NGSW Rifle (M4 Replacement)

[Scott Kenny]

Weren't they saying they had improved the manufacturing process for the hybrid-case design since the first iterations of it? That seems like a ridiculously high figure per cartridge unless the bullet has a tungsten core or it's something else that isn't standard issue ball/tracer.

The case itself has 3 parts, Stainless steel case head, brass case body, and a lockwasher between the two. So there's a whole assembly step that has to happen to those stupid things before you can load the casing.

All of which adds costs.

But yes, the extreme pressure round is for busting the Russian dreadnought body armor. So it's probably tungsten core if not DU. And frankly tungsten is the more expensive option there, since DU is a waste product from reactor fuel.

Regardless of what happens with that, I still think it's worthwhile to continue investing in development work on the cased-telescoped ammo and small arms designs to utilize it. The True Velocity ammo has some potential but from what I read wasn't suitable for the unusually high pressures NGSW requirements sort-of necessitated.

The only reason SIG had ludicrous pressures is because their rifle design needed a 13" barrel to come under the length limit with the suppressor on.

The bullpup rifle worked just fine at regular pressures, because its barrel was some 18-22" long (I forget the exact spec, want to say 20"). And the spec for the cartridge was fundamentally 140gr at 3000fps, which is .270 Winchester loads. If you can use 1950s powders to get a 150gr bullet at 2800fps out of 7.62x51 instead of x63, you can do the same thing with a .277 bullet instead.

I really hope Truevelocity can get their ammo out into the world as a more standard thing. Especially practice ammo stuff, where you want it to be as cheap as possible.

There used to be some pure-polymer shotgun ammo out there in the early 2000s, not sure whatever happened to them. Probably low number of reloading times. But they sponsored a lot of various shotgun competitions back in the day, and each loading type was color-coded on the casing (1oz of #6 shot was red, 1oz of #8 was green, etc. Think I'm right on the colors.). You'd just shovel all the empties into the appropriate color box at the end of the day.

 

[Cordy]

Did see said Army mention the new 6.8x51 using a 135 grain bullet which would hit a MV 3,000 fps from a 16" barrel with its extreme pressure hybrid three-piece case, stainless steel head, interconnecting aluminum locking washer to the brass body.

USSOCOM with their new Mid Range Gas Gun-Sniper, MRGG-S, (20" barrel-choose a Geissle), chambered for firing the new gen high ballistic coefficient longer bullets in a standard pressure low cost brass cased 6.5 Creedmoor round, with a 140 grain bullet, reported if fired from a 16 " barrel would give a MV of 2,500 fps.

Sierra ballistic charts show at 1,000 yards if fired at their different MVs the SMK 140 grain 6.5mm bullet slowed to 1,198 fps whereas 135 gn 6.8mm SMK at only 1,321 fps, so 6.8x51 gives a marginal 10% better terminal velocity at 1,000 yards with its required extreme pressure case plus a cost of a round of 500% + or more than that of a 6.5 Creedmoor cost. Looks to me very weak Army logic justification to spend the extra tens of $billions per year for the foreseeable future on the 6.8x51.

 

[totallyaverage]

Sierra ballistic charts show at 1,000 yards if fired at their different MVs the SMK 140 grain 6.5mm bullet slowed to 1,198 fps whereas 135 gn 6.8mm SMK at only 1,321 fps, so 6.8x51 gives a marginal 10% better terminal velocity at 1,000 yards with its required extreme pressure case plus a cost of a round of 500% + or more than that of a 6.5 Creedmoor cost. Looks to me very weak Army logic justification to spend the extra tens of $billions per year for the foreseeable future on the 6.8x51.

A 6.5mm round trying to defeat the plates XM1184 is trying to defeat wouldn't be 20% the cost, it would be similar to the current cost of M1158. Again, the cost driver for XM1184 isn't the case design, though there are many problems there, rather it is the extremely expensive and difficult to produce projectile.

Don't get me wrong, NGSW is dumb and bad, but it is dumb and bad for reasont you aren't reaply understanding.

 

[Forest Green]

Sierra ballistic charts show at 1,000 yards if fired at their different MVs the SMK 140 grain 6.5mm bullet slowed to 1,198 fps whereas 135 gn 6.8mm SMK at only 1,321 fps, so 6.8x51 gives a marginal 10% better terminal velocity at 1,000 yards with its required extreme pressure case plus a cost of a round of 500% + or more than that of a 6.5 Creedmoor cost. Looks to me very weak Army logic justification to spend the extra tens of $billions per year for the foreseeable future on the 6.8x51.

It's important to remember that it's KE (0.5mv^2) more than velocity alone that counts when it hits something.

.277 Fury (6.8x51): Details, Ballistics, & Is the M4 Dead?

Is the M4 dead? Learn everything you need to know about .277 Fury including history, ballistics, and much more so you have the tools to decide.

www.bearcreekarsenal.com

 

[Colonial-Marine]

The case itself has 3 parts, Stainless steel case head, brass case body, and a lockwasher between the two. So there's a whole assembly step that has to happen to those stupid things before you can load the casing.

