The Best Rifle Never Made

i posted this long ago but still can't find online literature as it was messaged to me by a soldier in another forum.

it was after desert storm when the US army did a serious study regarding hand weapons for soldiers. they did a statistical analysis on nearly all the wars from 1900 to maybe desert storm. here are two interesting disclosures:

1. small arms accounted for only 5% of total war casualties
2. 95% of small arms engagements happened inside 200 meters.
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if you are to really accept these two findings, then it doesn't make sense to equip your entire army with rifles each costing more than $3000 (2001 prices), weighing 8 pounds bare, and capable of killing the enemy out to 600 meters. a carbine costing at most $2000, weighing 4.5 pounds bare, and a respectable man killer out to maybe 300 meters will do.

for specialized weapons, whether you are a regular or a specwarrior, the choice is as wide as your imagination.

 

CAC, starting with the M855 (NATO SS109) they began using a slug a with the front half interior made of soft steel. That makes the rear lead half heavier and thus when striking a target it yaws or completely tumbles within the flesh. Messy. In addition, at close range (highest velocity) it usually breaks in half at the cannelure to produce two wound channels and in the best case the rear (lead) half actually fragments to produce even more damage. That kept the slug within the laws of the Geneva (or Hague?) conventions outlawing soft points, but still created a big mess within the target. When they introduced the shorter M4 barrel which had less velocity, it was noted that the slug was much less likely to yaw, so they created a newer slug designated as the M855A1 intended to produce the same effects at M4 velocities. They also changed the powder to reduce muzzle flash from the new carbine, AND made the front half of hardened steel to better penetrated masonry, vehicles, etc.

At any rate, the days of those original conventional jacketed lead slugs that just zipped through a target are long gone. It's still not as deadly as a hunting soft point or a larger (.308) slug, but they are much better than the early design.

 

I agree.

Almost happened too. We saw one of the trial batch on our recent visit to the Fort Benning Infantry Museum

https://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2016/2/19/the-contender-winchester-s-224-light-rifle/