Sig secures contract for next gen US military rifle

Should be interesting. But I hope that SIG gets past some of the patent roadblocks that have been influencing design elements.
 
Back to main battle rifle and 308 sized SAW. Slightly lighter ammo relative to 7,62 but heavier than 5.56 and way more volume than 5.56. This mean people probably cannot carry as much ammo as before.

We will see how this will play out in an actual conflict.

I think 6.8 will be a more suitable replacement for all things in 7,62, but probably not all 5.56. I won't be surprised they may even ask for a reduced pressure version down the road so they can just use the new cartridge in all versions of FN M240 in inventory already.
 
greentips said:
Back to main battle rifle and 308 sized SAW. Slightly lighter ammo relative to 7,62 but heavier than 5.56 and way more volume than 5.56. This mean people probably cannot carry as much ammo as before.

We will see how this will play out in an actual conflict.

I think 6.8 will be a more suitable replacement for all things in 7,62, but probably not all 5.56. I won't be surprised they may even ask for a reduced pressure version down the road so they can just use the new cartridge in all versions of FN M240 in inventory already.
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That sounds like a problem waiting to happen if ammo gets mixed up. Further, history often repeats itself, military always try to retrofit stuff but it usually fails. This will probably end up like m14 won over M1 grand conversion to magazine fed.
 
I saw a video the 6.8 also has polymer casing or something too unless that got changed. But sounds like 6.8 is going to be new one to watch for as it's gets adopted and the market gets the runoff in bulk sales
 
The new 6.8x51mm cartridge uses a hybrid of Steel Base with a Brass Case in order to achieve 80,000 CUP pressures as opposed to the current 60,000. The civilian version of this cartridge is indeed the .277 SIG Fury, .277 being the standard equivalent of 6.8mm.
 
yingtsay said:
That sounds like a problem waiting to happen if ammo gets mixed up. Further, history often repeats itself, military always try to retrofit stuff but it usually fails. This will probably end up like m14 won over M1 grand conversion to magazine fed.
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There is already a solicitation released for conversion kit to use the new 6.8mm on existing M240. The solicitation was released before the official winner of the NGSW was released.

The FN mag is one substantial beast, maybe it can hold the 6.8mm round with enough safety factory abeit some reduction in barrel and beech block life.
 
Ravage said:
I saw a video the 6.8 also has polymer casing or something too unless that got changed.
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Each company had to submit a "package" of a new cartridge, rifle and LMG, and then the army would select a single "package" as the winner, which is a stupid way to go about it. The polymer case ammo was the True Velocity submission (which was widely seen as the best cartridge).

Sig had the best LMG, a mediocre rifle and the worst ammo (a bimetal case with ridiculous pressures) when the ammunition is what will decide if this program has any relevancy at all. Sig being selected probably signals this whole ordeal was a waste of time.
 
The rifle looks cool, but not sure how that 6.8 will work out long term. Is the standard mag capacity 20? I feel like we went down that road a long time ago with .308/762 nato....I also feel this would be better as a DMR rifle to be only sporadically issued.
 
platnumbob said:
The rifle looks cool, but not sure how that 6.8 will work out long term. Is the standard mag capacity 20? I feel like we went down that road a long time ago with .308/762 nato....I also feel this would be better as a DMR rifle to be only sporadically issued.
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The tech is fascinating but the usability and service life (which, to be fair, is yet to be determined) is likely to be crap in my opinion. While I agree with the US military's assessment with regards to needing a cartridge that can be more effective at medium distances, I just don't think the current solution they've chosen is the right one. Those chamber pressures for .227 Fury are ridiculous (80k is insanity given that the upper limit for .308 is 60k) and barrel life is significantly shorter for 6mm sized cartridges vs. 5.56.

What's the point of basically reinventing a faster .308? .277 Fury is basically the same size and weight, isn't it? Plus with those pressures you can't cheat physics when it comes to wearing out barrels unless you have some fancy new coatings, but IMO those can only do so much. That's why I am skeptical about this. The round itself (and the engineering behind it) is quite interesting but it requires cutting edge tech to work right, and that is expensive. Military doesn't like expensive, nor does it like unproven tech that could end up having a short service life.

I would have gone with something like 6.5 Grendel or 6.8 SPC, both of which allow the soldier to carry roughly the same amount of ammo as 5.56 while offering much better ballistic performance and energy transfer between 300 - 600m vs. 5.56. Any further out and you'd be better off using 7.62x51 or similar - and it's not like that cartridge is obsolete either.
 
greentips said:
Back to main battle rifle and 308 sized SAW. Slightly lighter ammo relative to 7,62 but heavier than 5.56 and way more volume than 5.56. This mean people probably cannot carry as much ammo as before.

We will see how this will play out in an actual conflict.

I think 6.8 will be a more suitable replacement for all things in 7,62, but probably not all 5.56. I won't be surprised they may even ask for a reduced pressure version down the road so they can just use the new cartridge in all versions of FN M240 in inventory already.
Click to expand...

Imagine how far we'd be along if the US didn't strong arm everyone into 7.62mm NATO and .280 British was adopted and developed as the intermediate round that we are migrating towards anyway...
 
Winz said:
Imagine how far we'd be along if the US didn't strong arm everyone into 7.62mm NATO and .280 British was adopted and developed as the intermediate round that we are migrating towards anyway...
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The US has actually already asked for a reduced pressure new 6.8mm round due to existing range template limit, the current ranges are not designed for the much longer range of 6.8.

So it is very possible they will just use the "training" lower pressure round as a starting point for the M240 and all things 7.62 6.8 conversion. The 6.8 is designed to run out of 16" bbl, so it can achieve the same velocity or more in a low pressure version out of all the mounted 22" M240 in vehicles and potentially M134.

M134 and M240 with 6.8 AP at MV over 3000 to 3200fps ......!!!!!!! That will make a lot of uparmoured soft skin vehicles obsolete in their protection rating.
 
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I am a brainlet and haven't done any reading on this whatesoever besides "opposing firm had plastic telescoping case ammo that was light and SiG managed to bribe their way in again with a silly two piece caseing".

So is this cartridge, like, ballistically superior to 7.62 and even 6.5 grendel? Are we going to see a new .30-06 for our lifetime?

Also, cases dies and load data when?
 
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