Army announces new cartridge

This is the thing about the 6mm....

The 223 is awesome but in terms of hunting and a bit more momentum (ideal for military use) the 6mm assortmet of bullets starts
where the 223 ends. You have a huge selection from 80gr, 85gr, 87gr, 90, 95gr all the way to 105gr and even 115gr that is too much
for this type of casing and military use anyway.

If the 223 was a 6mm it would be the perfect round as it is already a very good round. Even the same 223 case in the popular 6mm
TCU and 6x45mm produces amazing accuracy and extra 20-30% output in terminal results with similar trajectories.
The thing is that while the case could be the same the ideal would be to have 2 or 3 extra grains of equivalent space in a 42mm
case so then it coudl accomodate all sort of bullets including the longest 6mm ones.

This w/o much work will extend the range of the 223 to 800 yards for regular infantry ammo and to 1000 yards for some sort of
specialty long range round. They would most likely be 85gr and 95gr respectively (give and take).

All this following the same original philosophy the 223 introduced that is a substantial gain w/o much more weight added to the round
that is a huge factor for any military.

The 6.8 is so good that is hard to justify any other choice but if we were to design a new round we could probably look into the 6mm
and resolve all our problems because in the long distance the 6mm will be ballistically superior to any other caliber w/o going heavier
with more powder and bullet and more heat and concusion.

Or we might just take the 6.8 case and put a 6mm bullet into that case that is another amazing wildcat. Very similar to the WASP but
with a smoother shoulder for military use. 6mm-6.8 or 6mm SPC.

But IMO this case would have to be strethened to be pumpped to 62K psi like the current military ammo that is not a hard thing to do
even if one looses 1 grain or so.

The 6mm round will provide 2900 fps from a 16" barrel and very good sectional density over .2 and ballistic coefficients above .4 or more
G1 so needless to say the gain would be substantial yet very manageable round from all aspects.

I like the 6mm because the way I see it is my 223 that we love so much yet improved to fill all the current gaps of the 223 round
that are not too many by the way.

A fast round will be preferred for so many reasons and a 80gr or 85 gr solid steel/copper bullet like the one current in service will
be a very lethal combination. This could be the round for the next 50 years or until laser rays or something replace firearms.

But who knows what the big chiefs might do. Maybe the Army will pull their head out from their assess and do it right for everyone.

The chinese have gone 6mm and many the aforementioned things above are the why so it was not surprised to me.

If the 7.62x39 was a 6mm round there would be another 50 years of 7.62x39 in service but as we know 30 caliber and MBR with
compact cases do not go well together. We need good ballistics and speed.

I have the ballistics charts of all popular calibers if anyone is interested or just look for previous threads.
We have discussed this area before. Maybe I am totally wrong but when you analyze the data and having tested
many of these calibers 6mm makes a lot of sense.

Does this mean that my .223/5.56 MSR will no longer be considered a "weapon of war" and the libs will finally shut the hell up?

Robin said:

VK Integrated Systems and Bachstein Consulting Submit XR-68 to US Army's NGSW Programme -

Click to expand...

The electronic rail thing has a lot of potential and integrated electronics is certainly the way forward. However "9lbs unloaded" is unacceptable. Depending on what the total weight of all typical electronic devices on a rifle adds up to of course. The all up weight of my scoped DD rifle including a loaded 30 round magazine is a bit less than 9lbs.

Robin said:

Lake City Factory Readies for New 6.8 mm Round

Click to expand...

I am still dubious as to the reality of the new round. Our military, and militaries in general have a long history of canceling projects well into their development cycles. Look how far the XM8 got before they cancelled it.

Robin said:

Seems a lot of things on the table at this point, outside of the cartridge itself, which seems to be already accepted. I don't know that, just seems like that is the one thing that hasn't changed in all my reading. I say fill that table and carefully sift through all of it, everything, until the very best rifle is agreed on for all the right reasons.
Robin

Click to expand...

I am just concerned about changing to anything that won't bring enough of an improvement to the table. I am also concerned that so many of these "advancements" seem to be adding weight.
This is the absolute last thing our soldiers need.
We need to adopt lighter weapons and lighter ammunition. The new round had better incorporate a polymer case and be lighter overall. If we replace the M16/M4 I would like to see something like the G36 with lots of weight saving polymer. Only actually be light unlike a G36. I'd like to see a lightweight aluminum skeleton molded into polymer frame. Incorporate lightweight polymer-lithuim battery into the receiver to provide power to compact and lightweight optics and lights/lasers. Use carbon fiber composite materials even. Lightweight that's the key. Make it as modular as possible to offset unit costs. Us a QD barrel system like Lewis Machine and Tool's setup.

