Original caption: 'A Scout Sniper Team Marksman, part of the Recon Platoon from Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment, 53rd Brigade Combat Team, Florida Army National Guard fires a M110 semi-automatic sniper system rifle at a 600 meter target during a live fire long range marksmanship training and qualification course at the Arta training range in Djibouti, Oct 14, 2015.' The M110 SASS is a 7.62mm sniper rifle system, similar to many rifles that may compete in the ICSR competition. Image source: US Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Gregory Brook. Public domain. Yes, the M4 Carbine will be replaced by a 7.62mm Interim Combat Service Rifle, and also no it won’t. Ah, I see I need to explain. This past weekend, on and there was some confusion regarding exactly what the program is, and the extent to which it will result in the replacement of M4 Carbines. Although the ICSR program is still clouded in secrecy, there are some things we do know about it. The first thing we can say is that the ICSR is intended to be a standard issue service rifle, not (just) a DMR or a gun for special forces. In this way, it is intended to replace the M4 as the standard combat weapon for US troops. However, it is not currently slated to replace all M4 carbines, just those being used by units deployed to combat zones. Really hopping we’re not getting into a shooting war with Russia or China in the next few years, but that’s the vibe I’m getting from this sense of rush to battle rifles. If this was some hundred Billion dollar boondoggle to “deter the commies” I’d be much less apprehensive, as that’s just basic military industrial complex trough feeding pr. But in the grand scheme of.mil spending, battle rifles are spare change – and small arms designs typically aren’t the bread and butter of think tanks or lobyists. Installing Gear Drive 308 Ammo. The rifle for this review was provided by the Kentucky Gun Company. The time between receiving the presser for the Ruger Precision. Which means this isn’t just some tax funded get rich quick scheme, but rather the reflection of some perceived, imminent need by war planners. And since only two non-allied countries field body armor in any significant numbers. In a shooting war with China I honestly don’t think that.338, 7.62, 5.56 or.22 will matter one bit! In a war with an opponent that’s at near parity individual soldier weapons won’t matter as air superiority, AA,armour and artillery will be the name of the game. The over emphasis on individual soldiers capabilities and firearms is, IMO, the results of Western nation getting involved in drawn out low intensity wars in sandy places. Or,maybe, they’re planing ahead for the great collapse of civilisation after China and the US is finished with the nuking and everybody has to shoot their own dinner; in that case I’m all for this as the 7.62 is better than 5.56 for hunting. Unless someone has figured out a way to make saboted, or perhaps explosive tipped, small arms rounds viable, it’s hard to argue with what you are saying. You want high speed, high SD, hardness, and a sharp point, concentrating impact forces on a small area of the armor. Hard and high SD really calls out for tungsten, which is expensive. Hence, reason one for light projectiles. But still with high SD. Hence small caliber. Reason two, is that armor, in order to absorb a hit, is built sacrificial on purpose. Hence a weakness is multiple, repeated hits. Which argues in favor of light recoil, huge capacity and a light weight round allowing for large loadouts. In practical terms, high velocity, high SD, light recoil, large capacity, low per round weight, expensive per weight projectile materials, largely vindicates the reasoning behind HK’s 4.6. It certainly makes little sense to go in the opposite direction, towards a slower, heavier, generally low-SD-for-caliber round designed back in the pre armor era. That is a bit of an oversimplification. As you undoubtedly know, some armor requires more mass (and harder more impact resistant materials) as well as more velocity. Note that the PzB 38 & sPzB 41 did not set the anti-armor trend in WWII even though they had the highest velocities by significant margins. Yeah, I know they were encumbered by a scarcity of tungsten, but they wouldn’t have lasted as primary weapons even if the krauts had had plenty of it. The M995 also isn’t terribly terminally effective on humans even if it can handily punch through level IV armor, no? BTW – I am in no way arguing for 7.62×51. I’m thoroughly convinced this is a political play to ditch the AR platform and the limitations of it’s magwell early in order to avoid fielding both a new platform and a new cartridge concurrently. The penetration argument lets them sell it to congress because lets face it, the typical congress critter is too ignorant of weaponry to know better. They conduct the competition, award the contract for X number of rifles (possibly even an LRIP contract for VERY limited numbers), 6-12 months later the R&D guys toss out some new whiz bang cartridge(possible CTA), a quick PIP is done so that new deliveries of the rifle are in the new cartridge and they either make the initial delivery DMRs or retire them. Nope, it’s simply responding to the NEED for a supplemental battle rifle that can do a