US Army Considers Adopting an Interim Battle Rifle in 7.62NATO: eventually adopt 6.5

[JASmith]

Stan:

Makes sense to me. We got a better bullet out of it so how come everyone is complaining?

LR55

One advantage is that reasonably posed complaints lead to balanced debate that we all learn from.

We all bristle when "feel good" legislation forces us to abandon long standing methods and materials. Nonetheless, the occasional silver lining pops up.

For example, I submit that while, several thousand years of use from plumbing to wine storage have shown that lead toxicity is not particularly serious, there is enough for legislators to use that as a ploy to ban lead in hunting ammunition. The result is that the then nascent lead-free bullet making community blossomed with a large variety of hunting bullets, almost all of which are superior game harvesters on a weight for weight basis than lead core bullets.

Yes, to my knowledge so far, none of the lead-free alternatives are less expensive than a Cor-Lokt, Power Point, or any of the other modest priced lead core hunting bullets. Some of them, however, are less expensive than their equivalent premium lead core hunting bullets.

So, while I completely concur with BFT's annoyance with the apparent mandate to avoid lead, there are advantages.

Further, several of the cross section photos of Russian bullets, in particular, show small amounts of lead used as a filler. There is a cost-savings to be gained from using a soft material to fill the space between a steel core and a soft iron or copper jacket.

Thus lead continues to have a place in military applications independent of civilian constraints.