New calibre question

Kveldulf

Kveldulf

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Kitchener, Ontario
I have several handguns and I'm now just starting to daydream about quasi-military rifles like the NEA and RFB. From what I have seen, .223 appears to be underpowered and on its way out. (I remember the same complaints from soldiers in Vietnam in the 60s!) If .308 is considered too powerful (I welcome opinions on that, too) that leaves a couple of 6.5s, 6.8 SPC, and the new 300 BLK (or the old 300 Whisper).

My gut instinct tells me to go with the 6.8 SPC. Does anyone have enough experience with, say, 6.8 and 300 BLK/Whisper to make a recommendation? Which is more suitable for Zombie hunting season? :confused:

FWIW the only military calibre I have fired is .303. Loved the gun, found the recoil manageable but near my tolerance limit. Expect that would improve with practice.

Sorry if this has been done to death :HR: but I haven't seen any threads on it.

TIA
 
Since any real zombies take the form of thin cellulose sheets, 5.56 is just fine... I mean, it's cool to fantasize about a world where we each have to fight a horde of killer zombies/robots/aliens/mutants/sentient pizza, and need the most hi-speed gear to do it (I know I do), but c'mon...
 
What about 6mm?



Kveldulf said:
I have several handguns and I'm now just starting to daydream about quasi-military rifles like the NEA and RFB. From what I have seen, .223 appears to be underpowered and on its way out. (I remember the same complaints from soldiers in Vietnam in the 60s!) If .308 is considered too powerful (I welcome opinions on that, too) that leaves a couple of 6.5s, 6.8 SPC, and the new 300 BLK (or the old 300 Whisper).

My gut instinct tells me to go with the 6.8 SPC. Does anyone have enough experience with, say, 6.8 and 300 BLK/Whisper to make a recommendation? Which is more suitable for Zombie hunting season? :confused:

FWIW the only military calibre I have fired is .303. Loved the gun, found the recoil manageable but near my tolerance limit. Expect that would improve with practice.

Sorry if this has been done to death :HR: but I haven't seen any threads on it.

TIA
Click to expand...
 
"...What about 6mm?..." Been done by the USN over 100 years ago. 6mm Lee(aka 6mm Navy).
Most "new" cartridges are an answer to an unasked question. Or guys playing around.
If you opt for a newish cartridge, buy as much brass as you can too. The MBA's running the marketing departments think nothing of discontinuing a cartridge with no regard for their existing customers.
"...found the recoil manageable..." It's that narrow butt stock.
 
sunray said:
"...What about 6mm?..." Been done by the USN over 100 years ago. 6mm Lee(aka 6mm Navy).
Most "new" cartridges are an answer to an unasked question. Or guys playing around.
If you opt for a newish cartridge, buy as much brass as you can too. The MBA's running the marketing departments think nothing of discontinuing a cartridge with no regard for their existing customers.
Click to expand...

Yep. The trick is to get into whatever the American military decides to replace 5.56 with. Of course with the American debt somewhere between inconceivable and infinite, they will probably put it off ... again. And their soldiers -- and ours -- will continue to complain of its ineffectiveness. :(

sunray said:
"...found the recoil manageable..." It's that narrow butt stock.
Click to expand...

Never thought of that. My brother's .303 was sporterized, that is to say it was a well done Bubba job. Even though the stock was quite attractive, he replaced it with an ugly synthetic one. He says it absorbs a lot of recoil and has improved his accuracy. :)
 
Agent Law said:
Since any real zombies take the form of thin cellulose sheets, 5.56 is just fine... I mean, it's cool to fantasize about a world where we each have to fight a horde of killer zombies/robots/aliens/mutants/sentient pizza, and need the most hi-speed gear to do it (I know I do), but c'mon...
Click to expand...

Of course I'm fantasizing. 80,000 of us in CGN are fantasizing. So are 7,000,000,000 of us not in CGN. :p

I just want to perfect my fantasies.

"Sentient pizza"? Your fantasies must be way better than my fantasies.
 
Agent Law said:
Since any real zombies take the form of thin cellulose sheets, 5.56 is just fine... I mean, it's cool to fantasize about a world where we each have to fight a horde of killer zombies/robots/aliens/mutants/sentient pizza, and need the most hi-speed gear to do it (I know I do), but c'mon...
Click to expand...

