only good thing I've ever read about it.
***************
Now for something pretty weird about this XM7 cart, the 6.8 x 51mm...
This cartridge is capable of developing an astonishingly high chamber pressure of up to about 80,000 PSI!
Compare and contrast that to a .300 Winchester Magnum cartridge, which develops a mere 64,000 PSI as tops.
I don't EVEN want to try and figure out why anybody would think that such incredibly high chamber pressures are okay, even though the cartridge itself doesn't actually outperform any of the belted magnums-- or to even come close.
So I just don't get it-- not really.
Once again stuck GUESSING, I'm thinking that in reality, the XM7 is an early prototype of a rifle that's still on paper or is still under wraps and in development, and that this "future rifle" may be able to handle up to 80 thousand fucking-foot-pounds of pure, raw ass like that.
***************
The pressure is so ridiculously high that the cartridge case itself consists of a stainless steel cartridge head, with a brass cart body-- and these two parts are held together by a steel lock washer...
No really... they are, I'm not shitting you: it's a stainless steel cart head, a brass body, and it's held together by a fucking lockwasher!
***************
And that's your 80K PSI cart for ya.
However, I continue to wonder if there ain't something that's just not right about any of this shit, the rifle or the ammo.
At this moment in time those who are issued this weird rifle and its equally-weird ammo are getting straight-drawn, ordinary brass and they keep the pressure down to about 62K PSI.
So ultimately, it's the existence of this 80K, three-piece cart that has me thinking that this XM7 rifle is more of an interim thing than anything else.
That might also explain why the military has NOT jumped on this cart like a rabid football team sacking a quarterback, and has not busted ass to hand it out to everybody and his brother.
They do talk about this amazing new rifle of theirs... but they don't seem to be handing too many out?
I'm not quite sure what to make of all that. Really, if it's not just part of a larger project I'd say that they just provided the world with the solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
--R
A great read, RoBob.... You lit up stuff I didn't even think about.... Like the platform itself... With that weight, methinks the kabosh hammer may be in the wings of rit as it presently appears to be....
I can lite the fuse with the following:
How much water is a person, under duress, recommended to consume per day?
How many days for a typical rollout in a specific theatre?
What is the included worst case %?
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand now,
How much does fucking water weigh?
How much do MREs weigh?
How much does a personal med kit weigh?
How much does the vest weigh?
Yadda Yadda.... I would think sooner or later some real Bird or General is gonna go 'wait a damn minute...' This sumbitch is waaaaaaay too heavy... They have all kinds of kit already weighing them down. What if they operate in a sandbox....and damn jungle....mountains.....
There is a point to what a person can carry and still function.
Is he gonna be told 'Wellll, you can tote enough bullets to live or you can have enough water to live. You'll be hungry as hell because if you have those two, you can only carry a Slim Jim or two to eat for this five day excursion.... Don't get hit either because you can't carry the med kit too..... We're looking at 100º+ in the op zone and about 98% humidity. Go get em boys...'
Sound funny? Yep. Still makes sense though...
Consider the following:
Like an old bud Cobra pilot (he flew in the 'Birds movie) told me, 'with the Army Cobra, single burner, you can have a lot of bullets and shit and a little bit of fuel or a lot of fuel and a little bit of bullets and shit, but you can't have both and stay with the lines... Now if a crew chief ain't around, you can load it down with everything and make it jump straight up off the ground....BUT....you are steadily tearing shit up and it won't last long... and there's that thing of the crew chief killing you when you land... '
Every ounce that platform adds, whether itself, mag weight, ammo weight, accessories weight, every ounce has to be accounted for because OTHER gear has to be adjusted to compensate.... You don't want to have to medivac injured troops before they even show up.
Remember from the tao of edro:
Whatever you planned for, ain't it....
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With the .277, isn’t the primary goal to have a round that can penetrate peer-level armor?
