Rifles of the future?

[Liquid_Cow]

Originally Posted by Majorpain

Im still unconvinced, if 6.5 is so great, how come it hasnt been trialled before?

Well, for a long time there was not a need for it. Remember, when the 5.56 was adopted our "planned" enemy was the Soviets. Most of them, like us, didn't want to die for their country, so wounding a red soldier was better than killing one, as it would remove 3 troops from the battle rather than just one (2 to carry the wounded one). But a suicidal enemy who's in a bezerker rage needs to be hit with a sledge hammer to make him stop his attack. The 5.56 is not a sledge hammer, more a ball peen, sure it hurts but its no sledge.

Still, there have been several attempts to go down this road in the past. Off the top of my head, there have been several 7.62X39 conversions of 5.56 rifles, both Colt and Ruger (with the Mini-30) have tried to give their small rifles more punch with the bigger Soviet round.

But trying to get the Pentagon to change rounds would have been an excersize in futility, as they were locked into the NATO standard. Today there is less of a need to stick with the NATO standard as (currently) there is no Red menace waiting to attack NATO, so some people feel there is an opportunity to make a change. Also the M-16 is an old design (its a good one, but its old), some are arguing that it needs to be replaced, so it would be the perfect time to change calibers as well.

[TheOldDog]

That is not my understanding Liquid_Cow.

As far as I am aware the smaller round was originally introduced to do what you suggest, around the time of the Vietnam War, to increase the chance to effectively wound/disable the enemy rather than outright kill in order to drain the resources of the enemy in caring for its wounded.

Sadly its introduction did NOT work out as planed, it had the exact opposite effect, the calibre proved MORE lethal than larger sizes. You can talk about energy all you want but its not just the total energy, its about how the energy is distributed that matters.

The effect of the smaller round when it hits human tissue is that the bullet stops spinning and tumbles, spreading out the energy within the body. Thus you have a small entry wound but massive damage within the body. If I remember correctly this was something unexpected.

Hang on, let me go google....

....yup
III.
The revival of international concern over the wounding effects of rifle bullets came with the appearance of the AR-15 (M16) 5.56 mm rifle in the US-Vietnam war. For many years, 7.62 mm had been the standard calibre for military rifles in both NATO and Warsaw Pact countries, and in 1957 the US Army announced the adoption of a new 7.62 mm rifle, the M14. Meanwhile, a US company, Armalite, scaled down its own 7.62 mm rifle by adapting it to shoot modified 5.56 mm (.22 calibre) hunting ammunition. The new rifle, which the company called the AR-15, had the advantage from a military point of view of weighing one- fourth less than the M14, and the ammunition also was lighter, reducing the recoil against the soldier's shoulder and enabling a soldier to carry more rounds. As interest in the problems of counter-insurgency grew under the Kennedy administration in the early 1960s, the US military quietly bought several thousand AR-15s and sent them to Vietnam for testing in combat conditions.

Soon reports began appearing of the lethality of the new rifle. "Unofficial reports say the AR-15's light bullet, travelling at 3,300 feet per second, does cartwheels as it penetrates living flesh, causing a highly lethal wound that looks like anything but a caliber .22 hole", the US magazine Army reported in August 1963. Two US Army doctors who evaluated AR-15 wounds at an Army hospital in South Vietnam in 1966 reported that while wounds inflicted at close range had small entrance and exit holes, those at larger ranges exhibited small entrance holes "whereas the exit wound is a gaping, devastated area of soft tissue and even bone, often with loss of large amounts of tissue", with disintegration of the bullet and minute splattering of lead.[4]

The AR-15 was redesignated by the US Army as the M16 rifle, and in 1967 the Army announced that it would be adopted as the standard infantry weapon for US Forces outside NATO. By 1978 the rifle had been exported to 21 countries and was being produced under licence in another three, with various other 5.56 mm rifles in production elsewhere.[5]

source: The Swiss draft Protocol on Small-Calibre Weapon Systems

[creepinshadow24/7]

the funny thing is, if there's a post about weapons the thread always lands in caliber smackttalk, kinda sad in my opinion.


caliber freaks!

[TheOldDog]

Originally Posted by creepinshadow24/7

the funny thing is, if there's a post about weapons the thread always lands in caliber smackttalk, kinda sad in my opinion.


caliber freaks!

Realy? I didn't know that, I don't usually trawl in this particular forum, and bullet size doesn't interest me at all, I have never commented on it before.

But you say it gets brought up all the time? I wonder why? While it is true that bigger is better for some things (my wife will vouch for that) over and above that is how well it goes about its business.

[Majorpain]

Well... one of the key parts of a new weapon is its calibre!

Part of the problem with the switch to the M4 from M16 is that the loss of a fair bit of barrell cuts the power of the round dramatically. I remember reading somewhere that 5.56 fired from M16/SA80 could reliably fragment at up to 200M, M4 could only manage 50M.

[Harrod200]

I get that all bulets lose energy as they fly (air resistance, etc), but according to that graph, the % retained goes back up slightly towards the end. Why?

[[R-MOD]Bob_Marley]

I would imagine because thats when the Grendel starts dropping off to a greater degree...

[[R-DEV]LeadMagnet]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]CAS_117

Grendel is the best round in the world. The chart says so, and so did this guy:

They made him wear a hat during the directed energy weapons demonstration.

You really don't want to get your advice from that guy. He's jokingly referred to as the Billy Mays of the arms industry. He'll tell you anything is the best out there if you pony up the cash to have your product on his show.

[cplgangster]

i think the US should go bullpup and let the M4(would probably be called something else) have the same size barrel of a M16 but with all round smaller size rifle like the L85 series

[[uBp]Irish]

bah. You europeans and your bullpup fantasies... we're gonna be stubborn and say with our sexy forward mag systems. wtb g36 power =P