little more than the standard M4. Folks are getting way to wrapped up in some of the SPECIFICS (like the body armor penetration requirement) and. Ot paying attention to the fact that there’s a NEED for a supplemental BATTLE RIFLE in 7.62 that can do a bit more than the 5.56 can (especially when engaging targets at distance). The Army is finally listening to some of the lessons learned and some folks are WAY, WAY, WAY OVERTHINKING the whole matter. First I thought this was a joke. The Army really is crazy. At least there could (stress here) be some advantages coming from this to us civilians as well. After long years of proprietary AR10 systems, very low parts compatibility and a lot of times pretty bad reliability, finally we could see some sort of widespread standard. If the Army really adopts a regular 7.62 service gun (and not a DMR) of certain specs, and let’s say FN starts producing it, everybody and their uncle would rush to put a “mil-spec” gun to the market. Would be fantastic to see a short frame mil-spec AR10, although it seems highly unlikely. But then again, this is the Army, and in the following 5 years this program could change 21 times. Maybe they’ll buy some SCAR-H or 417 guns for the “not-so-special” ops guys, and that’s it. It’s not only the body armour. The 223 was a kid of the jungle wars, while facing a 7.62 x 53 Russ with a 223 in open lands like Afganistan, Iraq and Syria shows the need for a longer reaching and killing load. The average size of a soldier changed to from Vietnam till now. In the 60’s 180 cm was a tall man, today 190 is. With this in mind any soldier of now is like the Guys you called B.A.R.-Man In WW2 and can handle a 7,62×51 easier than his Grandfather did, taking his enemy earlier under fire. All this changes in inner city confrontations. Thanks for your service buddy. Using better material for the infantry can make the difference. I used the 223 in other different operations and if you are caught by an PK instead of an AK it can be lets say bad, I wouldn’t jump on a 7,62 neither but I understand how the idea comes up. I rather would work on a load out of explosives than pyrotechnic material, It would reduce the size of the ammunition and would make the waight of the system lower. The explosion in the bulett is caused by pressure in the brass, there are explosives, extremely reliable ones, which don’t need pressure and generate much more pressure than the powder we know from ammo. I have no idea of the think process in the military but they are not allways stupid. This is not a critic to what you say, you are right but it’s just a attempt to understand what the byrocrats think. Yeah, the PK is a greater threat than the AK in many circumstances. But we have the 240. Using he propellants vs current smokeless propellants does not appeal to me, and here is why: 1) you would have to make the weapons waaay heavier, which would take away any weight savings from the brass and propellant. Additionally, the weight savings would be in propellant only, which is not the heaviest part of the round, thus making cartridge weight savings insignificant. 2) The loaded rounds would have to be controlled more tightly, and this would cause our training to be close to non-existent. The beaurecrats would freak about the idea of explosives that can easily fit in a pocket being used at everyday rifle ranges. Good, bad or ugly the goal in procurement isn’t to get the “Best” of whatever. It’s to get the “best value” in an item that meets the requirements. They determine who meets the requirements, usually with extra points for meeting Objective requirements if they exist, then stack them up based on the selection criteria generated at the start of the program. The SSB doesn’t have to pick the lowest bidder, but they have to be able to sufficiently justify cost increases over the lowest bidder. No paying 200% more for 1% increase in performance. Everybody talks about wanting the troops to have the “best” of everything but ultimately nobody is willing to pay the taxes required to do that so we in procurement have to do the best we can with the $ available. Im wondering, given the conflicts the US had been involved in for the last 15, 25, 50, etc years, where this sudden concern about body armor comes from for general infantry. Under what circumstances does the US Army see itself engaging another near peer foe in large scale conventional combat, who will be routinely equipped with extensive coverage of advanced body armor that will stop a 5.56 round, and that conflict not almost immediately escalating to a point that infantry rifles and body armor are quickly irrelevant? To me this just feels like an exercise in complicating logistics for a what would appear to be a relatively niche use case, much like other absurd requirements they force on stufd that turns out to be irrelevant (e.g requiring a 5.56 round that be able to penetrate a russian steel helmet hundreds of meters beyond whete anyone is capable of making such a shot). I’m not really a fan of this move but it’s worth pointing out that armed forces rarely use all of their capabilities yet they still have an obligation to have them. In some ways the reluctance to escalate matched with the nonetheless growing tensions between Russia and NATO members or China and anyone who doesn’t