It’s one thing to put holes in opponents who are wearing turbans and gowns. It’s quite another when the opposing force is well financed and running around in level 3 and level 4 body armor.
It’s one thing to put holes in opponents who are wearing turbans and gowns. It’s quite another when the opposing force is well financed and running around in level 3 and level 4 body armor.
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I remember we jumped with 90-120 lbs of gear..
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and felt every damn ounce of it too I would imagine....
Now some bean counter has added a bunch of weight to the pie...
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Great and dead-on post, Ed.
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This is where the slightest complication spirals out of control and multiplies exponentially.
I hope we don’t get too wrapped up in some sterile lab experiments, or in slanted and skewed firing range games.
For body armor or ammo tests to be valid, the environment and processes have to be tightly controlled.
The collected data has to be interpreted.
The results are reconciled with goals, aims, requirements, etc.
Bureaucratic and political considerations are now the real standard that must be met.
And then there are the budgets.
THEN…
The guys on the pointy end of the spear get to file all of that “data” in the back of their mind while they see first-hand what the fuck actually happens.
You see enough bullets fly, and pick up enough bloody body armor, and all of that bureaucratic bullshit becomes worthless.
Here’s an idea - ask the soldiers.
What do they see?
What do they need?
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I would think that there is a great chance the .308 cound punch through near the same in body armor... Even if it doesn't, the imapct could actually be 'more painful' than the projectile drilling through the armor and individual. Think of transfer of energy with the .308 'STOPPING". It's probably gonna generate a shock wave from hell, and there's possibly gonna be a distortion in back of plate that gonna hurt real bad and break any bones it is adjacent to.
The punch thru probably takes out the individual.
The .308 coming to an abrupt stop at the plate ain't gonna be fun....unless you enjoy ass kickings... You would still be incapacitated for the most part....and somebody has to tote your ass....
Close range, I would say .308 is gonna punch through with a vengeance just like the .277....
Seems like that proverbial teeter totter persists in staying about horizontal between the .308 in one seat and the .277 in the other....
Interesting comparison.....
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Some years back, a friend brought out his 80's vintage Springfield M-1A for some desert shooting.
It was a magnificently beautiful rifle, far better in fit and finish than it's military counterpart. National Match barrel, top-grade American walnut.. just beautiful. Shot like a marksman's dream.
I truly wish I had one.
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A Ranger platoon is a bit larger than other platoons, such as you'd find in a leg outfit. Most Ranger platoons have an extra element, such as a mortar or heavy-weapons team, a sniper team, etc.
My platoon for a good while had a "sniper" team consisting of the shooter, a spotter, and the M-21; an accurized M-14 with NM barrel, fiberglass stock and the great "no math" ART II Leatherwood auto-ranging scope. This shooter and gear was in no way the level of a Marine corps sniper, which is a true master of the craft in every respect. More like a designated marksman. Very good, but no Marine sniper.
The Russkies (the focused enemy of our era) had near the same thing of a designated marksman and the Dragunov, but neither the shooter or the rifle were very good.
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I see the idea of common platform, common ammo....
I will offer this, there ain't no do-it-all caliber.... For every plus, there is an equal minus in some form.
Example: I would think that given the Ma Duece round and the Barrett .50 is common as far as ammo, is the same ammo actually used for both? Were I in the driver's seat, the Long Ranger would have true match level ammo. Even though the caliber is the same, the ammo is NOT the same. That being acknowledged, then the commonality of caliber between the Ma Deuce and the Barrett is moot. Not the same ammo. Then that would beg the question of why stick with the .50 when the 'Pissing Contest w/ Calidorkia' caliber of .416 would not replace the .50 to give the Long Rangers extra distance, flatter trajectory, and still ballistic when the .50 drops below the line.... More effectiveness at longer ranges... Plus, the rifle is the same. Pull the barrel, pop the new one in chambered .416 and the rifle part is solved.... The badass armorers can load match .416 just as easily as match .50.... Can get the projectiles from anybody and the powder from Barrett or whomever produces the powder Ronnie and crew developed for the .416....
