New Cartridge Developments and Implications for Dismounted Infantry Soldiers

[LRRPF52]

Bill,

You're on the money with the need to have a board!

The downside is that we might even learn why things take so darned long in today's R&D world!

Cheers!

Roger that. Some ideas that come to mind are appointing a trustee, as well as deciding between pure democratic mobority rules, versus a representative arrangement where certain protocols are adhered to and agreed to by contributors. (To ensure that funds are used for their original intent) Maybe it would be a good idea to start with something small and simple as a proof-of-concept, and see how it develops.

I have observed this concept with some of the organizations I deal with a lot, mainly the Active Military Reserve Finnish Sniper's Guilds. They have annual dues for members, and have accumulated quite a significant amount of funding, to the point where they are making major decisions on range complexes that are currently being built with electronically-programmed steel target systems, possible weapons development, equipment procurement, and so forth. During their meetings, they vote on budgetary decisions together, in addition to planning competitions, organizing regular training events, and so forth.

Back in the 1920's and 1930's, the Women volunteers for the Reserve system would sell coffee and Pulla (a delicious Finnish pastry) to raise money for the re-barreling of M91 Mosin Nagants for the Finnish Civil Guard.

In addition to these home-grown financing techniques, they also had a very active Reserve Training System back then, which largely contributed to the David-vs.-Goliath victories against the Red Army when Stalin invaded Finland in the winter of 1939. After about 3 months, the Finns had totally wiped out 10 Soviet Divisions (250,000+ soldiers killed) in what is known as the Talvisota, or Winter War. The point is there is merit to these ideas that have been proven historically. After WWII, The Soviets demanded that this Finnish Reserve System be totally dismantled and banned, as they realized how instrumental it was in their defeat.

With a good After-Action Review system, a little maturity on our parts, and the mad scientists, I think that we could surprise ourselves. Here are some Grendel-specific components that I have seen come up frequently over the past few years:

* Magazines
* Bolts
* Ammunition & components, mainly brass & Grendel-specific bullets

I would propose tackling these areas with the following goals:

Develop a polymer or metal magazine that is optimized for the Grendel in that:

• More COAL can be achieved with said magazine
  
• Geometry of the magazine body is optimized for the Grendel cartridge working within existing AR15 receivers
  
• Quality control is set to meet certain standards to provide consistency, supporting reliability in the AR15 platform
  
• Capacity goal of 30rds for one of the magazine bodies, while keeping the magazine height as close to or at a standard 5.56 mag height
  

I recently noticed that Magpul has been making Smith & Wesson-specific PMAG's for the M&P series of AR15's, which has the M&P logo on the mag body. That required a whole new set of injection-molding plates, which are not cheap. There are several industry experts already making great products, so even if we are able to finance the prototyping and beta-testing, it will make it much easier to hand off production to those with proven expertise when necessary.

I think the magazine issue is important since CProducts is no longer in business, and there are questions about how the residue of that company will continue. Even though I have not had issues with any of my CProducts mags yet, I think we need to have a Grendel community-backed program with this, so there is more vested interest in ensuring that a quality magazine system is brought to market.

Maybe we could simply call it...[SIZE="6"]The Grendel Guild[/SIZE]