Hell the USMC wanted the Stoner 63 system/rifle. I was in later so I never had any personal experience with it. My first Gunny thought highly of it.

Personally I would have liked to give it a try. Though its kinda hard getting a hold of one.

Good point. It's been nearly two decades since I last stripped an M16 so the mind was a little foggy...

Still, it's a shit rifle in my experience compared to others I've handled.

Been our Main Arm for more than 40 years. Come a long way in that time. So have manufacturing methods, materials, and practices.

There might be times I am left scratching my head at things you say, but here Leg you nailed it centre mass, right out the gate.

I've always felt, and seen firsthand, that the 5.56 lacked in the hitting power department. Much like the old saying of don't get into a pistol fight with something that doesn't begin with a .4 ("Yes Top, Honest to god, I did find that Kimber over here, its just a pure coincidence that it happens to be the same model as my personal one back in the Springs..."). Yes, even a .22 can kill if you aim well enough, but face it, running and gunning isn't conductive to precision shooting. When I was over the sand box, and we went dismounted once the invasion phase was done, one of the first things I did was do a swap with another joe: I gave him my M16A2 Upper for his M4 Upper. Having a fixed stock on the M4 was pure win: It balanced perfectly with a 203, wasn't wobbly, still compact, and just flat out worked - within the limitations of the Short 14.5" barrel granted.

On another thread, I put it like this when comparing the various "Intermediate Rifle Cartridges" that people are talking up lately:

The 5.56 (AKA .223) was designed to snipe varmits. Dogs, cats, prairie dogs, stuff of that ilk by varmint shooters.
The 6.5 Grendel was designed by Long Range Shooters to snipe large targets from an AR platform.
The 6.8 was designed by troops to kill troops.
The 7.62S was designed by weapons designers to be cheap and reasonably effective at killing most any medium sized target.


In short, the 7.62S is a round that has really great potential: I seen some handloads with top flight brass and sierra bullets fired from bolt guns that would knock your socks off. Though the rounds are a bit hot for even an AK. If an AK was built to stand those loads, and built to tighter tolerances, that would be a world beater. Of course, those tighter tolerances would degrade the ruggedness of the design...
(And funny enough, since the introduction of centrefire ammo, the 6.8 size has been dancing in and out of vogue: always on the verge of being accepted, yet never being so.)

I don't quite have as much experience here, but 1200 meters with a 12 inch upper? That's crazy! :eek: Though I suppose the ballistics computer and the spotter helped.

Still, I would suppose that hitting anything past 300 or maybe even 150 meters accurately and consistently would depend on a crapload of other variables like the ones you described, plus weather conditions (rain, snow, etc.), dust, debris, if the target(s) are behind some form of cover (most likely) or moving/running between positions and firing from cover (also likely), and add to that adrenaline, fatigue, pucker factor, etc. etc. etc.

I think a Navy friend of mine who has a just a bit of experience in this department put it rather bluntly when he commented on other shooters at a range accurately placing shots on paper/steel targets. "Yeah, a lot of them shoot well. Only problem is, the targets don't shoot back..."

Leg and I have very similar views on firearms I think. Even with increased weapon and ammo weight I'd go for a 7.62mm rifle over 5.56mm any day. My deep and abiding love for the SLR will never die. Sure it's old school but it's the only rifle I'm still confident I could strip, clean and reassemble in a hurry. And it's so damned rugged, a really solid piece of equipment. The 7.62mmN round will knock a man down and leave him DRT nearly every time. And up close and personal there is a big difference between a butt strike from a "plastic fantastic" modern assault rifle/carbine etc and a battle rifle, not to mention what you can do with a SLR with a fixed bayonet. Terrifying.

You got that right!
Give me five minutes to re-familiarise myself and I'd be able to field strip, clean and reassemble the SLR at light speed again. Could do the M60 in about two minutes flat (including a thorough field clean and oil) back in the day and wasn't bad on the M16 either (as much as I loathe the thing). Was quite good with the F88 Steyr AUG too before I got out and although they're a nice weapon to patrol with, they're still woefully underpowered for my liking.

Most weapons are fairly easy to operate if you bear in mind there's really only a couple of different ways a semi or fully automatic weapon can work. Basically there's open and closed bolt, coupled with gas piston, impingement, or recoil operation. The rest is really just fairly minor details. Remember those basics and most stoppage drills are relatively easy to transfer from one weapon to another.