All of which adds costs.

But yes, the extreme pressure round is for busting the Russian dreadnought body armor. So it's probably tungsten core if not DU. And frankly tungsten is the more expensive option there, since DU is a waste product from reactor fuel.



The only reason SIG had ludicrous pressures is because their rifle design needed a 13" barrel to come under the length limit with the suppressor on.

The bullpup rifle worked just fine at regular pressures, because its barrel was some 18-22" long (I forget the exact spec, want to say 20"). And the spec for the cartridge was fundamentally 140gr at 3000fps, which is .270 Winchester loads. If you can use 1950s powders to get a 150gr bullet at 2800fps out of 7.62x51 instead of x63, you can do the same thing with a .277 bullet instead.

I really hope Truevelocity can get their ammo out into the world as a more standard thing. Especially practice ammo stuff, where you want it to be as cheap as possible.

There used to be some pure-polymer shotgun ammo out there in the early 2000s, not sure whatever happened to them. Probably low number of reloading times. But they sponsored a lot of various shotgun competitions back in the day, and each loading type was color-coded on the casing (1oz of #6 shot was red, 1oz of #8 was green, etc. Think I'm right on the colors.). You'd just shovel all the empties into the appropriate color box at the end of the day.

I thought I read that they got rid of the lock washer type part somehow which simplifies the production process, but I'm not entirely sure. To not be entirely unfair to SIG it was the Army who had that requirement for overall length. A very questionable requirements of the program if you ask me. The Army wants a rifle (or carbine technically) that can reach out and reliably hit something at something absurd like 1,000 meters, but with suppressor fitted they don't want it longer than a standard issue M4. I'm not a firearms designer but I think if you're looking for that sort of effective range you really ought to be willing to accept something a bit longer than an M4. Yet anyone who might have questioned some of these requirements probably was ignored.

All of the designs had to make compromises to meet that length requirement. The Army isn't very fond of the bullpup layout and I'm sure True Velocity knew that. I'm not sure what the barrel length was of the Textron entry that used the cased telescoped ammunition. I assume it was a bit longer than the 13" barrel of the SIG design but definitely not as long as the barrel of the True Velocity bullpup. So, I'd assume that the 6.8mm CT ammo had higher pressures than average but not as high as the hybrid case SIG stuff.

There are a whole lot of other choices I've really got to question the logic of too. The XM250 looks like it has a lot of promise but the Army decides they want to save a small amount of weight and cost by not including a quick-change barrel? That seems to be discarding a great many lessons learned dating back to WWII in favor of Afghanistan experience of exchanging fire at great distances in Afghanistan. It seems like a whole lot is being ignored in chasing some illusion that every infantryman can be made a marksman taking out the enemy beyond the effective range of their own small arms. I've read a good deal about the rather disastrous management of the Ordinance Department from WWII up into the Vietnam Wars, but it many ways it seems like the process of specifying, designing, and fielding new small arms hasn't improved much since those days.

 

[MihoshiK]

Apparently at least one grunt isn't very impressed with the gun. And ammo. And the silencer. And the optic. And he was kind enough to include pics.

I was recently quoted in multiple publications saying nice things about the Sig XM7 / Vortex XM157, and unfortunately, the 10 minutes worth of critiques I had before saying one nice thing didn't quite make the cut. So here is my list of grievances:

I have never seen a weapon have so many malfunctions. Namely failure to extract/eject even when properly cleaned (checked by sig guy) and on adverse gas setting using the GP round

For the task and purpose dude that made the YouTube video, you had my name, you could've reached out to me for comment instead of just requoting me. I included a picture of a 3/8" steel target that has been shot by several hundred rounds of the "spicy" ammo, from 100-300m that you hypothesized could be used against light armor.

Optic: The Vortex XM157 is shit. I usually like vortex products, but this one is bad. Several ocular focus adjustment rings/diopter adjustments just randomly migrated, the brightest setting is nowhere near bright enough (almost invisible on a sunny day), I included a picture of one that decided it wanted to red screen of death after being shot on a flat range, but we had another that just stopped turning on all together. Severe zero migration on the lasers.

Suppressor: works fine, but the locking ring is so stupid. You're giving infantryman a suppressor that if you twist the suppressor at all after "locking" the ring, it flips the lugs/breaks?? We had two break in the classroom.

BFA: Stupid. Absolute nightmare for SI when you have to remove the suppressor and swap the bolt in the field

Ammo: two piece casing blows apart occasionally, stuck casings are common in the XM250

Rail: half of them came misaligned from Sig which is further indicative of bad QC.

https://www.reddit.com/r/army/comments/1flgkbl/my_response_to_task_purpose

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/army/comments/1flgkbl/my_response_to_task_purpose/

 

[TMA1]

The task and purpose guy used to have an awesome show but it changed pretty radically a year or more back. Much more relaxed and you could tell the guy was just being himself.

 

[Moose]

The malfunctions and QC jssuesare alarming, especially as the SIG's "reliability" was cited as key to its select (and the other two bidders were eliminated before down-select on grounds including perceived reliability issues).