Any one know a GI in the 101st? They just received the new weapons in 6.8 and wondered how they like or dislike the round?

80000psi in a AR platform, two piece cartridge case, training round different than the fighting round. It will be very interesting to see how this shakes out and what it's final form will be.

So much for maintaining NATO standard munitions. Not sure the real reason to switch from 5.56.

Edit: Guess I don't know much about this round. Sounds like it has better ballistics and firepower.

What’s the firepower like for the Army’s new rifle?.

To me, cartridges are like a ladder.
How far up the ladder do you want to go? The new 6.8 is probably better than the 5.56. The 7.62 better than the 6.5. The .338 is better than the 7.62.

Our govt/LE/Military can’t decide which rung they want to stand on.

With right at 3 times the recoil of the 5.56 cartridge it wll be interesting to see how quickly troops want to dump this new cartridge .

There added weight of the carbine ammo. I sure there will be some that do not like this new cartridge or want the added weight of the XM7 carbine .

I do wonder if this new Hybrid case design used for 277 bullet was tested with a .30 bullet but jacked up to the same 80,000psi ???? Maybe a 260win fury with a 143gr bullet as this has been tested but not by siggly . Our military has crawled into bed with sig as if there special .



Hey this new 277 fury ammo is only $1.99 per round for a box of 20

Another condition of buying new hardware to solve a software problem. Regardless the specifications of the rifle and round (hardware) the human (software) ability to employ the hardware is still lacking. Many who qualify as expert on the range during training - aren’t!

I hope somebody has really thought through the wartime logistics ramifications of this. If all our frontline soldiers/marines are armed with this new caliber and we're the only Nato country making it.... What about full-up war with China, is there going to be sufficient surge manufacturing capability? Are there commercial firms capable of jumping in and helping like there would be for 5.56 and 7.62? Those new hybrid/high-pressure cases make that problematic at best.

Respectfully, in a "full-up" war with China small arms are unlikely to make a measurable contribution to the conflict. Good questions nevertheless. Other than the fact the DOD never seems to like anything that's "off the shelf" I fail to comprehend why the 6.5 Grendel wasn't considered sufficient.

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Ordnung muss sein
SWHF #789

"The 7.62 better than the 6.5. The .338 is better than the 7.62."

Only if you want to carry the ammo and rifle for me. The infantryman is already part pack mule.

According to PEO Soldier, key takeaways from that study include:

Aim error reduction has the highest impact on performance. Well no ****!!
Caliber isn’t as important as once believed; it is a secondary performance driver.
Fire control is key.
Advanced bullet technology matters.
Ballistic energy on target provides better lethal effects.


Once again, it's all about the money. Somebody's brother in law wanted a contract with the military so they invented a "new" calibre.
So once again it all comes down to hit what you aim at and everything else takes care of itself
I'm in a pissy mood this morning....

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Forum consigliere

You have to wonder what the life of a chrome moly barrel will be. I know that one of the features is a quick swap barrel. I also think that they can swap bolts and barrels and change calibers. 80000psi is going to eat that rifling very quickly even if they chrome plate it. I haven't read anything and I doubt they would talk about it but maybe Sig has engineered a solution beyond throwing the barrel away every 1000 rounds. I do know that the plan is to use a lower pressure training round in a conventional brass case. The choice also has to do with changing the SAW. The 249 that they have now is really lacking when it comes to longer ranges. This is going to be like everything else the military does. They will field this and then adapt it to make it work. I do think that the 5.56 will be around as the main battle round for a long time.

One of the primary drivers-so I've read-of the 6.8 round is the near universal use of body armor by possible/probable peer level threats. I expect extended effective range over the current service cartridge figures in too.

I have to wonder about that pressure level myself and wonder if the "issue" of the system to the 101st is a troop trial of the concept before actual formal adoption. OTOH, it's been 70 some years since there was anything like that in the current procurement system so I expect we may see some level of disfunction like the M16 had in SEA. Wonder if there's been any field trials we don't know about in far flung corners of the world where our troops are "training" the locals against insurgents/terrorists? If not, can we afford to bet on unproven technology?

While there's some truth to the thought that any conflict with China is unlikely to involve ground troops, the US has a history of preparing for the last war. And/or thinking some form of technology is going to make other concepts useless. The F4 aircraft without guns comes to mind here. The .22 caliber infantry rifle was driven by stats that crew served weapons caused ~80+ % of casualties is WWII and Korea. Also, that under combat conditions, 300 yards is the general maximum range a target can be located by eyeball. Most infantry weaponry now has some form of optical sight/sensor that increases that.

