11-13-2011, 02:29 AM
montana Wrote:I'm sorry but the 5.56 sucks. I have owned and still do many 5.56 rifles and they are fun to shoot, but any experienced hunter knows how in effective the 5.56 is for terminal performance. For the AR-15 type platform the 6.5 Grendel is the most efficient cartridge to date period. Any cartridge can kill, but to use the most efficient cartridge based on recoil, penetration, weight, ballistics, and cost the 6.5 Grendel is unsurpassed period. Prove me wrong. I'm dug in and waiting.
5.56 will smoke deer just the same. A lot of people don't want to hear that, but it has and will. It also kills people deader than dead quite brutally, especially within 100m. Every 5.56 injury/death I have seen involved some pretty impressive wound characteristics. My opinion is based on real-world experience with 5.56, not something I read in a highly-polished stack of toilet paper, bound with staples. I've seen 5.56 take half a dude's head off, make injuries that normally would be non-lethal, look like someone blew hamburger apart with a 1/4 stick of TNT, and I've seen these types of wounds after 5.56 has skipped off body armor, gone through walls, and skipped off dirt and rocks.
If 5.56 sucked, the SAS, SBS, SASR, Delta, Force Recon, MSOR, Ranger Regiment, SF, SEALs, the Israelis, and countless other special operations units around the world drop it like a bad habit. Most of those units have a lot of input into what weapons they use, and what calibers they use. As a matter of fact, most of those units have actually driven the adoption and mass-distribution of 5.56 because it IS such an effective caliber for an individual service rifle/carbine.
If I personally saw how worthless 5.56 was from my experiences, I'd be the first to tell you. Is it magic? Does it erase people upon contact? No, but it really delivers a lot of bang for the amount of weight it takes up, and effective kills have been made with standard NATO M855 out to 500m, and 800m kills have been made with Mk262 77gr SMK's. Regardless of my experiences, Tier 1 units in the world vote with the weapons they use the most frequently. Right now, the ballot has been in-favor of 5.56 for over 50 years by these units. If you choose to argue with that, go ahead, but they will not be changing.
Now, when it comes to 7.62 NATO, I'm open to looking at a replacement for it. It's too heavy for what it delivers. Because so many weapons mounted on aircraft and vehicles use linked 7.62, there is a natural institutional resistance across NATO to switch to something different. I think something like the Grendel with a long-range trajectory comparable to 7.62 would be one of the most welcome additions to dismounted warfighters' tool box.
5.56 ain't broke, and needs very little tweaking to continue on as an awesome carbine cartridge. Our belt-fed systems are way too heavy, and we don't have a lightweight cartridge that would really serve them well.