Testing, testing...

[Tony Williams]

Your plots of a week or so ago focused solely on the 1 kilometer game. The .277 bullet in fact did not do as well even at that long range. These cartridges will need to do at least as well as the current M80 in the 0-300 meter and 300-500 meter games.

I don't believe it is possible for a significantly lighter, lower-powered cartridge to match every aspect of the M80's performance at every range: that would defy the laws of physics.

What a general-purpose round needs to do is to match the M80 at long range, while being significantly more effective than 5.56mm at short range. This should be possible given a bullet that is both aerodynamic and designed to yaw reliably on impact.

After all, we are constantly being told by the military that 5.56mm is good enough at up to c.400 metres, and the only reason for carrying 7.62mm weapons is to reach out to longer ranges than this. Personally, I'm not convinced by that - too many soldiers I've listened to would rather have 7.62mm than 5.56mm at any range - but other things being equal a new intermediate should be significantly better than 5.56mm in barrier penetration and wounding effect at short ranges, an advantage which would growth with distance until it was comparable with M80.