So, it's probable that a capability upgrade to the current small arm ammunition is a good idea. the question is if the 6.8 mm cartridge is the best practical answer. Glad I'm not one of those who're gonna find out in person.

LOVE the points Caj makes about accuracy. I'm gonna quibble on energy on target. The bullet must maintain integrity to provide adequate penetration. It also needs adequate energy. I expect $$$$ does have something to do with it, but the main driver is someone getting credit for "innovation that's going to change the dynamic." The question is if it's some desk jockey at the Pentagon or Sig?

Added note: novelist John Sanford had one of his characters note that the 5.56 mm is a great close combat round in a good platform. OTOH, the AR10 isn't as good close up yet generally lacks the accuracy needed out yonder. I expect there are/can be accurate AR10s, but they're also harder to shoot well out yonder.

Sorry, but this line of thinking goes back to when I was in ROTC, and the Cadre was instructing about the role of the Militia (both organized and unorganized).

Considering how much of a threat is currently at both the front and back doors, will the unorganized militia be available survive with the adoption and distribution of the 6.8 and it's corresponding hardware? Does the DoD plan to still maintain spares for the M16 family of arms, or will they be orphaned, just like the M1, M14, M1911, and the older bolt guns? Should the threat present itself in Middle America, will the Militia still be able to draw 5.56 and spare parts?

In many respects, this adoption can be leaving us at more of a disadvantage than many realize!

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Judge control not gun control!

Judging by the amount of harrumphing it has caused, it must be good.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

Ground ponders with rifles were considered obsolete at the end of the Second World War. How has that worked out?

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Kind regards, Heinz

Like everything else today, "FOLLOW THE MONEY."

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Bill

Ear plugs will be mandatory, not just a good idea.

Regards,

Tam 3

didint the DOD cut the barrel length on existing SAW down to 16" a few years ago,, remember reading about 7.62x51 saws with 16 inch barrels

More weight...........
plus more recoil.

Let me think now.

This is a tuffy.

Must be all that wet work.

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Release the Kraken

It seems the army intends to issue all their rifles and new SAWs with suppressors. Even so, a supersonic round driven at up to 80k PSI is going to make a fair bit of noise.

WR Moore is bang on with his body armor comment. How far it has come can be seen in the videos coming out of the Ukraine conflict. Even with its impressive sectional density, you just cannot get enough juice into a 5.56 round to have any chance of penetrating the new armor, especially with a sub 20" barrel.

6.5 Grendel doesn't have quite the oomph required and the shape of the cartridge and the amount of bullet protrusion makes transport and safety folks nervous. 6.8 SPC hasn't enough energy using the current case. A sort of +P 6.5 Creedmoor might have met the need, but I am unsure how that cartridge does in mounted infantry friendly barrel lengths. It is generally accepted that larger bores suffer less from reduced barrel length, so maybe that drove the caliber to 6.8.

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Release the Kraken

From what I read at the XM7’s introduction, the M4/M16 will still be issued to non-frontline troops. I think this is partly due to being able to supply the new rifles to everyone and maybe as a fallback measure if it fails.

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

We already had a great round in 6.5. During last 25 years there has been a big attempt to save money in the Military by buying off the shelf. Yet the Army had to go design a new caliber. Sounds like we are going backward.

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V/r,
Markham

I think the real goal of the 6.8 is to issue a cartridge not readily converted to civilian rifles or reloadable by the peasants.

XM7 is a gas piston rifle. Not DI like an M16/M4. Most, if not all, of today's modern battle rifles are gas piston designs like the newer AK-74 and HK 416. Gas piston is a better rifle. Always has been. Garand, M1 carbine, M-14 were the front runners.

Charlie wasn't wearing body armor in the 60's. Times change.

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That's just somebody talkin.

Something else that has changed is the small drone threat. There are multiple videos out there of individual soldiers being targeted by First Person Video (FPV) drones carrying explosive payloads. They are pretty ugly, and I've yet to see an example of a soldier attempting to shoot one down being successful. It is like being under continual artillery bombardment. The average grunt has fewer opportunities to use his rifle than in olden days.

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Release the Kraken

Hubba-hubba!, I'm ready for some cases of cheap "surplus" 5.56. Anything better than the current $.50+/rd. Joe

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Wisdom chases me; I'm faster

Since when has our military and government made smart purchase decisions on anything . Just one more way blow tax payers dollars .

All over Africa the rifle and round of choice is an AK-47 or variant and 7.62x39. It's because they are available, effective, cheap, rugged in all conditions, and ubiquitous. In the words of a SADF colonel, "No need for Gucci weapons here."