Hey, that's what I think - although I'd replace "SLR" by "G3" and I've got no clue about fighting with a bayonet :D

What I really dislike with all the AKs is the right hand position of the cocking handle (Hope this is the right term. I'm talking of the lever you have to pull to load a round into the action.). In my mind, this is so unusual, I can't see to get familar with this. When I have to load the rifle, I still want to have my firing hand at the pistol grip - and my eyes on target. I just can't imagine, that would work with the lever on the right side of the rifle.

And for all of your thoughts on the AR15/M16/M4-thing: There are loads of extra parts for this system. If one has the money, he can build a relatively rugged rifle, in which the upper receiver and the upper part of the rail/handguard are one piece, therefore eliminating some of the problems with to much stuff fitted to the rifle (barrel!). And there are tons of extra stuff, that can be mounted via the rails. The hole system has the big advantage, that you can build your weapon for a specific task/mission. And it's the service rifle with several Western armies.

I would strictly avoid a prolonged firefight, if I were to live in a world like the Twilight 2000 world. Therefore I think that a rifle, that is precise, is better, than a weapon, that can be stuffed with tons of dirt, but might not be that precise.

So,

A) I've never had trouble keeping my issue M4 or M4A1 running, even in crappy environments (ditto back when I was rocking an M16A2, though that was a long time ago).

B) I've spent a good chunk of my misspent youth in a SOF unit. I can't think of any team guys I ever worked with who shared your opinion of the M4 and, as I mentioned in a previous thread, guys were happy enough with the M4A1 that a number of them, after playing with HK416s, went back to standard M4A1s. Most were pretty skeptical about the SCAR-L as a waste of money/reinvention of the wheel (I got out before the L got cancelled).

And none of them would have considered going downrange with an AK or other foreign weapon. Whatever else can be said about it, the AR is an ergonomic miracle and those guys got the training to make the most of those strengths. Put a guy on a clock and they can make hits faster and better with an M4 compared to the alternatives. That makes alternatives a pretty hard sell.

I've never had a problem keeping my firing hand on the pistol grip and reaching over the top of the rifle to run the charging handle. Using Hungarian 20-round magazines, I also can reach underneath the rifle without difficulty. But I'm 6'1" and have never had to do it in body armor, both of which may have been factors in my favor.

- C.

My problem is not with 5.56, it is with the M855 round.

The 55 grain m193 cartridge was a lead core with a full metal jacket. It would flip end for end when travelling through meat creating great wound channels. Sometimes the nose would separate from the base and angle away. This would create to wound channels.

The Hague conventions on ammunition made a mistake mandating pointed ammo as that can cause a more grievous wound than rounded nose.

Anyway the 62 grain M855 is Armor Penetrating with a tungsten rod surrounded by lead. It is balance for it length.

It doesn't yaw and drives right through like an ice pick. Small tight wound channels with small disruption of blood vessels. The damn Fedayeen using opiates in battle in OIF 1 seemed to keep going when hit. They didn't feel it whacked on pain killers but, certainly died later.

It is why Mk 262 and SOST is working better. The Insurgents are not wearing body armor and the M855 goes right through them.

Unofficially it is taught now to shoot for the pelvis or scapula to make an incapacitating bone break. Skirting legality though.

There are many, many weapons with the cocking handle on the right side of the weapon - take the M60 machinegun for example.
I agree though it's bad practise to remove your master hand from the pistol grip, but if that's the way the weapon is designed, so be it. You can't actually shoot while operating the cocking handle anyway (unless there's something seriously wrong with the weapon), so it's not all bad.
And then there's bolt action rifles....

Quite right: Should have made the distinction between what we use now and what it was designed to use, as its two very different things.

I know a lot was made in the media about the alleged use of opiates by insurgents in Iraq but I've never seen a lot of evidence to prove that it was the norm and not just an odd occurrence here and there.
However I have seen lots of evidence first hand of the M855 round over-penetrating and doing relatively little damage on wood, metal and more importantly, on feral animals (particularly goats).

The M855 round (specifically the Australian version of it) was in use with a number of Agricultural Protection officers in Western Australia in the early 1990s for culling feral goats, cats, foxes and dogs. They were using semi-auto versions of the F88 Austeyr (or it could have been that the full-auto lock-out was permanently fixed, I can't remember), the rifles and ammo were supplied direct from the Small Arms Factory, Lithgow.

