Replacing the 5.56mm with a more powerful round?

E

Easy-8

Active member
I have done a lot of research on various firearm cartridges and read a few things about the 5.56x45 NATO. The United States military swapped the 7.62 NATO for the 5.56 NATO in the 60s due to the fact that it produced less recoil and was lighter so more rounds per soldier could be carried. However I have been reading a few articles and listening to some people in the military and the 5.56mm although accurate has some problems with stopping power... I have heard many stories of US troops complaining about the stopping power of the 5.56mm round but due largely to good marksmenship of NATO troops any weakness of the 5.56mm in stopping power if voided if you get a head/heart shot. However I have been reading and hearing complaints of insurgents being hit by the 5.56mm and not going down.

However the 7.62x39 Soviet that that AK-47 fires is much more damaging due to it being both larger and slower. It is also a much better at cutting through body armor the 5.45mm aka 'poison bullt' is basically the same story. Although the the 7.62mm is slower and less accurate at long ranges it still does more damage than the 5.56mm.

Yes I know the 5.56mm can create some nasty wounds when it tumbles or fragments and I am not saying I would wanna get hit with one, but I would much rather get hit with it than the 7.62mm Soviet. US military officals came out and said that the 5.56mm was designed to wound rather than kill its target for two reasons:

1. you might wanna ask the guy some questions
2. ties up more troops to carry him way to get medical attention

Although that all said and good it is possible for a wounded enemy to fire his AK and kill you. the gap and design trade off between the two rounds (5.56mm vs 7.62mm) has sparked a debate has been going on for a long time. However work began to close that gab and create a round that gave the soldier in question accuracy and stopping power thus solving the problem and allowing everyone to move on to another topic.

Say hello to the 6.8mm Remington SPC and 6.5mm Grendel :)

6.8mm Remington SPC
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6.5mm Grendel
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Both rounds are accurate and deadly. Which one do you think it should be? Me personally I think I will go with the Grendel.
 
I'd take the Grendel. It has a far superior ballistic coefficient that allows it to reach out farther than even 7.62x51mm NATO with a proper rifle. 6.8SPC is primarily meant for closer range, and actually drops more than 5.56mm past 400 yards. The only advantage it has over Grendel is that it would be easier to rechamber our light machineguns to it than 6.5.

I think the 6.5 is the future of military small arms, at least till someone else gets interested in caseless ammunition.
 
That's a good idea, but they're going to have to make a 50cal assualt rifle one of these days. I know it would be very expensive, but just having one for say, special forces, would be cool.

The Remmington looks more normal than the Grendel. I vote Remmington.
 
Cdt Matteo said:
That's a good idea, but they're going to have to make a 50cal assualt rifle one of these days. I know it would be very expensive, but just having one for say, special forces, would be cool.

The Remmington looks more normal than the Grendel. I vote Remmington.
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That weapon would probably end up weighing 30 lbs and carrying around the ammo for that thing would also be heavy as hell thus making it simply not practical to carry into combat. But it may interest you to know that there are 20mm and legend has it 25mm anti-material rifles out their.

Anzio 20mm Anti-Material Rifle

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20mm compared in size to other rounds

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First, consider that 7.62x39 and 5.56 are battle-tested rounds, and the military's not about to adopt a new cartidge which will not only cause logistics and supply hassles, but will also require a total retooling of infantry weapons- we don't have anything in our arsenal geared for 6.5 or 6.8.
 
Deerslayer it would be easy to rechamber all the US standard weapons for 6.8SPC. 6.5 could be used in the M16 with very slight modification, though it wouldn't work with the current belt-fed LMGs.
 
deerslayer said:
First, consider that 7.62x39 and 5.56 are battle-tested rounds, and the military's not about to adopt a new cartidge which will not only cause logistics and supply hassles, but will also require a total retooling of infantry weapons- we don't have anything in our arsenal geared for 6.5 or 6.8.
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It is a hassle, but it has been done. Specifically when the military when from 7.62 to 5.56.

The question is will they? I have lots of complaints about the lack of "stopping power" of 5.56 munitions -Personally I wouldn't want to be hit by one thats IMHO.
 
Problem might be that the current 5.56 rounds are not soft enough... the bullets aren't tumbling when they hit the target and not breaking apart when they're in the target.
The main problem from what I've read is that they sail right through their targets.
 
So the problem is with the ammo, not the rifle.

It never made sense to me why they would use armor-piercing rounds on insurgents who, for the most part, aren't wearing body armor. I know that 77gr. Mk 262 Mod 1 match ammo is supposed to fragment reliably every time, but I don't think everyone gets it. Do they?
 
Personally that's what I think it is. The ammo. It's not necessarily the caliber.
5.56 wounds are supposed to be REAL bad if the bullet in fact tumbles and breaks. You have yourself a small entry wound and a grape fruit sized exit wound. That's what we were taught. From what I saw from my shooting (I could be wrong...) at least up to ranges out to 300m, the green tips seemed to have a flatter trajectory. May mean the bullet is more stable... and maybe it's too stable.
 
I'm an engineer, so I let raw data do the talking. Take a look at the attached matrix of performance of the current 5.56x45mm ammo (newer M193 vs older M855) used by the US military today. I highlighted the 300m range data because it reflects our desired expectation to be able to engage targets effectively at the furthest possible distance. At 300m, the muzzle velocity is reduced by 37% for the new M193, and 32% for the older M855. Muzzle velocity is directly proportional to energy (i.e. stopping power) of a bullet. At 300m, both rounds have from 475-500 ft-lbs of energy behind them.

To visualize this, imagine driving a nail through silly puddy with a sledge hammer (assuming the hammer doesn't touch the puddy).

The point I'm trying to make is that at these ranges, this bullet will not tumble on its own (which is an aerodynamics problem I won't bore you with), because they retain most of their energy at the desired range (and in turn, their spin, which keeps it flying straight).

Also, it is vastly more economical to supply a lot of what you already have than to convert to an expensive new round AND convert your rifles to said round. We could easily avoid the conversion and increase lethality by using jacketed hollow point (JHP) rounds, but they are illegal to use in war.
 

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    M855 vs M193 ammo.jpg
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mmarsh said:
The question is will they? I have lots of complaints about the lack of "stopping power" of 5.56 munitions -Personally I wouldn't want to be hit by one thats IMHO.
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I am not saying I would wanna get hit with one ethier I would not wanna get hit with any round. I am just saying it may not be the ideal round for man stopping.
 
major liability said:
Wouldn't JHPs also have less chance of penetrating body armor if you come up against it?
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Yes, however, some rifle bullet designs are such that they can achieve the "mushroom" effect without the need of a true hollow point, circumventing the 1899 Hague Convention limitations on the use of expanding munitions.
 
The current 5.56 ammo, both the regular ones and the green tipped ones overpenetrate the human body. they dont cause enough internal damage. on the other hand they are very very accurate and pnetrate body armor preetey well... If you have a less stable ball than yes it would thumble inside the target and and cause a big mess, but the chanses of hitting at long ranges get slimmer. Its a known problem ever since the m16 is used. saying you wouldent want t get hit by one is hardly a good point. I wouldent want to get hit by a laundry machine(youd be surprised how much of a real possibilety that is) but that dosent make laundry machines an effective rifle round.
 
As long as it's stable enough to hit targets at 250m, I don't think it'll be much of an issue with the regular infantryman.
 
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