I hear ya about the stopping power issue. Thing is, I think the gov’t isn’t going to do anything about it. The reason is that they spent all those years convincing NATO countries to switch from 7.62 to 5.56 as the standard round. Now they’d have to admit that the 5.56 is a piece of shit and they should have kept the 7.62. That aint gonna happen and we all know it.

IMHO the M-14 is a MUCH better weapon than the ‘16.

Please note what pistol round almost all of our Special Operations guys choose. Hint: it ain’t the nine.

Yes, a big, heavy round is heavier than a little round. But, if you only need one shot, or you only get one shot it doesn’t matter how much it kicks, and it weighs less than several of the “lighter” rounds.

And, anybody who tells you that all you have to do is aim well, has never been in a gunfight in a stair well, or a market stall. The kill zone for a 5.56 is about the size of a donut. Go ahead. Hit that when you’re pumped, breathing dust in a dark hall way, or in bright sun, and deep shadows in a warren of alleys.

Keep in mind we’re killing far more of the enemy than they are us and they’re using the heavier bullet. It isn’t the tool so much as the men who wield them. And if you want to improve the tool you should be asking why aren’t we using frangible ammo instead of arguing over bullet size.

Someone already beat me to pointing out WHY the USArmy went to the vernerable M1911 - and why we KEPT it for so long - but at least someone else has the right idea about going to “soft-point” bullets.

There’s no such thing as a “perfect” combat round, but for my money, I’d pack an M14 (despite the VERY respectable accuracy I got my M4), and the M1911 rather than the M9.

As for stairways or alleys (or “unlocking” doors)…hard to beat the 12 gauge….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zlWplfLQ2E

could stop a car bomb, maybe even a truck. The only drawback I see upon first seeing it is the size of the magazine, but DAMN!

Start mass production on the Mk262 ammo for the current M4’s. A single upper torso hit in the center 1/2 will put them out of the fight to 300M.

Fucking retard. Ever been in a firefight Major? If I am able to hit him, I want that shithead to go down.

“TouchStone
Up here in the mountains, the .223 is a “varmint round”, and most self-respecting hunters wouldn’t use it even for deer, much less anything larger.”

Excellent point. Whether it’s a person or an animal, killing is killing. What round does the best job? Hunters may have some valuable info.

Hollowpoints? I’m pretty sure I remember being issued hollowpoints in Fallujah. I might have been dreaming. Convention? Actually no, we weren’t issued hollowpoints.

Increasing lethality can be done without changing barrels to accomuidate lets say a 6.8 round.

It doesn’t surprise me that this argument has gone on for 30+ years now. The .223 is just not enough stopping power.

The M-1 and M14 has the lethality that the M-16 lacks. You’d think by now someone at TRADOC or Picatiny would get the message.

[urlhttp://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htweap/articles/20080516.aspx[/url]

[url]http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htweap/articles/20080516.aspx[/url]

Talk to one of the too few WWII survivors (they are being taken from us so quickly now), see how much sand was jammed in the weapons when hitting the dirt in the Island hopping campaigns. Yes, our vets cleaned weapons when they could, but there was a lot of times when they couldn’t do much in the way of cleaning.

The 16 was and is great for those of a much smaller stature. Also, the 16 had the new trick of the forward assist, which is to be used when it gets too dirty to cycle properly, and the grit in the chamber doesn’t let the next round chamber. Hit the forward assist, and pull the trigger again. What a great selling point that was!

As mentioned above, having the bolt alligned with the stock, add the recoil buffer as the M16 does, and going back to a larger round would make all the difference. Frangible ammo is a good idea as well.

Even though I always had no problem hitting center mass at 800M with the 16, that was always a much slower rate of fire. at 200 yards and closer, it is almost funny at how accuracy and higher rates of fire do NOT go hand in hand….yeah, that major who implies that target selction, aim or w2hatever is more important that ammo size is the typical jackass who has no idea of common sense, and is most likely getting a kickback somewhere from the purchase of the 5.56 rounds. maybe his family makes them???

Many people are in agreement with the M1911. I still want one, maybe some day. If the drunk LT playing quick draw Mcgraw had had a .45 instead of a 9mm, the round that hit my left knee most likely would have resulted in my acquiring the nickname of stumpy, and I would have been out of the Corps much earlier with a partial diability. As it was, the lucky (unlucky??) angle caused the 9mm to do only soft tissue damage. the larger round could very well have caused much greater damage.

Yeah, I thanked my lucky stars and the good lord for the smaller round and ability to recover within a couple weeks, but ever since I have remained convinced that the 45 is the way to go for a side arm, in pure stopping power. and our forces need the 7.62, rather than the 5.56 for the standard rifle.

with the metalology available today, and what the US is already paying for new rifles, I am sure we could do a much better job of arming our forces. Mattel will gladly make whatever size stock is needed. Good blued steel barrels to handle a larger round, no problem. The problem is the politicians have become involved in the process, as well as officers that are angling for employment with companies looking to sell product and material to the military once they get out of uniform. You can’t tell me the tons of brass at the Pentagon can acutally afford to work in the DC area, even with added BOQ and BAS funding. there are too many guys getting “assistance” on the side…

That is one investigation congress should get going, what sort of influence those have with purchasing items for the military in relation to what they end up doing when they get into the civilian market. Then again, that might put too many politicians into the investigation as well, since people like the traitor Murtha have a lot of influence in military contracts.

Anyway, all for arming our men and women in uniform with what they need, not what some damned bean counter says “is the best according to tests and lab trials”.

