Time to move on?

30 Dec 07

These sage comments from a friend who has been in the military rifle design/manufacture business for decades:

"The Pentagon's stubborn unwillingness to abandon the M-16 magazine, and their consequent non-negotiable specification that any new rifle (and caliber) must utilize it, has effectively paralyzed new rifle and new rifle-caliber development. All military rifle designers will be required to work with and around this troublesome magazine for the foreseeable future, if they plan on selling rifles in the USA!

Back in the 1950s, when Eugene Stoner was designing what would become the M-16 Rifle, the Pentagon had only one real imperative: it had to be LIGHT! (Curiously, when Kalashnikov was designing what would ultimately become the AK-47 a decade earlier, he heard only one imperative from the Kremlin: it had to be CHEAP!)

Thus, the biggest problem with the M16 magazine was, and still is, that it was originally designed to be extremely light, and, as a consequence, insubstantial and essentially expendable. In fact, at one point in the design process, M-16 magazines were designed for use one time only, automatically disintegrating and being jettisoned from the magazine well in pieces as the last round was fired!

Accordingly, walls of the M-16 magazine body are grievously thin, and the magazine itself depends for rigidity on its natural curve and heavy stiffening grooves, and, for support and protection, on the surrounding magazine well in the lower receiver. And, because it thus fits closely within the magazine well, there is no room for subsequent weapons designers to make magazine walls thicker without reducing critical internal dimensions. Nor is there any way to make the magazine itself wider or capable of accommodating longer cartridges.

Right now, the 6.8mmSPC represents one of the few successful attempts to stay with the M-16 magazine (all the is required is a different follower) and yet realize a significant ballistic improvement over the chronically inadequate 5.56X45 (223). It is not perfect, but, short of going back to the 308, it is currently our best chance at (finally!) moving on from the 223, and on from the Stoner gas-impingement System.

All the foregoing is predicated, of course, on the assumption that practical experience will continue to confirm the 6.8mm's, thus far, impressive performance."

Comment: It seems we've painted ourselves into a corner! If Americans are to maintain our prominence in design and manufacture of military small arms; if we are to have the capability to equip our troops with truly useable and effective small arms, we have to break this log jam. We need to move on. As it is, we're just running in place!

/John