Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles 5.56/223 LACKS PUNCH/knockdown??????

It's a Commie round. Americans would never tolerate it.

The 5.56 works.

1000 lb bombs work better but are hell on your LBV.

It would be interesting to hear where in the compromise between lethality and rounds carried that one of the Rangers who fought in Mogadishu would opt.

The US enjoys fantastic logistic support in many of it's engagements...that's probably why we take the critical factor of ammo weight for granted. Complacency is a sneaky MF, he will bite you in the ass at exactly the worst possible moment.

Hey why not 7.92x33 or 7.92Kurz? It was the original chambering of the original assault rifle. It was designed by the guys that brought us the 8x57,the 7x57, the 6.5x55, the Mauser in all it's forms, and the MG34/42, finest LMG ever.

The Grendel is touted by those who think 800m fire from the individual is the best course of action when 90+% of firefights happen inside 250.

Just because I like .25's I say an 85-90 grain bullet of .257" diameter on the 6.8 SPC case is the way to go.

The problem with close in fire fights will be whether they are doped up or not. I think the drill is better than a particular caliber if you can't use a projectile that dumps it energy into the target... So that if the first 1-2 shots don't drop the combatant, there is an issue that demands CNS hit. And thats gonna be anywhere from the 308 to the 223.. Heck I got more reaction from most deer and my 243 than I ever got with same shots from the 300 mags.....

The grendel.... hmmmm if it works at 800, why won't it work at 250?

I just don't see that there is going to be a hill of beans difference most times. If you like .25, why don't you like .277? Could easily pick a lighter .277 bullet...

I know one thing, if I ever am forced into a situation and am given a 223 and the right ammo I wont' feel like I'm unarmed. And I won't feel that much safer with a 308. Though our picks for the wife and I are one of each, one being 223 AR, the other being a 308 bolt gun....

When my son returned from his last (excitement filled) middle-east deployment I noted that in some of the photos he brought back he was carrying the short barreled M-4. I remarked that, at that time, there were a number of stories circulating regarding the (supposed) lack of stopping power at the velocities generated in the short barrel. he just shrugged and said, "Everybody I shot at fell down."

Wonder who will volunteer to take a round to verify this? Is this horse dead yet?

NO!

The 7.62 is better than the 5.56.

Fords are better than Chevys . . .

My Dad can whup your Dad . . . .



BMT

I always felt OK with the 5.56 when overseas Rost- we don't disagree. My comment on the .257/6.8SPC was tounge in cheek. The ballisitic testers I have seen give the better wounding to the 110 6.8 load over the various 120+ 6.5 Grendel loads. My comments on the Grendel focus on the fact that they think the 800m performance is more of an issue than the 250 or less performance. The reason for the 6.5 is 250m +. A moot point for modern combat.

7.62x51 is STILL better . . . . . . .

BMT

Actually, the first true assault rifle -- the Fedorov Avtomat -- used 6.5 Arisaka in production, and his self-designed 6.5 Fedorov in concept.

And, it was made by the Russian captain V. Fedorov -- definitely not a German

Edit: I noted the wrong conceptual round, fixed that.

JOG to be an assault rifle it must be chambered to an intermediate round which the 6.5 Arisaka is not. The 7.92 Kurz is and the Fedorov rifle obviously didn't have an impact on the Russians they built just 3500 of them. The StG44 certainly did. It did on the world as the pattern the StG44 started is used world wide today.

I disagree. It has VERY similar grain weight, velocity, and energy to the 7.62x39 round, which certainly is intermediate.
Also, the popularity of something does not have to be equal to its ingenuity.

As for the second statement, are you sure you don't mean the MP-44, or the Stg-45? The Stg-44 was too heavy and required too much effort to make to be considered influential, arguably.

The 7.62x51 is still Better . . . . .

And my Dad can whup your Dad . . . .