The M855 round would drill right through the goats and they would stand there, look at you and then run off a couple of hundred metres to hide in the scrub only to bleed out later. Even gutshots didn't drop them with the 5.56mm.
I can tell you, those goats were not using opiates - well, as far as I'm aware but you know what some of those radical goats are like, long beards, shaggy hair, don't bother to wash, berets & turtlenecks and using any kind of weed they can find, bloody hippies and beatniks the lot of 'em! :D :p

I tend to believe that a lot of the problems with dropping Fedayeen in OIF1 came down to over-penetration/low damage of the 5.56mm M855 ammo and the fact that the Fedayeen were very well motivated by religious belief rather than the idea that they were 'hopped up' on drugs.

I didn’t get to see or watch the news of those events for years later. I don’t know of any use in the Insurgency. The Fedayeen were an Elite Group (abusing the work Elite for sure) of Ba’ athists. Saddam used history and myth to create backgrounds and lineages for his formations. The Fedayeen are the Ismaili sect that came to be known as the Assassins. Saddam used the name to enhance the fearsome reputation of his better equipped thugs.
Interestingly so has just about everyone. Which is why it is so damn frustrating that it is the primary ammunition type. Only political cronyism can explain the issue of AP ammo that is less effective in a fight with an enemy that does not wear body armor anyway.
Same thing with Turkeys on the Rifle ranges at Ft. Riley.
These birds would walk right across the range, blithely ignoring the 40 firers and their noisy rifles trying to qualify on a pop up range. Birds would hop, ruffle their feathers, and keep on strutting along.
Technically your supposed to shut down the range for wild life. However the turkeys are so numerous that no one closes a range because of them.
Randy old things always with a wink, a leer, or a whistle. Poor example for young gentlemen.
Ten years on I wonder if the after action reports are available. It was the Marines in the vicinity of An Nasiriyah, if I recall correctly.

You're probably right. The sight of enemy fighters taking multiple hits and still kicking has got to have a pretty powerful psychological impact on the folks who witness it (and the shooters especially). As a result, those stories tend to get passed around and the idea that that sort of thing is the norm tends to spread quickly.

In the book Blackhawk Down, Somali fighters are described as being hopped up on a popular, locally grown stimulant called Khat [sic]. Some of the American Delta boys were using titatium-tipped 5.56mm ammo in their M4s and they apparently passed right through their unarmored targets, who continued to fight as if nothing had happened. Regular 5.56mm had roughly the same effect in many cases.

During the battle of Fallujah, Marines found stockpiles of perscription stimulants, atropine, and adrenaline among insurgent weapons caches (No True Glory- Bing West; House to House- David Bellavia). Apparently, the insurgents were pumping themselves up for the fight. Once again, it was probably a relatively small number of fighters doing it, but the sight of one or two guys taking multiple rounds center mass or having limbs blown off and continuing to fight would tend to leave a pretty strong and frightening impression. Troops can be forgiven for spreading/believing those kinds of stories.

In Bowden's book, he talks about the same problem with 7.62x51 AP ammo through M60s.

When it's all said and done, people can be both surprisingly hard and surprisingly easy to kill, just depending. (That said, I agree on the issues with M855 -- problem I see with it is consistency, with way too much variation in terms of accuracy and lethality across lots due to the overly complex nature of the projectile.)

Which is why AP shouldn't be standard issue....

armor piercing ammo should only be issued out in large scale if your expecting armor wearing bad guys. ball ammo or hollow points for unarmored bad guys.(considering the hague only got a handful of countries to even show up let alone agree to the damned thing i see nothing wrong with dum dum bullets for a fight)

The restriction on projectiles intended to cause unnecessary suffering only applies to opponents who adhere to the laws of land warfare -- which insurgents can do, though the current crop of ass hats certainly fail to do.

As such, technically zapping them with the finest maiming technology modern science can dream up (as well as summary executions and other bits of extremity much frowned on these days) is permissible, though the political costs of such are obviously show stoppers.

It was, apparently very popular in WW2 for use by BAR men in US formations because it penetrated structures and cover better. I've always wondered if the use of it in Somalia was someone looking backwards and thinking if it was good enough for D Day itches good enough for Mogadishu.

Yeah, I have similar views myself, even though my experience is limited. If I was dropped into an unknown planet that is Earthlike, I'd want at least something from .270 caliber but I'd prefer something at least .30 caliber. The AK being tolerant of harsh conditions with 7.62mmS would be a good choice. At least the .7.62mmS is comparable to a .30-30, a a good deer round. Anything larger, hopefully with enough hits, I could bring it down. I would like something more powerful, that would be something like the M-14 or SLR in .308 Win (7.62mm NATO) or even the M1 Garand in .30-06. The M-16 series, better than nothing but if I had to go back in time, at least they should have uprated it to something like a .243 Winchester.