appreciate Chinese annexations, could mean a number of small scale clashes might occur. In such a conflict troops might grab bits of land without much air support lest it escalates. This might mean the level of armour and the performance of their arms might be some of the deciding factor in who prevails. That’s just my theory trying to second guess their logic in this move though and it doesn’t address the issue of not being able to carry as many rounds. The Army is barking up the wrong tree, and I hope they come to their senses regarding this program and either cancel it or use it to select a DMR. It has been proven time and time again that it’s more advantageous for soldiers to carry light 5.56 ammunition in 30 round mags than it is to carry the heavier 7.62 NATO in 20 round magazines. At Ia Drang, the only reason the US won was because it was able to maintain fire superiority because they had more ammunition that could be expended quicker. If the Army is truly worried about fighting properly armored enemies, then they should further develop 5.56 AP ammo for general issue instead of wasting money on the dead concept of a full power battle rifle. Even if 5.56 AP is deemed not enough, going back to 7.62 is not the right way to improve our capabilities against armored opponents. 7.62×51 ammunition is simply too large and heavy for a soldier to carry the same amount of rounds as they would carry if they were issued a 5.56 rifle. Ounces turn into pounds, and pounds turn into pain. While I do believe 5.56 sufficient enough, switching to a 6.5mm round of some sort would be a better option if the Army was really set on replacing 5.56×45. While 7.62×51 makes sense logistically as it’s already in service, it would greatly hinder the ability of our soldiers to achieve and maintain fire superiority against an enemy using 5.45 or 7.62×39 weapons. Someone must need an “above center mass” OER. While 5.56mm may not be the best it is much better than most. They trade off going back to 7.62×51 is going to be huge. Most of the time, as a rifleman, you are just transporting (carrying) ammo until it’s needed. A basic load of 5.56mm is 210 rounds per rifleman. That’s 5.7lbs just in ammo, not magazines too. That much weight equals 101 rounds of 7.62mm. So either your going to have to increase the load on an already overloaded infantryman or they will have to have resupply readily available. Glad I’m retired and don’t have to deal with these knuckleheads anymore. We all know the M14 was a big heavy gun and was practically useless as a select fire weapon. So they must mean an intermediate cartridge in 7.62 right? But even the AK-47 is terribly uncontrollable in full auto. So what gives? We surely aren’t going to have a heavier rifle than an AK-47 in order to control recoil right? Am I crazy for thinking this can only be a step backwards? If enemy armor is the only reason we are forced to use a larger caliber then why not just make a more powerful 223? I mean, smaller calibers are known to penetrate armor even better than larger ones, so from that standpoint the only thing I see as an advantage to 7.62 is increased range. I’m perplexed. Maybe they have made some secret breakthrough in small arms design that changes the game? In what scenario would a 7.62 rifle be usefull? The only ones where it would have been of some use were 100 years ago. You don’t gight advanced infantery with level 4 plates with your own advanced infantery with level 5 (guess they are goint to want that next year) vests and 7.62 rifles. You just don’t. Why, where and when shoumd that take place? Who even has level 4 vests asides from Nato, Russia and China? And why would you want to fight their infantery? And why on earth would you do that with a 7.62 rifle? Currently we don’t kill people with 5.56 rifles. We supress untill air support or mortars bomb the enemy position. For that use a light bullet is great, because much ammo. It’s not like anyone would start putting his head out of cover to shoot accurately just because his bullet is a little better at penetrating a level 4 vest. And probably even sucks at creating a large wound cavity if no armor is worn which is what most current enemies do because they are terrorist organisations or rebels or something along those lines. I’m starting to think this is MacArthur 2.0 with the.276 Pedersen. The leadership knows a war is brewing soon, and don’t want to be caught in the middle of a new cartridge or technology, so in order to kill the new cartridge or technology, they make it seem like they’re awarding a new rifle contract in 7.62 NATO albatross. They distract enough companies to focus on a 12lb (before accessories) select fire service rifle in 7.62 NATO, to extend the life of 7.62 NATO in the system under a BS justification for armor defeat with ammo that can’t be mass-produced. Once everybody wastes their money on answering this RFP, they can kill it and not award anyone. This will sour everyone on development of 6.5mm, and they can keep their current mix with 5.56/7.62 NATO, keeping us well-rooted in the boat anchor that 7.62 NATO is on the system. How is the number of possible options/bidders relevant in any way? If you have an open solicitation that is competed to 10 bidders or 100 it doesn’t matter in the end. You down select to a smaller and smaller