BMT

The guys who did the ballistics tests on the various rifle rounds most recently for our military are a pretty solid bunch. I know and correspond regularly with one of them. Their favored round is the 6.8 Remington SPC. It has significantly better terminal ballistics performance than the 5.56 NATO round. Other advantages include the fact that current M16/M4 rifles and magazines can be converted to this caliber relatively cheaply, and the ammo is little heavier than 5.56. This means our guys can carry the same number of rounds into ops with improved ballistic effectiveness, and it won't cost a small fortune to convert our armories to the new caliber. It is probable that whatever rifle replaces the M16/AR15 will be chambered in 6.8 SPC.

7.62 NATO is a fine round, but it's big and heavy for an infantryman's loadout, and its substantially higher recoil impulse requires a bigger/heavier rifle to withstand the pounding. 7.62x39 is a more reasonable round for a select-fire weapon, but as others have pointed out, its country of origin pretty much eliminate it as a round for our forces.

DocRocket, would they just swap uppers out to 6.8 SPC to upgrade current military arms, or would it be a barrel swap at the armory, or what?

I am going to load Barnes 53 grain TSX bullets in my .223

#1 - The 6.8 SPC is significantly heavier than 223 (somewhere around 36% more weight when compared to Mk262)...so for every six 5.56 mags, how many 6.8 can you carry? not so many...

Weight comparisons...

6.8 115 OTM - 128 grains for the case, 115 for the bullet, approx 30 grains for the powder = 273

Mk262 - 98 grains for the case, 77 grains for the bullet, 25 grains for the powder = 200

#2 - It reduces the mag capacity of the weapon and quite possibly the reliability. The M16 mag has been refined multiple times over several decades to provide good service with the 5.56 round. The 6.8 mags will need this teething time to meet similar reliability levels.

#3 - The 6.8 SPC recoil impulse is 42% greater (based on ejected mass) and that will impact TOT for follow up shots... A professional soldier using a shoot to the ground tactic may well find the 6.8 less lethal, giving an opponent more time to return fire.

#4 - It would cost a small fortune to convert to 6.8 SPC, but who cares....small arms are pennies to the "F22" dollar....the fighting man should have the absolute best, cost differences are so tiny in the grand scheme as to be rendered irrelevant. A better 5.56 loading could be fielded in a fraction of the time and for way less money...quite possibly speeding the development of a new and better arm in the future.



The 6.8 SPC was selected to fit within the bounds of the M16 platform, as soon as you open the field to include a new weapon system, the 6.8 goes out the door, it is a very tight niche compromise solution predicated entirely on the M16 platform being in place.

JOG, I mean the StG44 which was widely made and issued on the eastern front chambered to 7.92x33. I t had a large influence on the Russians so much the AK47 was born. The StG45 was to be a cheaper/faster to make replacement for the StG44 and only 30 prototypes were ever made. You might be thinking of the G43/K43 semi-auto rifle chambered to 7.92x57. It was not a select fire weapon and not all that well received for various reasons.

Look very hard at the StG44 and then at every "assault rifle" to come down the pipe since. You can say what you want about the Russian captain he didn't get them to change their minds, the StG44 in the hands of the Germans did.

No question that a better 5.56 round could be fielded. I think part of the impetus toward the 6.8 is the momentum of the anti-5.56 thinking in the Pentagon, and all the politics that goes with that. The move to a new/better battle rifle design is likewise mired in the Pentagon bureaucracy; I'm not sure what, if anything, would speed up this process, but I quite agree our fighting men should have the best rifle and ammo in the field, and hang the expense. The quickest fix would be a better 5.56 round, say a 70-75 gr OTM.



May well be true. My thoughts run along the lines of 1) if the military adopts the 6.8, they'll probably stick with it for at least the next generation of battle rifles, whether there's a better ammunition choice out there or not, because of the momentum in the ammunition supply line, and 2)despite the fact that the 6.8 was designed to fit the narrow parameters you mention, it is capable of being an effective land warfare round.

I think the next generation of standard arm will have performance vs hard armor as a factor. This will radically change to rules.