As most of you know I attended a Remington tactical products seminar at the world famous Gunsite Academy. That yielded the R51 announcement.

Well we have another product under the DPMS brand. This is an AR15 rifle in .308 caliber that has ben reengineered to a great degree with the purpose of not only upgrading the internals but shrinking the size and weight of the .308 to more closely resemble a 5.56 AR.

After having a chance to go hands on with this new model it is indeed very close to an AR15 in size as well as weight. While a 5.56 rifle weighs in at just over 6 pounds empty a .308 weighs in at a bit over 8 pounds. The new DPMS splits the difference at a little over 7 pounds.

Lets go through the various changes and steps involved in creating this innovative design.

The photo above shows the lineage of the two rifles up to the soon to be released Gen II. The picture also shows the weights of each rifle in that lineage.

This graphic shows the difference in receiver height and size of the magwell receiver from the magwell to the back of the receiver. The savings in size is significant.

This graphic depicts the changes in the bolt carrier and the bolt itself. This is where the biggest change takes place and makes it possible to reduce the overall size of the Gen II.

First of all the extractor has been changed to be more durable. Most significantly the bolt has two ejectors rather than the one all other AR’s have. This provides more positive ejection combined with the new extractor. You can see the twin ejectors and springs to the right of the graphic. Another significant change is the gas key. The key is actually CNC’d as a solid part of the bolt carrier. Driving a pin out releases the tube that is the receptor for the gas tube entering the receiver from the front the gas system. The difference in the older .308 bolt and the new one is the new bolt is one inch longer than the standard 5.56 BCG. Circumference is almost identical to the 5.56 BCG. This not only reduces weight but allowed the engineers to start from this point in the design process of reducing the overall size.

The above graphic explains the changes to the upper receiver comparing the standard receiver to the new Gen II receiver.

This graphic displays the sequence of construction and design changes in comparison to the other standard receivers. Additional reinforced areas are shown which help the smaller receiver handle the increased pressures of the .308 round.

The insertion of the steel feed ramp makes for more reliable feeding of all ammunition types.

This illustration shows the revised extractor I mentioned earlier.

This displays the stats and features of the new Gen II .308.

Last we have a listing of the planned models available in the second quarter of 2014.. Price to be announced.

After having the opportunity to fire a couple of hundred rounds through the Gen II on one of the 200 yard ranges at Gunsite my impression was very good. The Gen II actually felt and looked more like an M4 than an AR10. Recoil was about what you would expect from a .308 AR10 in spite of the reduced size and weight.

Shooting steel plates at 200 yards was actually very easy with the supplied red dot that was mounted on the rifle I shot. It’s certainly more than accurate enough for longer-range hunting. If say you were shooting some of those huge hogs down in Texas you would no doubt drop it in it’s tracks. Between the power and reduced size it’s a good choice for traveling in a truck or other vehicle when you’re getting out of a vehicle to take your shot. The same would apply to climbing in your tree stand.

There you have it another new gun officially announced today by TFB at SHOT 2014!