The US Army’s New Rifle, SAW, and Ammo, Explained

You’ve probably heard by now that the US Army has adopted and is making plans to replace it’s entire inventory of M4s with the Sig Spear. It’s also replacing their fleet of M249s with Sig’s NGSW-AR, and possibly the M240 as well. These new guns will run the new 6.8×51 cartridge, which will be commercially known as “.277 Fury”. The cartridge will launch a 6.8 caliber projectile at near 3,000 fps from a 16″ barrel, which is only possible due to their previously-unheardof 80,00 psi chamber pressure. For comparison, a 55 gr .223 hits that velocity from a 20″ barrel, at 55,000 psi as per SAAMI spec. The military ammo will have a hybrid case, the base of which will be stainless steel to facilitate the much higher pressures. But, this is not why I am writing today. This is merely a preamble to the actual info I’d like to pass on. TFB posted a discussion of the NGSW program results from The Pentagon. This discussion is full of the interesting bits that aren’t immediately obvious to the public, like how the Sig rifle was ‘finally deemed to “offer the best value to the government’ [Colonel Madore, Project Manager Soldier Lethality], or that the Textron bullpup “…had been rejected following the soldier touch points phase as the system submitted was found not to meet Army criteria.” [Colonel Madore].

Instead of copy/pasting the article bit-by-bit, I’ll just let you guys read it.