5.56 is not a bad caliber even in 5.56 as long as you can get the 150-200 yards distance in order to get the projectile to tumble on impact… As most urban encounters are measured in feet the reason why most times they just punch right through is obvious.

If you are going to use FMJ you need a fatter projectile to increase the chances your target absorbing the force of impact. 7.62 and the like is the in service solution, as there are already plenty of them around.

An easyer and more cost effective solution is to open up your arsinals and all those crates of ammo and reload the projectiles from FMJ to… Well, anything else. Balistic tip, HP, ect.

I do love some pencil pushing fuck saying its a lack of accuracy thou, obviously some shithead who has never been under or returning fire with his blood up and his fine motor control shot to shit because of the adrenaline.

“If you hit a guy in the right spot, it doesn’t matter what you shoot him with,” said Maj. Thomas Henthorn, chief of the small arms division at Fort Benning, Ga., home to the Army’s infantry school.

To know there’s a major that needs to be relieved of any real decision making authority. As a civilian, am I to believe at close proximity or room to room, our soldiers have time to put a jihadist in the crosshairs?

Someone said that the FMJ is the problem. That is it in a nutshell. The 62gr SS109 is a steel core penetrator that simply does not give a good energy dump, particularly at M4 velocities.

The short-term answer is a heavier HP bullet that will reliably expend its energy in close-quarter combat and still has adequate terminal effect at extreme ranges (300M). The short-term answer is the Black Hills Mk262 Mod 1 ammo. The SDM’s in the Army have been using this to devastating effect within reasonable distances. Many one shot fight-stoppers have been recorded with this ammo, but much of that can be directly traced to the projectile being delivered where it needs to go too.

Regarding those that imagine they can consistently make 800M shots using a rack grade M16 and M855 ammo…keep dreaming. The rifles and the ammo are simply not capable. That is a fact.

Even the highly trained SDM’s with specialized rifles (1 MOA capable with match triggers, freefloated match barrels, etc, etc) and Mk262 ammo (effectively match grade ammo) cannot do it from prone position with a bipod. There is such a thing as “wind” and most folks have zero clue as to how to read it or adjust for it. Beyond 300M, it becomes a huge factor.

At 5′6″ and 150-155lbs or so, I’m not a big guy, but I can handle my Garand with a good degree of control. That’s a damn big rifle, too!

More importantly, the Army has now instituted a completely new training program and it’s all about Marksmanship. The Marines instituted a far more advanced marksmanship program and not too long ago. The hierarchy is finally recognizing that rounds need to be delivered on target for them to be effective. The old doctrine of “more rounds fired means less rounds coming back at you” is finally going by the wayside. You still have to deliberately shoot the bad guy to make him stop shooting at you. This extra emphasis on marksmanship skills will equate to less rounds expended per KIA, even using the current ammo. Better ammo will make the soldiers even more effective.

I also think that the bad guys choice of AK’s with 7.62 is based on some logic … economics being a factor but reliability, availability, and effectiveness are also considerations.

The .45ACP is one hell of a stopper and in a modern frame would be one bad boy urban warfare weapon. Same holds true for the venerable 12ga.

Bottom line is why use a 3 iron when you need a sand wedge??

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=3&f=16&t=378548

From my own experience I can tell you that 5.56 XM193 55gr FMJ and M855 62gr will punch through mild steel sheet 1/16″ to 3/32″ no problem at 250 to 300yds. I have shot it through 3 and 4 ceramic floor tiles spaced 6″ apart no problem.

Which means it will fly through flesh with no problem.

Not good ammo for CQB and they both suck in SBR’s (barrels shorter than 16″).

Drop the Hague rules that the Haj pays little attention and get some ammo that explodes on soft targets upon impact and sprays pig blood and bullet fragments all throughout the victim.

The cheap and dirty solution is the 7.62×51(.308Win).

Let all soldiers issued a 5.56 M16/4 keep their weapon and ammo it may have it’s drawbacks but it has it’s positives also.

Then issue each soldier a second upper assembly chambered for a different round. This can be done rather cheaply because many won’t require altered lowers or even different mags. Then all that would need to be done is that each squad leader/fire team chief would need to set their loadplan for their team to make sure that caliber type is accommodated for (i.e. make sure not everyone carries one or the other thereby degrading the squad’s capabilities).

While the 6.8 SPC or 6.5 Grendel or 308/7.62 are all decent calibers, there’s one that would be even better if applied as I’ve said above…

http://www.teppojutsu.com/458.htm

Just like in drag racing, when in doubt GO BIG

Another aspect of the thinking at the time with the 5.56 was to create casualties, not fatalities. It was implied that the casualties would be more of a burden to the enemies military in caring for these casualties. I dont think they were envisioning the terrorist’s and irregulars of today.

My vote is for a heavier controlled expansion munition. I think a soldier should have a choice and it can be implemented with the next shipment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2kEg8rEPl8

that BB points out, that they named this new weapon the Kriss. “Kris” — one s — is the name of the sword/dagger (depending on the maker) that the aforementioned (my first post) Moro tribesmen used to attack our guys a hundred years ago. They’d be tightly wrapped in cloth, fortified with drugs, and our bullets simply passed right through without even slowing them down much.

The .45 ACP is a war club. It will physically knock them down. So will a 12 guage, but, as much as I liked that new 12 guage sub machine gun shown in a previous post, I haven’t seen a pistol with the portability, controllability, and brute, physical knock down power of a .45 ACP in a weapon like the model 1911 Colt Army Pistol. Neither, apparently, have our Special Ops guys.

“Kris” BTW was pronounced “crease,” but I have no hope that it would be by our people should the Kriss be adopted, nor do I care.