Which is fine when your opponents rarely use body armor. There was a video in late 2022 of some Wagner guys testing a piece of captured body armor. Their AK-74s didn't touch it.

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Release the Kraken

I dunno. I think the XM7 is a pretty good move on the militaries part. Spec Ops has been using HK-416 for awhile now. My only concern would be the 6.8 cartridge is unproven. But then the 5.56 Nato is known to have failed against body armor down range. The original 55 gr. bullet is too light. The military has tried to make it into something it isn't with M855 62 grn. green tip. Nice try to save a bunch of money but you failed. Lipstick on a pig. Now moving into the 21st century.

I reload and shoot .223. It kills steel plates at 300 yds just fine. Very accurate in a bolt rifle and one of the best varmint cartridges to come down the pike. 55 grn bullets, or lighter, was always the plan. Look in the Hornady manual if you don't believe me.

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That's just somebody talkin.

Y'all sure are a sour lot.

The round is already available to the public as the 277 Fury. 135 grain bullet at 2700 FPS out of a 16" barrel - remember the .276 Pederson?(3000 fps out of a 20" about 270 Win performance).

They had to go to a new cartridge because of the pressures involved. Winchester is building a new plant for the cartridge. The two part cartridge cases have been around for years.

The new rifles are close to the AR 15 family in size and issued with optics.

Everyone keeps mentioning China, but when was the last time we successfully predicted the next war? Korea will involve lots of infantry, an island hopping campaign will need infantry to take the islands for the long range weapons, not to mention a return to the sandbox.

Support troops will keep the M4 in 5.56.

I'm glad the Army has finally addressed this shortcoming.

Yeah. And it's a gas piston rifle. Not a DI design. There are probably 5x more AK-47 rifles in world than AR's.

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That's just somebody talkin.

42696130-A069-4A24-BB3E-123D3BEC32BC.jpg
Back in 2017 a long time good friend that mfg’ered “ items” for many governments got the contract to make the “ nut sack” for this short SAW. FN sent him one to test them on. He brought it to one of our MG shoots. What a piece of junk, could not hit the pop up military target at 400 meters. We changed the barrel and shot around 1000 rounds. Everyone there laughed at it, would take a BAR any day.

Nearly all African Union and other national forces wear body armor, as do many al Shabab, Al Qaeda, and IS militant forces.

and the end all of the debate on service rifle calibers

30-06 M2 AP Armor Piercing Penetration Tests - Pew Pew Tactical

Problem solved back in the 1940s

The round is available in a regular brass case but I don't think that you will be able to load it to the same level as the 2 piece round. I have never attempted to load anything like that 2 piece case so I don't have any real world experience but looking at it, I don't think it will present any issues if you decided to load it. That steel head isn't going to obturate under pressure like a brass case would so it shouldn't need to be resized. I'm thinking that it will go into a sizing die just like a conventional case would. The bigger question is do you want to run you MCX at those high pressures? The military doesn't care because they'll just buy lots of barrels and spare parts and replace them as they need. I'm thinking that if I shell out a few grand for one of those guns, I don't want to pay for a new barrel every couple of thousand rounds.

I think they went with the piston to keep that 80000psi away from the upper receiver and the shooters face.

Even if the round does prove its merit and it is adopted, I would never buy a rifle chambered for it!! IMHO, it will more than likely be restricted in the near future and people who own that caliber will have a hell of a time feeding it. That goes for ANY special round the military adopts in the future!! Better to stick with something you have and can feed!

The .30 Super Carry of AR rounds?

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Because of the metric system?

I'm not going to say that I will never buy one. Never is a very long time and it's a gun so it's fair game. I think if the Army adopts this as an Army wide system, economy of scale will make it available to civilians. It's why you can buy 7.62 NATO for 90 cents a round and 30-30 Winchester is about twice as much and not as available. Once the ammo makers start turning out billions of rounds, it is going to leak onto the civilian market. When that is going to happen is a ways down the road I think. But who knows? The main detriment that I see from a civilian standpoint is durability. These guns will require lots of attention if you are going to run them at full speed. From a military point of view, the biggest problem I can see is increased weight. A couple of pounds of extra weight in the field doesn't sound like much but it is. It looks like this is going to be the military round of the future so there is no doubt that it will become common place on civilian ranges at some point.

If it was my choice I believe I'd arm everybody with a quick change barrel variant of the FAL in .243.

That goes for ANY special round the military adopts in the future

Truth is civilians won't be able to buy the futuristic military ammo. Mostly we were able to purchase ammo from the same source as the military in the past, or just load it ourselves. I doubt the components to load the new military ammo will be available.

