Again, I find it interesting that a 6mm cartridge based on the 6.5 Grendel case became popular only after Hornady tweaked it for their own bullets and gave it a flashy name.  Marketing, or Merchandising (as per the clip from the movie Spaceballs) seems to be more important than anything else.  Granted, the shoulder was moved back 0.030" (0.762mm), so it not exactly the same as the various "6mm Grendel" variations like Robert Whitley's 6mm AR,  Les Baer's .243 LBC-AR and ARP's 6mm Predator.  On the other hand, the 6mm AR has been publicly available and used in competition since 2006.

https://youtu.be/HnXKE0nfAjI?t=36

nincomp said:

Again, I find it interesting that a 6mm cartridge based on the 6.5 Grendel case became popular only after Hornady tweaked it for their own bullets and gave it a flashy name.

You probably mean "after one manufacturer standardize a drawing and produce ammo for it?" :-).

The .300 Whisper existed long before the .300 AAC, but the round found a wide acceptance only after standardization.

I think a lot of people fail to understand just how dramatically you could improve things with a new optimized bolt and bbl extension and frankly I don't blame them because unless you understand some of the specifics of how it works the increases in performance seem pretty unbelievable.

Whether it's Emeric's B2 (baby balle D) or one of sidewinder's VKO BAT's the increased peak pressures, increased ogive space, and etc are suddenly giving you numbers that seem terrifyingly too good to be true. (This includes optimizing for much higher penetration through things like structural 13500 psi CMU's at close to m80a1 levels of turning cover into concealment)

For a pretty wide variety of reasons my feeling for a long time has been that the best path forward Is limp along the 5.56 guns with the new optimized bolt and extension lightweight cases optimized new projectiles and along with the fancy new electro optical FCU's while putting the real development funds into a proper hi cartridge replacement and new suite of belt feds 

Once we have a proper beast of an absolute wrecking ball lightweight hi cartridge and new MG's to fire it out of (though you could theoretically do the cartridge I'm thinking of in 240's)  that get 338 norma mag performance out of something a bit larger than x51 but same weight or a bit less then we can use the fire control to our best advantage.

Hunters avoid pointy tips when fighting bears....a flat nose penetrates better

Who is sidewinder.. Is it  Nathan from tfb

roguetechie said:

...my feeling for a long time has been that the best path forward Is limp along the 5.56 guns with the new optimized bolt and extension lightweight cases optimized new projectiles and along with the fancy new electro optical FCU's while putting the real development funds into a proper hi cartridge replacement and new suite of belt feds 

Once we have a proper beast of an absolute wrecking ball lightweight hi cartridge and new MG's to fire it out of (though you could theoretically do the cartridge I'm thinking of in 240's)  that get 338 norma mag performance out of something a bit larger than x51 but same weight or a bit less...

If the plan is to "limp along" with current weapons while doing concurrent development of a new cartridge and machine guns, it seems very wasteful to expend resources upgrading 5.56 guns and ammo via the changes you describe.  For that reason, I also think it's extremely unlikely that the Army would follow your "best path" forward

If your "beast of an absolute wrecking ball lightweight hi cartridge" is ever to become reality, you'll have to develop it yourself.  So, when do you start?  

I wish I was a cartridge designer but I ain't that smart Stan.

Nor do I have the means to get sample projectiles manufactured or even get the powders I'd need much less the lightweight cases.

Really good ammo has entered the space age my man, it's not something a basement Enterprise can do. Or not something my basement Enterprise can do.

I see us limping along with current platforms for quite a while and there are plenty of improvements that can be implemented but in reality, it's all about FCS making current platforms infinitely more lethal.

In any case i would be surprised if assault rifle fires killed 5% of combatants in any large scale conflict past 50 years. Hence low priority.

Indeed large scale conventional conflicts are as probable as they were in 2010: very, very improbable.

However, unconventional conflicts are going to happens and probably happens more frequently

https://www.armyrecognition.com/defense_news_january_2022_global_security_army_industry/winchester_to_provide_6.8mm_ammunition_for_us_army_nsgw_program.html

Winchester to provide 6.8mm ammunition for US Army NSGW Program

According to ssusa.org, Winchester has announced that the U.S. Army awarded the company cost-plus and firm-fixed-price contracts totaling $20 million for the 6.8 mm Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) program. The contracts specify ammunition development, manufacturing facility requirements analysis and production capacity planning. Work will be performed at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, Mo., which is the only government-owned, contractor-operated small-caliber ammunition production facility in the United States. These projects were awarded under Winchester’s $8 billion contract to operate the Lake City facility. Winchester Ammunition took over the operation at Lake City in late 2020..

And who is the partner of Winchester for NGSW?