Testing, testing...

[JASmith]

...we do need the round with the best performance, all factors considered...

That's the catch -- optimization is all about trades within constraints.

We can't do significantly better than the 7.62 in every category. In fact, Tony and his correspondents have talked an awful lot about an 8 gram bullet at about 2750 ft/sec. This means that we are already trading away muzzle energy. There will be other areas where our quest for reduced weight will negatively impact one or performance parameters.

Our challenge will be to find the cartridge that does well-enough. Demanding that the cartridge be at least as good as the 7.62X51 in every category means that we rename the .308 Winchester, and merely use a better 9.5 gram bullet. We would then get the weight savings by counting on the adoption of the hoped-for plastic cases.

We've got to have and to identify legitimate trade space.