Project: Digital scale, ammo.
Buy a box of commonly accepted great ammo from a store.
Buy a box of commonly accepted match ammo from a store.
Weigh the entire box of each, graph em...
You might find (I have) that even the store-bought 'match level' ammo....well it ain't. Varies too... Better than the white box ammo but still ain't really what serious match shooters would qualify as match.... My son, when little, would watch me in the reloading shed dumping out a big tub of Hornady projectiles and weigh them on the digital scales. Then watch me pull fully prepped and mic'd cases and weigh them. When I had a pile of identical projectiles and a pile of identical cases, I'd set the digital dispenser and digital scales talking to each other via infrared, and prep my station to start reloading. He'd ask why I was doing that. Consistency.....as close to identical as possible. All measured and prepped by the same machines, weighed on the same digital scale out to decimals, I was as close to perfectly the same as possible. That meant the closer to identical the closer to identical performance in all aspects... THAT ain't 'crate ammo'....
Now, that begs the question of the Δ of the ammo used in testing and the same with standard issue crate ammo. Do they use just 'match' or 'crate' or both?
I find it interesting that you should you zoom in on ANY spec, as you zoom you will find question after question popping up that can tilt things in different directions....
They would hate me. I'd ask a LOT of questions about the process.....as in 'Did you ever consider this?'
They'd just hate me. RoBob would cause some of em to stroke out....
I will offer this, there ain't no do-it-all caliber.... For every plus, there is an equal minus in some form.
Example: I would think that given the Ma Duece round and the Barrett .50 is common as far as ammo, is the same ammo actually used for both? Were I in the driver's seat, the Long Ranger would have true match level ammo. Even though the caliber is the same, the ammo is NOT the same. That being acknowledged, then the commonality of caliber between the Ma Deuce and the Barrett is moot. Not the same ammo. Then that would beg the question of why stick with the .50 when the 'Pissing Contest w/ Calidorkia' caliber of .416 would not replace the .50 to give the Long Rangers extra distance, flatter trajectory, and still ballistic when the .50 drops below the line.... More effectiveness at longer ranges... Plus, the rifle is the same. Pull the barrel, pop the new one in chambered .416 and the rifle part is solved.... The badass armorers can load match .416 just as easily as match .50.... Can get the projectiles from anybody and the powder from Barrett or whomever produces the powder Ronnie and crew developed for the .416....
Project: Digital scale, ammo.
Buy a box of commonly accepted great ammo from a store.
Buy a box of commonly accepted match ammo from a store.
Weigh the entire box of each, graph em...
You might find (I have) that even the store-bought 'match level' ammo....well it ain't. Varies too... Better than the white box ammo but still ain't really what serious match shooters would qualify as match.... My son, when little, would watch me in the reloading shed dumping out a big tub of Hornady projectiles and weigh them on the digital scales. Then watch me pull fully prepped and mic'd cases and weigh them. When I had a pile of identical projectiles and a pile of identical cases, I'd set the digital dispenser and digital scales talking to each other via infrared, and prep my station to start reloading. He'd ask why I was doing that. Consistency.....as close to identical as possible. All measured and prepped by the same machines, weighed on the same digital scale out to decimals, I was as close to perfectly the same as possible. That meant the closer to identical the closer to identical performance in all aspects... THAT ain't 'crate ammo'....
Now, that begs the question of the Δ of the ammo used in testing and the same with standard issue crate ammo. Do they use just 'match' or 'crate' or both?
I find it interesting that you should you zoom in on ANY spec, as you zoom you will find question after question popping up that can tilt things in different directions....
They would hate me. I'd ask a LOT of questions about the process.....as in 'Did you ever consider this?'
They'd just hate me. RoBob would cause some of em to stroke out....
