What should our standard military cartridge be?

[shooter115]

Okay, I'm splitting this off from the thread about my sons Christmas present because of this post by hopkins. What do you feel would be a better standard issue caliber for our armed forces? To me the 5.56 round is a pretty good choice in that it balances out weight, ballistics, magazine capacity and leathiality pretty well. What are your thoughts?



Well since the M-16 was adopted in 1964 it is what most people already would call an antique. As such the .223 should be replaced with a more powerful round. It is possible to set up the existing platform to accept several more effective rounds. If you were to look at the select forces of our military, by choice they use more powerful rounds to accomplish their missions. But then I am probably preaching to the choir, as they say.

[Grayskies]

http://www.chuckhawks.com/definitive_se ... aliber.htm

[Ghost]

Easy, 6.5 Grendel

The 6.5mm hits a ballistic sweet spot for optimal bullet flight, much more so than the squat, fat bullets used by other cartridges. Most 6.5mm bullets higher than 100 grains start with ballistic coefficients of more than .400, something a 110-grain 6.8mm bullet (.360 BC) or 125-grain .300 Blackout bullet (.153 BC) could never hope to match.

Read more: http://www.shootingtimes.com/ammo/6-5mm ... z3LDkiyFdj

Engaging targets from three to 300 yards with the 16-inch gun is easy. It’s light, quick to the shoulder and handles well. Smacking 20×11-inch LaRues from 300 to 600 yards is fairly easy if you keep an eye on the conditions. The Grendel carbine flattens LaRue sniper targets that a 5.56mm 77 grain Mk262 Mod 1 round barely rocks. Wind drift is noticeably less with the Grendel too. Muzzle jump is slightly more than a 5.56mm gun but still easy to control. Reliability is flawless.

While the 16-inch gun is accurate, the 20 inch GDMR is a laser beam. Making rapid hits on multiple targets is easy out to 600 yards. At one point I fired three rounds of Hornady’s 123-grain A-Max load in four seconds. All three dropped into just four inches at 600 yards. Four five-shot groups with this load averaged a respectable 4.5 inches at 600 yards.

Read more: http://www.rifleshootermag.com/uncatego ... z3LDm9wiZz

[Ironbear]

Executive summary of the above article

-Despite the web link, the author isn't Chuck Hawks.
-The author believes the .270 Win would be nearly ideal, and proposes a .270-08 solution (apparently .260 Rem or 7mm-08 aren't worth considering? Or 6.8 SPC?)
-The author believes .308 has been "abandoned" (which should come as a bit of a shock to a lot of people!).
-Without a new round, go back to .308 Win.
-Need to readopt the L1A1 variant of the FN-FAL preferably in a .270 caliber (the author is former Australian military).

[mmcnx2]

There are all sorts of crazy options but I can't understand what was ever wrong with 308 and 45. Amazing after going round and round with all the wild variants the core cartridges still hold their own. Of course my preferred solution is:

http://missilethreat.com/missiles/agm-129-acm/

[The Famous Grouse]

Every cartridge is a compromise and after years of getting used to those compromises, the grass seems really, really green just over on the other side of that fence...

Making a quasi-objective case for this or that cartridge having superior performance is where most people go off track. First, this assumes that this is a parmount concern. In fact, there are a LOT of other concernes and many of them conflict.

Grouse

[Grayskies]

Coke, pepsi, coke, pepsi, coke, pepsi, etc... I drink diet sunkist lemonade. I guess you could roshambo for it?

[AFTERMATH]

I think we oughta stick with what we've got, at least until all the arms trade restrictions and de-mills are lifted...
When nato drops 5.56 and 7.62, I wanna be able to clean it up cheap!

[Ironbear]

IMHO whatever you choose will be a compromise. It will be
A. The right choice
B. The wrong choice
C. A good-enough choice
And which answer you get is likely to change between breakfast and lunch!

[Grayskies]

IMHO whatever you choose will be a compromise. It will be
A. The right choice
B. The wrong choice
C. A good-enough choice
And which answer you get is likely to change between breakfast and lunch!

I choose 'D' brunch!

[Snakeman721]

I think part of the reason the Army adopted the 5.56 is weight. You can carry more 5.56 ammo with the same weight as 30-06, plus the rifles are lighter too.

[cobb]

Easy, 6.5 Grendel

Nope, 6.8 SPC, that is what it was designed for.

[Grayskies]

Being serious for the moment, what is the rest of the world going to? maybe being able to scavenge ammo Could be a consideration?

Also the rise of drones, and autonomous robots, could also be a consideration?

[cobb]

Being serious for the moment, what is the rest of the world going to? maybe being able to scavenge ammo Could be a consideration?

Then consider the 9X19, 7.62X39 or the 5.56X45, which in an end of the world type situation might be the most available.

[Lumpy]

I'd say that if you shoot someone in the torso and they're not very quickly hors de combat, you're not using a powerful enough round.