group of compliant bids until you reach a winner. The whole point is, a govt award to one design would standardize the field further than the current free-for-all. This would seem very common sense. I am not sure what I am missing in your logic. Obviously you know far more on this topic than me. Reading some of the comments it is continually obvious that some folks just don’t get it. All the lessons learned from Iraq & Afghanistan (and every conflict since Vietnam) say that a heavier BATTLE RIFLE SUPPLEMENTING the STANDARD ISSUE M16–M4 is needed. The SOLDIERS THEMSELVES in Infantry/COMBAT units deployed have long expressed the NEED for a LARGER CALIBER BATTLE RIFLE to supplement their M16’s/M4’s. This IS NOT a DMR/SNIPER/AUTO-RIFLE for a specialized role. Why 7.62 NATO? Because it’s the STANDARD cartridge. All the arguments for all kinds of other silly calibers, the argument over “body armor” and specialized ammo to defeat that body armor, etcCOMPLETELY miss the point. Againreading the comments I just wonder why some can’t understand it. With the way the Politicians/Military move, 1 step forward, 5 steps back, this ‘urgency’ will still take years. So getting things going now sounds good to me. Plus something My Grandson tells me, after 2 years in Afghanistan, is that more and more of these animals are so loaded up on drugs that it takes head shots with the 5.56mm to put them down. He often wished he had something larger, in caliber, to deal with this and other problems. So perhaps this, and many other things, are why the 7.76mm is warranted. Why do we hunt a 120 lb. Whitetail with the.308 (7.76mm) but fight 150 lb. Men with a 5.56mm? Never made sense to me. [] What Is The Best 308 Rifle? John Turner I have an SSG 69 P1 1984 vintage. It’s an excellent shooter and with handloads crafted for accuracy it’s good for 1/2″ 5 shot groups all day long. It likes Lapua brass with the small rifle primer and I fortunately have a decent supply of Lapua D46 bullets. It prefers the 185 grain over the 170s for some strange reason. Like you mentioned, the few negatives.I was lucky enough to obtain a Steyr picatinny rail made to fit in the slots atop the receiver. I also have an extra plastic trigger guard if (or when) the original breaks. Supposedly they are weakened if cleaning solvent is allowed to remain on them. I’d love to find an aftermarket one of billet aluminum or even polymer. So far no luck. Hence I am very careful when cleaning to be sure no solvent remains. Regarding the triggerI have the double set version. Really, really nice. If set the front breaks clean at roughly 2 oz!! Unset it breaks around 2 1/2#s. Very nice set up if you ever choose to shoot this rifle offhand or seated. Literally you set the rear trigger and simply touch the front when the crosshairs settle on your target. It greatly simplifies hitting a target from less than desirable positions. I added a Bradley adjustable cheek rest. Scope is currently a NF NXS 5.5 x 22. Bipod is a Parker Hale with a handstop. All in all it’s a decent set up. All I’d love to add is a more substantial trigger guard. Yeah I’d love a McMillan stock but I’ll forego that at the moment. John My model 69 was purchased in 1981 and still shoots well. My only problem with it was the plastic magazines that all failed in the fragile release catches and the plastic trigger guard. These problems were all cured this year by replacing the trigger guard with a steel replacement made by Styria Arms (Austria) it’s fine product that fitted perfectly, the only adjustment necessary was made by inserting a couple of supplied steel shim washers under the front of the guard. The assembly is not cheap but it comes with an Accuracy International 5 shot or 10 shot magazine and has performed perfectly. Michael A I bought this rifle and scope combination in the 70’s. I can put it up and take it out a year later and the zero holds within fractions of an inch. I almost swapped out the Khales ZF69 scope because I thought the Euro post reticle was coarse and awkward—until I took it out to 500 meters and it shot sub-MOA. Recently the reticle appears to be detaching from the optical element so I may have to replace it after 40 years. I used to load 168gr Sierra BT match but found Federal Premium Gold shot as well. Amazing performance, IMHO. Hello fellow SSG 69 owners. Just purchased a PII Black, single trigger from CDNN. My concern is the latest units come with Picatinny rail mounted, it’s a 20 Mia rail but if you notice the rail is mounted on top of receiver not by sliding onto dovetail then secured by 4 setscrews 2 parallel front and back locking rail. I noticed the last of these rifles don’t have the dovetail cut into the receiver. The rail is just mounted to the top of the receiver with 4 inline or linear setscrews that are tapped into to of receiver. Does not look as secure to me but I could be wrong. The rail does look lower than the dovetail mounted one though. Mine is on its way via FedEx so really excited to getting this. Have not seen any comments on this issue anywhere. I have a S&B 1.5-6×42 Zenith NIB I would like to use on thus but the reticle won’t work. Want a mil dot. Hope the lack of that Dovetail was not being cheap to save on machine time and just slapping a picatinny on it.
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