News from Army about new rifle

[W.R.Buchanan]

I see those issues as well, forgot to mention them in my Rant.

Randy

[john.k]

Its better if things dont work,then theres another 10 years of research needed.........takes me back to the sixties when there was a fuss about toilet brushes costing $1000 each,cause they were bought from General Dynamics.Nothing changes when the insiders dont want any change.And why would they?

[Naphtali]

I think I remember reading about a small arms ammunition being developed that incorporated some sort of artificial intelligence proximity fuse (at $20.00 per shot) that would explode or penetrate at what it had been aimed or loosed. Among its advantages were ability to hit targets being shielded by barriers/walls - much like a grenade or mortar shell. Now that sounds like an improvement in lethality to whatever its maximum range. . . .Wonder what happened to it?

[376Steyr]

Or in the words of Col Potter,"Horse Hockey".
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

Mule fritters!

[Earlwb]

Looks like an aluminum collar for the primer to seat in. Doesn't look like the collar goes very far into the case.
I believe it was Polycase that offered hybrid metal and plastic cased ammo in rifle calibers.(like .223) It did not work out too well and had many failures causing damage. That was with semi auto rifles, not machine guns with a high rate of fire.

With a belt fed machine gun I don't see how you are going to avoid problems with melted cases and chamber buildup. The barrel (and chamber) gets really hot under sustained fire. The military trains the operator to use a certain firing schedule but that is not always followed, especially when you are being shot at. Even if they designed rifle it to fire from an open bolt the round is going to end up in the chamber one way or another.

The machine guns are all open bolt designs. They only chamber and close the bolt when the trigger is pulled. Thus cook offs etc would not happen. Since a cartridge is not loaded into the chamber unless it is being fired, it can't melt or cook off. It isn't in the chamber long enough to melt.
Now granted the Italians did design and issue a machine gun with a closed bolt design. But it wasn't popular.

[Hickory]

This new technology is nonreloadable for the average citizen.
In other words, it is not something you can manufacture yourself.
The ATF will not allow the average person to have 30-50 lbs. of plastic moldable gunpowder that can easily be made into a bomb.

[Artful]

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[dkf]

The machine guns are all open bolt designs. They only chamber and close the bolt when the trigger is pulled. Thus cook offs etc would not happen. Since a cartridge is not loaded into the chamber unless it is being fired, it can't melt or cook off. It isn't in the chamber long enough to melt.
Now granted the Italians did design and issue a machine gun with a closed bolt design. But it wasn't popular.

Look up the definition of machine gun, there are plenty that fire from a closed bolt. One of the rifles developed for the 6.5mm caseless rounds is a carbine that fires from a closed bolt. If the military would adopt this ammo it would have to be used in many platforms of rifles. It is still possible to strip plastic off the case of the round and stick in the chamber even if it is in the chamber for a split second of an open bolt mg.

[FergusonTO35]

Or, they could just switch to 6.5 Creedmoor and call it good!

[nicholst55]

So this is a plastic cased 6.5/223? That's what the cases look like.

I can see a cost benefit to the ammo. No brass equals less $ and the Govt. always goes with less $, and since they don't reload why use brass at all?

Lighter weight is always good.

No mention of MV or BC? how are we supposed to figure if their numbers are real or BS.

I personally don't see the need for a new caliber, why not make the new ammo in 5.56MM?

When you have a weapon,,, considered by most to be the best infantry arm in the world,,, with 70 years of development behind it, one has to ask,,,, How is this system better? and how long will it take to develop it to the level of the M4?

The Military loves to spend money and since I recently got access to the DLA solicitations and seen what some of this stuff goes for it blew me away and I am putting together a complaint as to how they spend the money that we the taxpayers give them.

I assure you that 60-70% is simply wasted on BS paperwork and unnecessary certifications done by people who make a $100K per year + and aren't even worth Minimum Wage! They also get 8 weeks a year off!

It just took me 4 months to sell 9 missile ground wires to the DLA that I have been sole source for the last 25 years! And yet I was not qualified to make them!!! 4 months of going back and forth with ignorant women who had no idea what they were purchasing about a simple point on the contract that they eventually had to accept which allowed me to get an inspection and sell the parts.

Complete insanity and I might add that I was only able to contact these people Tues, Wed, or Thurs, between 6:00 AM and 2:30 PM EST if they weren't off on leave or just plain not answering the phone! Average time to get any response from them was 10-14 days!!!

That agency needs to eliminate 50% of their personnel immediately.

Here's one big example of what we are paying for.

This part is a Shackle that gets two tag lines attached to it and then attached to a RAM Missile canister so it doesn't flop around when loading the round.

I just sold 15 of these to the Navy at Port Hueneme for $1300 ea. The DLA charges the ships $28,992.84 for each one! In other words they have no idea what they are selling, it is just a number on a spread sheet, and that is the problem.

Buying a complete new Weapons System for the infantry is a complete waste of money and Textron is just trying to take advantage of Trumps Impending Military Build Up. Now if they wanted to revamp the ammo I can see an immediate benefit as long as they can get it to work right.

The majority of money that is spent in our country goes to Defense Contractors, I got no problem with that as long as the money is spent wisely. This road is pure BS.

Here's a pic of the shackle, and I might add that these are the most beautiful ones of these ever made. The rest were poor quality castings of which I have finish machined many. These were made from 3" 316SS Round stock, and are 5" long! $29 Grand?

Randy

Randy, those of us that are forced to use the Army's supply system feel exactly the same way about DLA. To say that, as an organization, they are inept and essentially nothing more than a PITA, would be kind. We all groan when we see that DLA has become the item manager of any part that we need to order.

[nicholst55]

The machine guns are all open bolt designs. They only chamber and close the bolt when the trigger is pulled. Thus cook offs etc would not happen. Since a cartridge is not loaded into the chamber unless it is being fired, it can't melt or cook off. It isn't in the chamber long enough to melt.
Now granted the Italians did design and issue a machine gun with a closed bolt design. But it wasn't popular.

Open-bolt guns can cook off quite easily, I assure you. When soldiers fail to change barrels as directed and get them red-to-white hot, they will easily cook off a round.

[Naphtali]

Are you referring to the XM25 25mm grenade launcher? . . .

The device, as I remember its description, is the individual infantryman's weapon. It was not any "additional" device or specialty extra. The reason it remains in memory is that it was to be the general issue, as the M16 was general issue, while the ammunition cost per round was absurdly high for a general issue weapon. On the other hand, the likelihood of one-shot kills was equally absurdly high because of that projectile's in-built capability to correctly find its target and to "kill" more efficiently than conventional bullets.

[Artful]

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[Naphtali]

Bingo! We have a winner!

While this is not the specific information I read, this is the "Buck Rodgers Personal Model" device that stuck in memory. Reading material obout it again, I'm still impressed with what might have been - an army of one becoming reality.

Regards,
Lance