Russian Expert: The U.S. Can’t Afford New 6.8-mm Rifle Ammo

[rangerrebew]

November 10, 2019

Russian Expert: The U.S. Can’t Afford New 6.8-mm Rifle Ammo

Will the U.S. Army follow through on a plan to adopt a bigger caliber of small arms ammunition?
by Michael Peck


One Russian expert says no.

Viktor Murakhovsky, editor-in-chief of Russian defense journal Arsenal of the Fatherland, questions the practicality of the U.S. Army’s project to replace the familiar 5.56-mm round—used by the M-16 and M-4 rifles—with a more powerful 6.8-mm round for the Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons program. The new bullet is expected to have at least double the range of the smaller 5.56-mm round. But the move has raised fears among American observers that a higher-velocity bullet will generate unsustainable stress on a new assault rifle.

Murakhovsky doubts the new round will have a stable trajectory. "The ammunition’s destructive effect is not characterized only by its piercing capacity,” he told the TASS news agency. “The stopping power, the wound tract and the wound cavity are just the bullet’s immediate effects. But another aspect is to see how the bullet travels along its trajectory and how stable it is, including to atmospheric phenomena.”

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russian-expert-us-can%E2%80%99t-afford-new-68-mm-rifle-ammo-95246

[sneakypete]

I have said it before,and I will say it again,"What the US Army needs to do is have someone pick up a phone and call the FN headquarters in Belgium and get a quote of a shipload of FN-FAL's in 7mm Mauser caliber,bayonets,cleaning kits,and repair parts. No money and time wasted on research and development while trying to re-invent the wheel.

The 7mm Mauser round IS the round they say they are looking for. It has a heavier bullet that is a spire point boat tail design to buck the wind and hit hard at long ranges,and it and the cases have been in production for over a century. No research and design teams needed,no expenses involved in tooling up for it,just pick up a phone and order as much as you want.

The FN-FAL design itself is superb in every respect. It even has an adjustable gas cylinder so you can tune it for light or heavy loads,and it has been in  production since the at least the late 1950's. There ARE no bugs to be worked out.

AND........,you can start issuing them to the troops as soon as the boat gets here.