^^^^^^
All above is great stuff and if after the upcoming civil war I find myself in charge equipping a small feudal army I will definitely go with a 556 assault rifle for general issue.
Until then I will still enjoy my M14 and AR10 pattern rifles and lust after that ever elusive FAL.
Last edited by Suvorov; 07-12-2020 at 11:49 PM.
Could have been worse - at least you didn't volunteer to carry the M240 on a 15mi ruck march, and thereby become stuck as a 240 gunner for 6 months like this one dumbass (me).Originally Posted by ranger
I love everything about the 240, except carrying it.
Considering the amount of 5.56 fired in the sandbox and Africa in the past 25-30 years, I'm not entirely sure that's still true.
I'm not sure I'd be so extreme as to say infinitesimal, but definitely few and far between. Plenty of stuff in the 'stan was long enough range that the M14's got dusted off and slapped in EBR chassis because 5.56 M855 simply did not do the job at 600+M. But that was a stopgap measure and something in 6.5 Grendel or 6.8 SPC would have been just as good or better in every way.
Heavy OTM/SMK bullets and better optics could have helped add range. I’ve hit E type targets at 900 meters with and ACOG and 69 grain SMK ammo but that doesn’t mean the bullet was effective at that range. Even the best 5.56 “runs out of ass by 500ISH.
The gap the M14s filled was a known issue that was ignored from the 80s through the early GWOT. This is why the M24 was acquired as a long action even through it’s 7.62x51. The plan was to convert them to to 300 WM once the SASS finally got fielded. The M14s, particularly the ones in the Sage chassis’ were not exactly a success.
We had actual M14s in service early in my career and no one was more disappointed than my young Jeff Cooper cool-aide drinking ass when I learned that rack grade M14s with regular ammo are literally upside down AKs that shoot 3 to 6 MOA.
6.5 Grendel and 6.8 SPC are two very different things. Grendel is a great round at distance but has reliability issues in AR platforms due to the tapered case. It has merit for a SPR/DMR but needs a fully curved mag to be reliable.
6.8 SPC is more akin to 7.62x39 in that it hits harder than 5.56 close up but actually runs out of gas closer /sooner than heavy 5.56. It does run reliably in the AR platform and is a great hunting round for the AR.
AR 10s have their uses. CA game and fish being a great example. They are as likely or more likely to be dispatching mountain lions etc as fighting people so their POF 308s make sense.
The future of the AR-10 is in 6.5 CM.
These aren’t new ideas. The 6mm Lee Navy and the original .276 Garands and .280 FALs just could not overcome the inertia of large quantities of .20 cal rounds already “in the system.” “In the system” is a very powerful thing.
Back in the 1990s the Wyoming Game and Fish were using M14s donated by the DOD. Pretty sure they went back for the GWOT but not sure.
Those and subsequently some M1A bush /scout rifles were what CA Game and Fish and before the POFs,
I ordered one of those from DSA back in that era. Matching parts, mine had a Steyr marked barrel and it was a tack driver for rifles of its type, probably 1.5 to 2 moa with cheap surplus fodder. Your furniture is awesome!
One of my shooting buddies coveted mine so bad for so long I finally sold it to him and I still see it at the range. While I enjoyed owning it and the HK91 I had, I found both to be ergonomically disagreeable for me at least. It could just be that I have spent so much time with an AR I did not adapt well to running those Euro battle rifles.
I still have a M1A from my High-Power competition days, but even with that sport, about 30 years ago everybody figured out you could make an AR-15 work at 600 yards by free floating the barrel and running heavier Sierra 68gr and finally 77gr bullets in the Colt A2 models, so the M1A's began to disappear from the firing line.
Look, I'm not suggesting battle rifles should replace 556 guns as the primary military or law enforcement carbine. I fully understand the weight penalty. I fully understand the learning curve between platforms. I fully understand every dude thinks he's the best fighter, swings the biggest dick, and happens to be the best trigger puller walking the planet. I fully understand why law enforcement has transitioned away from the pump shotgun. The fact remains, battle rifles (some platforms more than others) are fully capable of getting the job done and probably won't get you killed in the streets or around the farm.
That's a pretty solid summation. I used to shoot a weekend 3-gun match that had a manly gun class (.308 or better, .45acp) in addition to general population (5.56 and 9mm). You had to carry gear for the day, all day. I thought several times about taking my FAL, but was always overcome by common sense. The guys who humped FALs, M1As, Garands got a serious bonus in terms of needing fewer shot on target to score. None of them won overall.
Still, if I had the money for a LAV gun collection, I'd have a rack of battle rifles and a Series Rover with a Bren and a MAG58 mounted on it.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
LOL... this isn't the 'Stan and I'm not rucking my shit up and down the Hindu Kush Mountains with a team.
I have no problem carrying my MR762 and 20 magazines from my house to the truck parked in my driveway, or even all the way across the pasture and back.
20 vs 30 magazine capacity, you're telling me I won't be using my non-existent full auto fire in order to fix my opponent in place while my non-existent team flanks them? I can live with that.
As to what the lowest common denominator can be trained to shoot at an acceptable level? Who cares? I'm not the LCD and can rock a 7.62 rifle just fine.
7.62 breaks shit at longer ranges than any 5.56, and around here the only limitation on line of sight is the Earths curvature.
Stuff like that is important when you might need to shoot all the way through a '90's F150 at 300Y to persuade the drunk methbillies to go take pot shots at someone else's campsite.
As a skilled private citizen who's on my own and not rucking a 120# combat load or standing perimeter for hours at a time, a 7.62 rifle will take care of business just fine.
How many angels dancing on a needle point does it take to get me kilt on da streetz?
Will I die first from only carrying 7 rounds of 9mm versus 11 or will I die from only having 20 rounds of 7.62 instead of 30 5.56?
"For a moment he felt good about this. A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it. Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it and, satisfied, drove on into the night."
-- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy --
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