New Army "Caliber Configuration Study"

[Guardsman26]

Woohoo,

Thanks for posting my comment from Tony William's forum.

Based on my knowledge of this topic, I think this is the beginning of the bitter end for 5.56mm. It is possible that we could adopt a polymer 7.62mm round, but a polymer 6.5mm Grendel would weigh more or less the same as 5.56mm NATO - or to put it another way: 7.62mm performance in a 5.56mm package.

That has to be compelling. As I've said before, giving a military spec projectile a little more oomph will require a longer case. The latter will also be needed to accommodate a tracer round. So, a 6.5x46mm round firing a 7 or 8 gram bullet at 800-840 mps seems a very likely scenario. Add a lead-free projectile that fragments in the same way as a 5.56mm M855A1 EPR, and you're in business.

Basically, the Grendel is the perfect start point for the CCS. I'm very interested to see how this evolves.