USMC is sticking to their guns

[ebb]

Convert M4s to 20inch plus barrels and rechamber to 6mm Grendel, develop a good bullet to work on armor. Everybody gets one.

 

[Just Say Moe]

What we do - develop weapons to fight the last war:

Forgotten weapons

 

[Tangent]

Despite having no military experience I can still see why soldiers don't want to carry around large rounds. Heavy and bulky. I can also see why 556 might not be optimal.

Any replacement was always going to be a compromise. Given a size and mass of a potential target I'd have thought something like a 6mm 105gr bullet would have been adequate. So something like the 6 ARC. More mass, decent velocity, reasonable magazine capacity, flat shooting, low recoil. (Edit: looks like 6ARC could do with a bit more boiler room or maybe some of those new alloy cases?)

The trouble with anything based on .308 brass size you're going to have most of the same drawbacks, so you may as well just shoot.308.

 

[M-61]

In a war zone you are able to shoot the enemy at 600yds with an AR type rifle?

Not a chance.
To clarify: Yes you can shoot at the enemy at 600 yards, but you’re not hitting anyone.
You can shoot at the enemy at 1000 yards too . You’re only giving away your position.
Where I was in Vietnam you were lucky if you could see 6 yards.lol
In my time I had both the M-14 and M-16.
Yes there were occasions in the rice paddy’s were maybe tops a 200 yard shot was available. That was rare but the leeches were not.
But I humped that M-14 and ammo and preferred it to the M-16.
I guess I should add I was there early in the war and the issued M-16 (non chrome lined) were garbage. This was corrected by lining the barrel (had the letter C stamped on the receiver.) That was better. Then they realized that a cleaning kit would be nice to issue also.
I’ll share this antidote and it’s absolutely true. The instructor explaining the M-16 went on to talk about what a lethal cartridge this 5.56 was. He went into great detail how, when fired, this bullet tumbled through the air causing enormous wounds.
I might have been a wise assed kid at the time, but I knew this was pure BS . I had been around reloaders since I was 10. End of story.
In retrospect if given the choice of which of the two I don’t want to be shot with, it doesn’t take much thought.

 

[danny]

What do I know, but I don't think that 5.56 is and was a great choice. 6.8??? Nor do I think 6.8 is a great choice. It's halfway between 5.56 and 7.62 and we already have 7.62 well developed.

Danny