I was 11 years older the second time around I joined an infantry unit. My age did play a factor on how I can handled the weight but I can say with confidence that what I carried in the late 90’s early 2000’s was much lighter. We didn’t wear 35 lbs of armor. We didn’t have optics. We didn’t have individual radios. We didn’t have batteries for those individual radios. We didn’t always have NODS, IR lasers, and extra batteries for those devices. We didn’t carry more than 8 fully loaded magazines. We didn’t carry arm restraints. We didn’t carry soo much water. Now they want you to carry a full 3 liter camelback, 2 canteens, and a 2 liter. We didn’t carry safety glasses, hearing protection, and all kinds of do dads on our helmets. All that shit together adds over 50 lbs to what I carried previously.

And if you compare the Vietnam soldier to today’s soldier, the weight difference is probably closer to 75 lbs.

Willjr75 said:

I was 11 years older the second time around I joined an infantry unit. My age did play a factor on how I can handled the weight but I can say with confidence that what I carried in the late 90’s early 2000’s was much lighter. We didn’t wear 35 lbs of armor. We didn’t have optics. We didn’t have individual radios. We didn’t have batteries for those individual radios. We didn’t always have NODS, IR lasers, and extra batteries for those devices. We didn’t carry more than 8 fully loaded magazines. We didn’t carry arm restraints. We didn’t carry soo much water. Now they want you to carry a full 3 liter camelback, 2 canteens, and a 2 liter. We didn’t carry safety glasses, hearing protection, and all kinds of do dads on our helmets. All that shit together adds over 50 lbs to what I carried previously.

And if you compare the Vietnam soldier to today’s soldier, the weight difference is probably closer to 75 lbs.

Click to expand...

That’s insane when you put it that way.
Sad I have to wait about 5 years for my 6.8 SPC ammo prices to drop.

All this weight makes me think of a late medieval knight who had so much armour that he was useless if unhorsed. Check out the battle of Agincourt. The French knights drowned/suffocated in the mud if they did not have help to stand up.

Robin said:

Will, on resupply day I figure I would walk of the mountain humping between 70 and 90 lbs.. 5'10" about a buck- forty and yeah, the first couple weeks it kicked my ass, but like all soldiers you toughen up and get used to it. The bottom line is, you need food, water and a reliable, effective rifle ammo combination. The rest is either an asset or gets tossed.
Robin

Click to expand...

This is just for a two day op. 130 extra pounds. Make that a 3 Day operation and it’s more.

Finally!!! I found a theead firearms related!!!
Rhe 6.8 is a very well balanced round.
Modern powders and good brass push thr 85gr solid pills past 2900fps from s 16" barrel.
Also for shorter barrels even 10" long is more efficient than any of the other popular choices.

.280 rem for the win

Not meant as a definitive counter point but food for thought. In fact I am disappointed this us the ammo selected. There is nothing new about this stuff, I was expecting a telescoped case and improved powders for a true advancement.
This whole deal seems completely half assed and if it moves into service I expect it to be a catastrophe.
I seriously doubt this program will be any improvement. I predict the new rifle will be heavier and the this ammo to be problematic.

PCP is garbage.
One can still find surplus boxes from WWII that is still igniting w/o problems.
Imagine PCP 50 years from now. polymer and plastics degrade w/o anything else added so imagine with
volatile chemicals inside.
I trust better cheap steel at slightly lower pressure charges that is going to be more popular in a new cartrige up to 56-58k psi max
and that is plenty.

PCP .. not the drug lol ..

but with the green deal wanting to ban all fossil shit .. how will they make the plastic or the bullet

Podmonkey said:

The electronic rail thing has a lot of potential and integrated electronics is certainly the way forward. However "9lbs unloaded" is unacceptable. Depending on what the total weight of all typical electronic devices on a rifle adds up to of course. The all up weight of my scoped DD rifle including a loaded 30 round magazine is a bit less than 9lbs.



I am still dubious as to the reality of the new round. Our military, and militaries in general have a long history of canceling projects well into their development cycles. Look how far the XM8 got before they cancelled it.

Click to expand...

Interesting that in over 70 yrs. the soldier is still humping an almost 10 lb. rifle.

Acer-m14 said:

PCP .. not the drug lol ..

but with the green deal wanting to ban all fossil shit .. how will they make the plastic or the bullet

Click to expand...

I have a 6.8 and now I’m hoping the ammo costs drop so I can have more fun with it.

