SiverSurfeR said:

As such, Lt. Gen. Eric Smith, deputy commandant of Combat Development and Integration, recognized the critic voices of the "arms room" concept focusing on those who say it won't work to the infantry automatic rifle with improved optic.

"You have basically trained Marines hitting targets all day long at 500, 700, 800 meters that used to be the range of school-trained snipers," Smith said. "[They're] hitting them all day long because the weapon system and its heavier barrel and the optic that goes with it means basically trained Marines can pick it up and pop individual targets out at ranges that used to be the sole domain of a sniper."

Before responding to your original post last night, I read several articles on the subject, including the one containing the paragraphs quoted above.  It appears that the General really does not understand the arms room concept.  That the M27 w/VCOG gives sniper-like capability to ordinary riflemen, does not in any way validate the concept.

The M27 w/VCOG (and bipod) gives the individual Marine one weapon that can be used in three different roles:  Infantry rifle; SAW/automatic rifle; DMR/sniper rifle.

However, under the arms room concept, a Marine would be issued one of three different weapons, as required by the mission.  For example, a Marine might be equipped with the M4A1 carbine when functioning as a rifleman, or the M249 machine gun when serving as automatic rifleman, or the M110A1 sniper rifle when assigned as squad marksman.

Seconding this, You'd think by now we'd have real information from any of the stakeholders whether the most promising entry and 1/3rd of the conpetition had dropped out or been disqualified

Random question here....would copper or brass make a good material for the core of AP bullets?

No.

I thought Textron were out?

We’ve had multiple blogs cite anonymous sources that Textron is out, and TV mentioned they were 1 of 2 remaining contenders, but we’ve not had Official word from either the Army or Textron tgat they are out.

As gatnerd said, there has been no official confirmation that Textron is out of the competition.

Also, the fact that SIG and TV are marketing semi-auto versions of their NGSW rifles to the public -- before a winner has been announced -- makes me think they are sure that they have lost.

We say "cuando el río suena, agua lleva" (When the river makes sounds is because it is still flowing -- in most of USA, a dried river is a very strange event, I guess). Since a number of sources are taking for granted that Textron is out... is it because it is, or because there is a dominant narrative forged and nurture somewhere?

What I don't understand is that if chamber alignment problem was not solved after 20 years, how they even presented the system? Brand damaging can be really harmful...

Yes, but Caseless ammo never achieved enough TRL. CT achieved TRL 7 in 2012. I cannot infer any unsurmountable blockage from an authoritative source such as this: https://armamentresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ARES-Research-Report-No.-7-Cased-Telescoped-Ammunition.pdf