It's interesting to me that SIG has already marketed the rifle in a civilian configuration with the MCX Spear, but the chamberings available haven't changed from standard 5.56 NATO, or popular 7.62x39. Also available in 7.62x51. My guess is they never will build a rifle for a 277 Furball just so someone can say it's the same cartridge the military uses, which it isn't. It might be the same caliber but not the same cartridge. They be stylin just the same though because it isn't anything like an AR. It's a pretty cool rifle for $2500.

In 5 years nobody will want to buy a new AR. They will become the sxs shotgun of rifles.

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That's just somebody talkin.

The bi-metal case gives me the creeps. How much more does the ammo cost to produce per cartridge? It will add up to a helluva lot of extra $$$. That chamber pressure is going to eat barrels… with what effects on accuracy for the grunt on the ground? “Oh yeah - you should get replacement barrels next week/month/whatever.” What happens when quality control slips and you have case head/body separation upon extraction? That’s a jam I never want to clear, let alone when it counts.

I understand that 80,000 PSI is 15-20% higher than all brass cartridges usually handle. Body armor is a real concern. Shorter barrels to allow for suppressors makes sense in some contexts, but a suppressor is another pound of weight to carry along with the ammo, etc. I just can’t help wondering if this isn’t too elaborate a solution that will lead to logistical problems. How many manufacturers will there be for these cases? Supply chain issues are on my mind, especially after the Francis Scott Key Bridge attack.

Its INTENDED to create problems for USA in the future. Just like the standardized NATO cartridges were created solely for the purpose of making it "easier" for the United States to produce FREE ammunition to NATO countries in wartime..

THe Yorkshire Diggers have been digging up world war 1 trneches for decades. They have found rifle ammunition, 303 enfield, that was underground since the war ended, that was still firing in the 1990s

Saw Winchester is opening a new ammo plant, maybe for 6.8??????.

Two things bother me. The need for a lock washer to join to dissimilar parts of the cartridge and 80,000 psi??? 80,000 psi sounds like a lot of heat to me and I wonder how the barrels are going to hold up?

Nobody is asking me, but I would put a 6.5 bullet on a case with the diameter sized between the 5.56 and 7.62 NATO.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

Yes the 5.56 will be with us for a long time.

Sig uses high vanadium steel in it's barrels. I have several Blaser barrels with between 8000-15000 round through them. The 223 at 4800 rounds had less than 1mm of throat erosion when I last bore scoped it. The 17HMR at over 15,000 still looked brand new inside.

The quality of the steel really matters.

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Captain Dave Funk

A common misconception seems to be that the M7 (AKA SIG MCX Spear) chambered in 6.8x51 Common Cartridge (AKA .277 Fury) is going to outright replace the M4A1 chambered in 5.56x45 NATO.

It is to my understanding that such is not the case. The new Rifle/Cartridge are meant to address the fact that the M4A1/M855A1 cannot pierce through whatever alleged top-secret, cutting-edge body armor the Chinese Military is developing, isn't accurate/effective in long-range engagements and will be fielded to troops when/if the need for these capabilities are required.
However, that neither sounds impressive nor encouraging because if you put it that way it sounds like a tremendous waste of money to invest in a new Special Purpose Rifle chambered in a non-NATO Standard cartridge for battlefield conditions which have yet to occur frequently and may never occur at all because its all based on a what-if scenario in which China instigates a war in which some cutting-edge body armor that can stop M855A1 is standard issue for Chinese Soldiers and the battlefield conditions prompt frequent long-range engagements. So the details are exaggerated to make it sound like it's going to be the new Standard Issue USA Military Rifle. Once the dust has settled, I think news will start to trickle in from troops that the majority of them are still issued M4A1s and that the M7 is only fielded to select units when intel indicates that the M7 is more appropriate.

Heck, even if the M7 becomes the new Standard Issue US Military Service Rifle, the M4A1 will obviously remain in service for decades to come unless someone manages to make a superior lightweight carbine which is relatively inexpensive.
Worst case scenario, the M4A1 becomes the modern-day equivalent of the M1 Carbine, thus maintaining it as an alternative Service Weapon for units who don't require the latest, greatest heavyweight frontline battle rifle.

So unless you're just obsessed with having the latest piece of military kit so that you can LARP as a commando down at the range, there's no reason to get all excited over this. Rest Assured, your AR will be every bit as effective and prominent as it ever was even if the M7 becomes the new standard issue.
Frankly, the AR-15 is already the M1911A1 of military Rifles, and will assuredly remain popular for decades to come.

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.