P.S. - Since this is for assault rifles only, my choice is the AKM/AK-47, but the rest of my post about having a battle rifle stands.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of the 7.62S round. Very hard to hit the broad side of a barn at a decent range unlike 7.62N. Hell, even 5.56N is in my experience more accurate (if less hard hitting).

The fact remains that 7.62mm is too heavy and too high power to be practical for the engagement ranges that most soldiers will find themselves fighting at. Folks have known this since WWII (at the latest) and that's why 7.62 x 39mm and other "intermediate" rounds were developed.

Yes, if most engagements were at 300m +, then 7.62mm L would be the way to go, no question. But for fights at less than 200m- and that's most fights nowadays- it's just too much round for the job. And if you want to have the full auto fire option, forget about 7.62mm L.

I'm not saying that 5.56mm (or 5.45mm) is a particularly good round- there are probably better- but the 7.62mm L is not the be-all, end-all of assault rifle bullets.

There's a reason why a lot folks insist on the distinction between "battle" and "assault" rifles. They're different classes of firearms, due, for the most part, to the size and power of the cartridge they fire. Nearly everything that I've heard and/or read states that accurate full-auto fire is almost impossible with a 7.62mm L rifle. I mean, nearly every Western GPMG uses the same round and they all have bi-pods/tri-pods.

I'm just getting kind of tired of the 7.62mm L love-fest going on here. If it was so ideal, why isn't more widely used in modern assault rifles? And don't get going on politics or the evil U.S.A. military-industrial complex.

I'll put it in the non-fiction recommendations thread but if this sort of thing interests you, you should read The Gun (by Chivers). It's a history of the AK-47 series with a good long preface (the first third of the book) on the history and development of the fully automatic gun. There's also a lot about the development of the M-16 rifle and, although the author tries to avoid getting drawn into the whole 7.62mm S vs. 5.56mm round debate, there is some interesting stuff about that as well (including top-secret comparison testing on cadavers surreptitiously imported from India).

For a service rifle round, 7.62x51 represented an absolute refusal to learn anything about small arms and combat from World War 2 on the part of the US military (and to ignore our own pre-war R&D, such as the Pedersen 276 round).

Had the people making decisions back in the late 40s/early 50s about such things had a shred of sense we'd have wound up with NATO using the British 280/7mm round that improved on the 7.92 Kurz concept rather than adopting a round that was just 30-06 reinvented with more modern powder and a consequently shortened case.

It's what if's and such, but had US forces with FALs (or M14s or even EM-2s) chambered in 280 Brit gone head to head with the AK-47 in Southeast Asia, I doubt 5.56mm would have ever turned up as a military cartridge. It's appearance had a lot to do with the hardware guys dropping the ball so utterly with the 7.62x51/M14 combo that it opened the way for advocates of pure theory to jump into the game, from which we got the SCHV idea and the resultant 5.56x45 round (and 5.45x39, eventually).

Unfortunately the military is just as much a victim of "what's fashionable" as anybody else.
When all the scientists gushed about the wonderous effects of lightweight, small calibre, high velocity rounds, they were telling the military exactly what the military wanted to hear at that point in time - the rifle would be the most effective force multiplier on the battlefield because these new bullets will make it so.

That is to say, the concept was that the new SCHV rounds would cause hydrostatic shock which would completely incapacitate the enemy soldier, not kill him. Then his comrades would be out of the fight as they carried him away from the area. In this way you removed not just one soldier but possibly another two to four and you created a greater drain on rear area resources as they tended the wounded.

The reality is that the individual soldier's rifle is way down on the list for causing enemy casualties. On a conventional battlefield, artillery & aerial bombing and explosives/fragmentation such as grenades cause the greatest number of casualties. In irregular warfare the enemy often ignores their casualties and continues to fight rather than tend the wounded.

When you get to low level conflict such as urban fighting, then the individual soldier/rifle* combo can really come into its own and I think what it really needs is a round that will injure the enemy to a point where the enemy stops fighting or it kills him outright. * rifle, carbine, smg or whatever individual weapon.

7.62mmN works, 7.62mmS works, 5.56mm works but it does seem that the projectile weight and cartridge length of the 7.62mmS suit that role better than the other rounds I mentioned. I'm not saying it's the best, just that the intermediate cartridge is probably better served by having a heavier projectile than 5.56mm or 5.45mm offer.
It's interesting to note that the Soviets/Russians developed the 9x39mm round to provide a heavier projectile for the close range combat of urban warfare because they weren't satisfied with the 5.45mm nor the 7.62x39mm cartridge for that role.

