also the Australians Steyr Aug is a piece of crap. ask the Brits from GW1. those bullpup design rifles dont work very well at all. they are more prone to failure than even the early XM16s from 1964-1965...

What your talking about is the AR-15 and M16A1 NAM, very touchy weapons. First ones where not water proofed i.e. crome line barrel, jammed, and the first rounds made had bad powder and a tendency to swell in the heat, so that it would swell while in the barrel and jam the gun and when you tryed to pull it out the bottom came off the round.

I'm the M16 expert. Thw M16A1 and A2 are still superb weapons. Up to date on NATO standards, long range, good fire rate, ect....

What the M16 and its variants are called is M Class Weapons.

AR-15
CAR-15
M16A1 NAM
M16A1
M16A2
M16A2 Carbine
M16A3
M16A4
M4
M4A1
M4A1 RIS
M733
XM177E2
SR-16 M4 RIS

I'd take an F88 Austeyr over an M16 any day, but then again, over the two of those I'd prefer an L1A1 SLR, it has proved itself over and over again in the Australian army, damn them for phasing them out

The M8 has numerous advantages over the M16. The only short fall I see (of course this is just from reading and no experience) is that it is slightly less accurate than that of the M16. However, the new age of fighting seems to be more urban and with less emphasis on accuracy over long range.

The M8s removable optics doesn't need to be re-zeroed.

The M8 can fire pretty much fresh out of water (like if you dropped it). You pick it up with barrel pointing down the drawin most of the water out and shoot. No drying needed.

The M8 is very reliable because it uses the G36 gas piston design.

The high amount of polymer used makes it resistant towards corrosion.

It is one weapon with four variations with interchangeable parts: http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...xm8-poster.jpg

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?s=1-292925-xm8.php

Another important features of the XM8 series is the weight, the weight saved means a soldier can carry more rounds out, run longer, aim faster, etc.

XM8 is also cheaper.

The XM8 is also the first stage in the OICW program.

Something interesting: The look of the XM8 was created by porsche (or was it ferrari) designers to make it more acceptable to American tastes.

The slight loss in accuracy might be intentional.
Remember that complaint about the current M-16 the soldiers have? That the green tip FMJs glide through their targets?
Well, it's partially because the barrel makes the bullet too stable. If the bullet was even slightly more unstable, the bullet would tumble on impact and that results in massive exit wounds

damn thats nice

Originally Posted by the_13th_redneck

The slight loss in accuracy might be intentional.
Remember that complaint about the current M-16 the soldiers have? That the green tip FMJs glide through their targets?
Well, it's partially because the barrel makes the bullet too stable. If the bullet was even slightly more unstable, the bullet would tumble on impact and that results in massive exit wounds

Hitting the target is more important then that. Any decrease in accuracy is not intentional.

It's a negligable loss of accuracy to pass any test.
We're not talking about bullets going wildly wide. They'll still hit targets within 400 m without ANY problem. And the chances of them dying from the first hit is increased DRAMATICALLY.
I think I'll take that trade. Especially inside a city, which is where most of our wars will be fought now it seems.

Originally Posted by Kinection

Something interesting: The look of the XM8 was created by porsche (or was it ferrari) designers to make it more acceptable to American tastes.

Since HK is german, if anything was designed it was probably by a Porsche designer. But I haven't been able to find anything off the internet about it.

Hmm, I don't seem to be able to find the article on the XM8 and porsche anywhere either.... It was a long time ago however, and it may have been in a museum.

Or it can be my memory.... I'll get back on this if I can find a good source on that.

Originally Posted by 03USMC

But man I'm gonna tell ya an M-4 with Eotech optics, a 203 , two mags taped together with riggers tape an assault sling, while yer wearin a bush cover and got yer cammie stick all tiger stripped makes one heckuva "Hey Mom look at me!" photo.

Never mind that steady string of Maggies Drawers you shot in the 300 meter slow fire

Yeah, makes a nice pic until you have a Corpsman standing over you wondering which hole to plug first since you couldn't see through that fogged up, mud filled, optic......

good example, this weekend my buddy and I were deer hunting, a doe (have to "earn a buck" here) standing behind a tree, he sat there in lock until she moved, let go half is air, then tried to finish the site picture only to see a fogged up lense in front of him, probably would have got here on iron sights....