FN Lightweight Intermediate Caliber Cartridge 6.5X43mm System

greentips

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This thing is tugged under a show case behind plastic glass below waist level. I totally missed it until I saw the soldier system article. So we circled back and take a look. it is difficult to take pictures.

Kinda funny because they wouldn't answer questions unless you have a government account blah blah blah- basically road blocking joe from asking questions. But what is it so super secret squirrel? Judging by the size of the cartridge and the stainless steel casing, it probably shoots a 120gr 6.5 bullet probably at 2600 fps from a 14" with a bit higher pressure, like a 6.5CM short on steroid The size cartridge and the wpn itself indicate that it sits somewhere between a 556 and 7.62, more towards the 7.62 envelope, with a 25rd mag.

Just by looking at the outside, it is a long stroke push rod gun with a one piece aluminum upper and possible a steel U shape insert for the charge handle, kinda like an aluminum-Steel-plastic sandwich. Word is that the bolt carrier has sort of buffer, which you can tell there are some extra estates at the rear end of the receiver like many push rod guns like B&T APC. They push the charging handles ( on both side ) to behind the ejection port to maintain the low optic to bore height which most are accustomed to.

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Seems like the same case technology than the SIG 6.8x51 (fury). Probably pushes a 110 to 125gr class bullet at 80kpsi ( 2900 fps +)
 
At first glance my thought was why since there is already the 6.8spc that fits into the ar platform but after some thought the 6.5 has great ballistic coefficient guess it should outperform 6.8 down range.
 
Seems like the same case technology than the SIG 6.8x51 (fury). Probably pushes a 110 to 125gr class bullet at 80kpsi ( 2900 fps +)

SIG is a hybrid, this is completely stainless steel.

They started with plastic but switched to SS - I think the reason is that they want higher pressure. I am not sure they are going that high of a pressure as 6.8X51, my guess it is materially higher than SAAMI but not as high 6.8X51. They probably want a flatter trajectory so to get a bit closer to the ballistic profile of a 6.5CM out of a 18" out of a 14.5 or 16", but with a shorter casing I don't think they are looking for hard kinetic threshold energy + mass combo to defect ceramic plates - the US army crunched that number and it needs a 6.8 in a 308 sized cartridge to get over the threshold.

AMU aka Army Marksmanship unit is part of this - they are more the range cranks of the US army so they are more interested in accuracy and external ballistics.
 
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