Exactly.

The 7.62N is a great round for a GPMG, and even Sharpshooting, but as a battlefield round, its a bit much. Where as the SCHV is perhaps a little bit on the not enough. The 7.62S is a great round in theory, and even in practice to a degree, but the handicaps of the AK47 lets it down.

And yes, the .276 Pederson was a fantastic round, and to be fair, the .280 British was perhaps the best round to come out in the post war period. Its a shame it didn't take - and the US deserves the blame for that. But then, yet again, after a major war, Small Arms Designers returned to the .270-.280 size, only to lose out to something else. Seeing the same thing now - 6.8mm is .270. Sometimes I don't think we will ever learn... ;)

Because its not just real men that need to shoot in wars. A smaller round is needed for the women and girly-men. :sacool:

Drifting off a little but still somewhat on topic - this is one for people who put their hate on the SA80/L85. :p
This news article is over a year old but it seemed to have been missed outside the UK. For anyone who still thinks the L85A2 is junk because of the problems suffered by the L85A1, the following story shows that it is one tough piece of kit.

http://www.expressandstar.com/wp-con...LE-3-SL-15.jpg

Soldier reunited with gun that saved his life
Wednesday 16th December 2009, 11:30AM GMT. Express & Star news website

Hero Black Country soldier Luke Cole has been reunited with the rifle that saved his life in battle.

The SA 80 rifle took three bullets that otherwise would have killed the 24-year-old West Midland Territorial Army Private in a battle that claimed the lives of two comrades and won him the Military Cross.

The first 7.62 mm Kalashnikov round hit the weapon head on, narrowly missing the barrel and tearing apart the bodywork, while the second blew the sight off and the third smashed into the side, ripping through the inside of the gun and blasting out of the pistol grip.

Miraculously none struck Pte Cole, already wounded twice in the battle, and last night he saw the remains of the weapon for the first time since it saved his life in the Taliban ambush two years ago.

The rifle still worked and Pte Cole, from Bradmore, continued to shoot with it for a further hour as he lay trapped in the killing field. And the rifle that fired 360 rounds during the fire fight will now serve as a constant reminder of the bravery shown by Pte Cole in the battle near Garmsir in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

It has pride of place at the HQ of the 4th Battalion The Mercian Regiment in Fallings Park, Wolverhampton where he was based and will hang on the wall of the bar that last night was renamed The Cole in his honour.

Former forklift truck engineer Pt Cole said: “It is a shock to see the state it is in. It makes you realise how heavy the firing was. It saved my life. Any of those three bullets would have killed me instantly if it had not taken the blows.

“When you remember that I had the rifle braced on my shoulder at the time and was sitting up you realise those rounds would have hit me in the head or throat.”

Pte Cole was on a six-month tour of duty with the regular army 2 Mercian Regiment when he was hit in the stomach and leg, losing five inches of thigh bone, during the attack in September 2007.

The former Smestow School pupil was on his last mission before redeployment.

Original post http://www.expressandstar.com/latest...aved-his-life/ but I've pretty much just copied and pasted it all here.

Now that is just plain awesome. If ever has to pick up a tab at that bar I would be sorely disapointed in his mates...

British desighn combined with German engineering. Makes for a nice combo.

So what your saying is that the L85 is much like the M16. Took until the A2 model to carry it with pride, and not have to keep putting bits back on with super glue.

Too bad there are no civ sale semi auto versions in the US.

Probably would have paid for the L85A2 development ten years ago.

First time I saw the L85 I couldn't beleive how small it was!
When I did rifle drill with the SLR, I could stand at parade rest with the butt on the ground, my right arm slightly curled and my hand on the foresight, ie with about 10" of the barrel in front of my hand and wrist.
Rifle drill with the L85? At parade rest, with my arm straight, I could just reach the end of the barrel. No wonder they made the clever 3-part strap so you could wear it everywhere!

as far as people saying 5.56mm isn't potent enough i know for fact it drop a decent sized deer at 100M with one aimed shot. (yes i was useing SS109 green tip ammunition) :D

don't tell range control about it though. i told them the deer ran in front of my target while i was trying to qualify. tasted good too.

6x45........... all the militar(ies) have to do is switch barrels. 80gr FMJ out of a 14.5" barrel at about 2600-2700 fps with better terminal ballistics and energy.

Just my 2 cents.

Mmmmmmmmm here kitty, kitty, kitty.

http://www.policestore.com/.aspx/pid...sp_mid=3718534

I'm liking the looks of .300 AAC Blackout too.

- C.