Just looked over your list again. Zombies, mutants, and sentient pizzas are non-starters. Aliens probably exist but they are not about to turn up here -- as a guess, I'd say single-celled life turns up all over the place, advanced life (brussels sprouts) is very rare because it requires that its environment remain stable for billions of years, and intelligent life borders on non-existent. Probably fewer than 100 species in this galaxy even know the galaxy exists. After all, we've just figured it out since Galileo made his first telescope in 1609.

That leaves robots and, unfortunately for the human race, they will be upon us in another decade, two at the most. There have been experimental vehicles driving themselves on public roads since the 80s, steadily improving their response times and ability to cope with changing conditions. Already you can buy cars that will parallel park themselves. The chief thing holding back fully automated vehicles right now is not technology, it is litigation: what happens when the first driverless vehicle is involved in an accident?

It is the US military that is driving research into this, same as it was the US military that gave us GPS. Their reasons are not altruistic, they are trying to develop fully independent killing machines to fight their wars without loss of (American) human soldiers. When they are ready, very soon, they will make Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator look like WALL-E. Will they turn on their creators? Certainly. Does the military know this? Certainly. Do they care? The US Navy tried to develop an extremely powerful sonar that would effectively render the oceans transparent so they could find every Russian or Chinese submarine anywhere. It would have destroyed all life in the oceans and, subsequently, all life on land but that is not why they dropped it. They just realized that it would have rendered their own subs visible to their enemies.

Back in the Cold War, the operative phrase was "Better dead than Red!" They were prepared to nuke the world, destroying everything more advanced than cockroaches, for political beliefs. Now they are prepared to do the same thing for religion.

Last I heard was that self-aware robots were expected about 2013. Have a nice day. :)

(If this is getting you down, just know that I am suffering through a heat wave and it makes me feel grouchy.)
 
Kveldulf said:
Yep. The trick is to get into whatever the American military decides to replace 5.56 with. Of course with the American debt somewhere between inconceivable and infinite, they will probably put it off ... again. And their soldiers -- and ours -- will continue to complain of its ineffectiveness. :(
Click to expand...

To quote my friend Nik "Everyone I have shot with 5.56 died".

There are better "bullets" for 5.56/.223, but the cartridge is not going to be replaced by anything floating around right now.

Weight, accuracy, drift, drop, terminal effects, barrel life, recoil, machine guns that will run on it and finally cost. All these come into play when looking for a replacement.
.260 Remington is a great cartridge, but is heavier, eats barrels has higher recoil and needs all new machine guns. Oh and the ammo costs more.
 
the_klenzer said:
I got the robot problem all figured out: http://www.tacticalimports.ca/GM6.html
Click to expand...

Love the Lynx and wish I needed a new gun more than I need a new car. But do you really believe you can outthink, outmaneouvre, and outshoot an armoured walking computer armed with every calibre it needs? When the Pentagon releases its chrome warriors, even the beta test models are going to be hard to put down. All we can do is hope Microsoft writes the software. :p

the_klenzer said:
OP, there's a lot to be said for a caliber with a trillion rounds available everywhere. I'd be pretty happy with .223 for making holes... I hear its had some success on the battlefield.
Click to expand...

An AK will shoot one bullet through a brick wall. An AR won't.
 
Gunnerlove said:
To quote my friend Nik "Everyone I have shot with 5.56 died".

There are better "bullets" for 5.56/.223, but the cartridge is not going to be replaced by anything floating around right now.

Weight, accuracy, drift, drop, terminal effects, barrel life, recoil, machine guns that will run on it and finally cost. All these come into play when looking for a replacement.
.260 Remington is a great cartridge, but is heavier, eats barrels has higher recoil and needs all new machine guns. Oh and the ammo costs more.
Click to expand...

I know. Quite aside from all my grumping, I just want advice on what calibre my first black rifle should be. Specifically, has anyone done a comparison between 6.5 Grendel, 6.8 SPC, and 300 BLK? Those are the ones I kinda like right now. ;)
 
Conventional lead bullets won't do much good against armoured robots. Better start stockpiling SMAWs and Javelins.

I've toyed around with the thought of fully robotic warfare (no humans put in harms way). It sort of takes a lot of the horror out of war. I mean, it might as well be a sporting event after...

Kveldulf said:
"Sentient pizza"? Your fantasies must be way better than my fantasies.
Click to expand...
They're pretty....



... killer.














YEAHHHHHH!!!
 
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