Whats the word on the new 6.8 GI round?

chief38 said:

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!

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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.

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.

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

Seems complex....

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.

cmj8591 said:

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.

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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.

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.

lrrifleman said:

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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The new rifle is only fielding to specific MOSs in specific units. The rest of the force is still MTOED 5.56mm rifles.

Lake City will still crank out 5.56mm. They are standing up another line to produce the 6.8mm.

FWIW the "Militia" won't be drawing ammo and parts, they'll be drawing draft notices.

Tam 3 said:

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

Regards,

Tam 3

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A Suppressor is BII. Electronic hearing protection for each soldier is something that the Army has been working on for a while.

The other thing to remember is that a lot of this is about giving the other side(s) food for thought. They base their tactics and equipment on going up against the 5.56. Now they have to deal with a round that will defeat their armor at a farther distance. This means that they have to take resources from other things to adjust to this new weapon or at least determine it's impact on how they do things. This is a chess game that goes on with everything from thermonuclear weapons to handguns. Look at all the discussion lately about hyper sonic weapons. A lot of that is designed to get the other side to divert resources from other things. The xm7 adoption is no different.

Eventually the M4 will be phased out of inventory just like all other US military weapons. Having been in the military I can tell you that sooner or later a better mousetrap comes along and once tested and deemed better it will be adopted throughout the military.

Too many examples exist as proof. Once the M9 was determined superior to the 1911, it didn't take long for the Army to mothball all 1911's. I have one that set in a crate in warehouse for maybe 40 years. It wasn't issued to anyone after it was rebuilt, just stored in a crate with 80,000 other 1911's. The reason was logistical and economical. The military had a new cartridge just like they do now with their new rifle. They will not support two rifles using different cartridges any more than they will support two pistols.The math just doesn't work for the bean counters. Does anyone see any M9's in the military inventory these days? Nope. Even though it uses the same cartridge. Other factors determine the longevity, like parts and replacement. My understanding is the SIG costs the military less than $200 per pistol.

I went to boot camp in the Navy in 67. We didn't have any M-16's to train with, but we were probably the last few companies who didn't. Every service had those by 69, four years after the Army got them.

My guess is the M4 isn't long for this world for any military training or issue. I'll say 5 years and it will be gone, just like the M9.

Don't look for any barrels full of mil surp M4's for cheap either. They will all go into the recycle bin just like the M-14's.

Thom_44 said:

In basic training in the US army back in 2008, one of the books we had indicated that the M16-a2 rifles we were using, were purchased by the federal government for 250$ each.

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I was a unit armorer in the USAF in the late '80s and when I did the bi-annual inventory on the CACRL the price per unit for all the slick side AR15s we had (only a couple even had chrome bores) was $141.00 ea.

Where are the bad guys getting all the ******* body armor????
Best guess is that we are probably selling it to them.

Thom_44 said:

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

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Forgot to mention that the bevy of PK/PKM LMGs in African services are not troubled by dody armor - 7.62x54R Russian. Neither are DsHKs.

CAJUNLAWYER said:

Where are the bad guys getting all the ******* body armor????
Best guess is that we are probably selling it to them.

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They haven't sat around wringing their hands since M885A1 round was introduced, they've been dreaming up new stuff. Dismiss the inventiveness of our enemies at your peril.

CAJUNLAWYER said:

Where are the bad guys getting all the ******* body armor????
Best guess is that we are probably selling it to them.

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Al Shabab, IS, AL Qaeda can buy or get it free from their sponsors; especially IS and Al Shabab seize it when attacking national forces that are equipped with body armor (and trucks, and armored vehicles, and radions, and NVGs, etc.). For perspective, al Shabab collected more 'taxes' from Somalis than did the Somali Federal Govdrnment over past year or two.

Wish I knew some guys at APG, be interesting to talk to.

Dead On Arrival.
With one or more world wars on the horizon due to the current administration’s (military and civilian) bumbling, and all kinds of munitions in short supply, this is the worst possible time to be making significant changes in small arms or ammunition.
Similar to what happened to the .276 cartridge just before we got into WWII. There were plans to drop the .30-06 and go with the smaller caliber in the Garand and other weapons. Bad time to be retooling and creating the logistical nightmares associated with having a third rifle cartridge in the existing system.

smoothshooter said:

Dead On Arrival.
With one or more world wars on the horizon due to the current administration’s (military and civilian) bumbling,.

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Not from my view. In the West Philippine Sea, the international courts have ruled against China's '9 Dash Line' - continuing, nonfatal scuffles with our ally, the Philippines, have been ongoing for decades without serious escalation. The saber-rattling over Taiwan has encountered a Ukraine problem (determined resistance trumps large militaries without combat experience), and Ukraine has fought Russia to a stalemate with Russians having to rely on poor quality North Korean artillery and rocket systems as well as Iranian drones. As long as Ukraine keeps fighting, Russia can only threaten an invigorated, expanded NATO.

These aren't armchair opinions. I worked in security assistance programs in the Philippines from 2013-2018 and just left Armenia a few weeks ago. I'll be in Tbilisi in a few more weeks. The pre-Ukraine aggressor nation confidence in 'soft power' backed by paper tiger militaries has been badly broken after prior low-cost successes in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Crimea.

Not worried about world war. Small conflicts are ongoing, though, and any tool that gives special units an advantage deserves serious testing (including supported battlefield testing) IMO.

With the obvious differences of the complicated/expensive to produce cartridge case and 30+% higher chamber pressure, what real difference is there between the 6.8x51mm new cartridge and the .270x51 wildcat, better known as .270-308! Performance wise how will it differ from the .270 Winchester?

Now we will have .243/6mm-'08, 6.5-'08, .25-'08, .270-'08, and now what sounds like really a 6.8-'08. WHY??

Echo40 said:

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 thr top-secret, cutting-edge body armor the Chinese Military is developing and 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.

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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I question a few things in your post. When the military replaces a weapon, they do it in a few years. The 1911A1 and M9 pistol is a good example. Gone from all military arsenals in a few years. One of the reasons is training and ammo costs. Why would you have people trained on obsolete weapons? I had training on an outdated rifle in the military, but it was in transition that only lasted a few years. That was because the Navy was the last service to get upgraded. By the time my enlistment was over, 4 years, that rifle was gone in all military units.

The new rifle for the military is the XM-7. Your forecast is for the M4 to be common in military arsenals for decades is fictional. My experience would lead me to believe it won't be longer than a few congressional defense budgets. Rifles are cheap compared to everything else in the defense budget.

I would be interested in your military experience regarding small arms and transitions to newer weapons.

Change my mind.