Wait a minute, does this mean the 6.8 being "adopted" actually is the SPC? That would be so fucking dumb. Totally not worth the money to change over, and 6.8 SPC is outperformed by 77gr 5.56 at range anyways, in terms of trajectory and wind drift. Military procurement is so assed up! The F-35 sucks, the Zumwalt class sucks, those "litoral combat vessels" suck, the all touch screen interface on our newest destroyers suck and has them crashing into things, and the Army wants to adopt a short fat 6.8 bullet that sucks at range in an exploding case. Goddamnit!
Beat the guy running this program upside the head with a mallet and shitcan this whole debacle. Actually get of your ass and dust off your drawing board (cause y'all didn't do shit but decide "der, we shuld buy dat SPC round cause we too dumb to design sumthin new")
And design a heavy 6mm bullet in a polymer telescoped case and design a lightweight rifle with an aluminum skeleton chassis embedded in a polymer shell to go with it. Do not waste a fucking penny of my tax dollars on this derivative shit! Fucking idots! Imbeciles! Goddamn retards!

This is how stupid our military is.

Chill dude - it's not the 6.8 SPC. It'll be bigger but evidently there are still a couple submission still being eval'd. General Dynamics (weapon by True Velocity) has the composite polymer round, Sig has a bi-metal cased round and Textron has developed a telescoped composite case. All three of these are in the final round and it looks like they're supposed to launch a .277 140gr bullet at 3200 fps. That's better than 308 can do with that weight and at that bore/weight combo the bullet should be able to get close to a .500 BC.

Prototype Project Opportunity Notice (PPON) for Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) - Federal Business Opportunities: Opportunities

Podmonkey said:

This is how stupid our military is.

Click to expand...

@Podmonkey - Aesop at Raconteur Report agrees with you on this one... YMMV...

Raconteur Report: When You're Hitting Your Head Against A Wall...

ManrisFrack said:

Chill dude - it's not the 6.8 SPC. It'll be bigger but evidently there are still a couple submission still being eval'd. General Dynamics (weapon by True Velocity) has the composite polymer round, Sig has a bi-metal cased round and Textron has developed a telescoped composite case. All three of these are in the final round and it looks like they're supposed to launch a .277 140gr bullet at 3200 fps. That's better than 308 can do with that weight and at that bore/weight combo the bullet should be able to get close to a .500 BC.

Prototype Project Opportunity Notice (PPON) for Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) - Federal Business Opportunities: Opportunities

Click to expand...

I don't believe those numbers, if they were true it's be an even dumber round to adopt. We went to the 5.56 from the 7.62 for a very good reason and a 140gr bullet @ 3200 fps is a move in the complete opposite direction. Modern ammunition for modern infantry weapons need to be light, compact and with as low a recoil impulse as acceptable terminal ballistics allows.
I would put the maximum allowable recoil energy at 6.9ft-lbs which is what the 7.62x39 from an AK delivers. The AK is at the limit of what can be considered as fully controllable in automatic fire, less is better.
A 140gr bullet at 3200fps is a magnum cartridge and would be not only totally unusable in a lightweight infantry carbine in full auto but even rapid semiautomatic fire would be difficult.
Modern combat is very fast and fleeting, targets are fleeting, hits are very difficult to get. The primary predictor of victory in a small arms fight is volume of fire, we need to be able to shoot shit tons of bullets at the enemy, individual, per round effectiveness is not as important. Today's soliders are heavily tied to vehicles anyway, if heavy firepower is needed the mounted weapon can provide that.

prambo said:

@Podmonkey - Aesop at Raconteur Report agrees with you on this one... YMMV...

Raconteur Report: When You're Hitting Your Head Against A Wall...

Click to expand...

Fucking exactly! The only reason to replace the 5.56 is to try to leverage the most current cartridge tech to come up with a round that can replace both 5.56 and 7.62 at the same time. I believe a long and slippery 6mm projectile can do this. The goal is to have an bullet with extremely high sectional density launched at a fairly moderate velocity, the former gives range and a flat trajectory via velocity retention while the latter hopefully keeps the recoil force low enough to be useful in lightweight carbine. It won't be as powerful as the 7.62x51 but it doesn't have to. Way back when the 6mm Lee Navy was adopted we had a projectile of around 113gr at about 2500fps and the Marines did not find it wanting for effectiveness. In fact it gave very good account of itself against Spanish 7mm Mausers which were outmatching the Army's Krag-Jorgensen rifles with the 30-40 Krag (30 Army). A telescoped polymer case will allow the long bullet to be housed in a compact and lightweight package. Also the new Knights Armament machineguns should be adopted, they are very light, very versatile and based on a proven action, the Stoner 63. The rifle should be as I layed out before, similar to the G36 but with a Stoner internal gas piston and an embedded aluminum skeletal chassis that connects the rear reunion with the front for maximum rigidity.