Next up for the Big Freakin’ Cartridge Test is Vympel’s budget 55gr FMJ load in .223 Remington, made in Amursk, Russia. This ammunition features a lacquered steel case, bimetal jacketed 55gr FMJ bullet and purple neck sealant. This is one of my favorite [Read More…]
The first round up of the Big Freakin’ Cartridge Test is IMI’s take on the Black Hill’s classic heavy precision load, Mk. 262. Branded as “77gr Razor Core”, IMI’s version sports annealed 5.56mm NATO cases, neck and primer sealant, and [Read More…]
The first round up for the Big Freakin’ Cartridge Test is IMI’s take on the Black Hill’s classic heavy precision load, Mk. 262. Branded as “77gr Razor Core”, IMI’s version sports annealed 5.56mm NATO cases, neck and primer sealant, [Read More…]
Through the Modern Calibers series of posts, we’ve covered 40 different rifle and pistol calibers, ranging from the diminutive .22 Winchester Magnum to full power calibers like the 7.62x51mm NATO. The series was intended to give readers a baseline picture of how [Read More…]
The United States Marine Corps has finally officially announced its adoption of the 5.56mm M855A1 EPR round, developed in the late 2000s by the US Army, marking an important step towards ammunition commonality between the two services. Until now, the USMC has officially [Read More…]
Is the US Army pushing for a new high-powered 6.Xmm caliber with their new NGSAR program? Recently, the listing for the NGSAR industry day in December was updated with a document describing in part the agenda of the second conference. Scheduled for 9:45 in the morning [Read More…]
Whatever the next infantry small arms configuration is, I hope it does away with the failure that is the belt-fed Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW). Why? Let’s talk about it. On the surface, the idea of augmenting the firepower of a rifle squad with a belt-fed machine [Read More…]
A warning against romanticism in military planning. In the early 1940s, the US Army Air Corps (USAAC) made a fateful decision that would affect the lives of tens of thousands of men over the next decade. Two years prior, the Army had just begun testing her newest [Read More…]
With Level IV armor rising in availability, calls for “overmatch”, and the increased presence of urban warfare, will designers be able to meet the requirements for future small arms? Forumgoer Poliorcetes raised this question in a discussion at the Military [Read More…]
If we can make a round that is significantly better than the existing 5.56mm or 7.62mm ammunition, shouldn’t the military just bite the bullet and switch, to the benefit of the servicemen and women in harm’s way? What’s stopping the powers that be from [Read More…]
The Thales EF88 assault rifle has seen its first operational deployment, and the reception is reportedly very warm. According to an article in Defence Connect, the rifles were deployed with Task Group Taji 5 (5th rotation), a battalion of Australian Defence Force [Read More…]
DefenceWeb recently released a video overview of the new Steyr / Rheinmetall RS-556 assault rifle. The rifle, a sort of hybrid between an AR-15 and a Steyr AUG, was submitted to the Bundeswehr’s System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr trials, competing against both Heckler [Read More…]
Rounding out our coverage of Machinegunapalooza 2017 – by which I mean the numerous machine guns of the 2017 Association of the United States Army annual meeting – we have the IWI Negev (5.56mm) and Negev NG-7 light machine guns. These Israeli belt feds are, [Read More…]
South Korea’s S&T Motiv (formerly Daewoo) have unveiled the next generation of their K2 rifle. Displayed for the first time at the Seoul International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition (ADEX 2017) the K2C-2 is expected to enter production in the 2020s. The K2C-2 is [Read More…]
In the coming decades, it is likely that one of the biggest challenges facing small arms ammunition designers will be solving the problem of how to deal with advanced body armors. The problem is already percolating to the surface, as Level IV body armor – which is [Read More…]
Hartford gunmaker Colt’s Manufacturing has introduced a new carbine model at the 2017 Bahrain International Defence Exhibition & Conference (BIDEC). The weapon, called the M5 Enhanced Carbine, is an AR-15-style rifle fitted with Geissele Super Modular Rail [Read More…]
We have already seen the 6.5mm CT Carbine prototype brought out by Textron for the 2017 Association of the United States Army annual meeting, but TFB also got an up close and personal look at Textron’s cased telescoped machine guns. Textron has two different cased [Read More…]
In examining the future of infantry capability, we must not only be aware of potential technological solutions, but of the need to re-think and re-work what it means to train and prepare troops for future battlefields. At the core of this is the simple matter of man and [Read More…]
The US Army’s new centralized procurement organization has been named: In his address at the Eisenhower Luncheon at the 2017 Association of the United States Army, US Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley announced the creation of a Futures and Modernization [Read More…]
US Army, what on earth are you doing? The US Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley promised that the new Next Generation Individual/Squad Weapon (NGSW/NGIW) program will give a “10 times improvement” in individual small arms capability “over any [Read More…]
Representatives of the German gun manufacturing company Heckler & Koch confirmed today that the company has submitted both the HK416 assault rifle and the new HK433 modular assault rifle to the Bundeswehr’s System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr (SSB) rifle [Read More…]
At the 2017 Association of the US Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting, Textron System displayed for the very first time their firing 6.5mm CT Carbine prototype. Previously, only non-firing mockups had been shown to the public, but after successful tests this summer the real [Read More…]
With the recent push for small arms ammunition with increased range, power and capability, are military customers in danger of being taken for a ride by industry marketeers working to sell rifles in new calibers? Is the primary driving force behind new infantry [Read More…]
After being cancelled in mid-2016, could the M4 Carbine upgrade program still be alive? That is the suggestion from a line in the US Army’s justification for its research budget in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which references an “M4A2 Plus [Read More…]
The G36’s replacement is now known to be one of five guns – or at least that’s the report coming from reputable defense outlet IHS Jane’s. Competing in Germany’s System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr (Bundeswehr Assault Rifle System) will be the [Read More…]
We have just seen the cancellation of the Interim Combat Service Rifle, which gives me a good springboard to talk about marketing. Specifically, we will be discussing a kind of undercover word-of-mouth marketing that I’ve encountered a number of times over the [Read More…]
The US Army’s program to field a new standard-issue 7.62mm caliber rifle is dead in the water, it seems. Multiple anonymous sources have informed TFB that the Interim Combat Service Rifle program has been cancelled as part of a massive review of US Army small [Read More…]
The Springfield Armory SAINT has found considerable attention and buyers in what is a very soft modern sporting rifle market. First, introduced with a Keymod forearm. Then, offered with a free-float M-LOK handguard as to not ignore the M-LOK fan base. Last, but not [Read More…]
Ruger dove into their hat of tricks once again to bring out a more specialized version of their bread ‘n butter AR-15. They have developed the AR-556 MPR (“Multi Purpose Rifle”). The AR-556 MPR has more modern and desirable features such as M-LOK, a [Read More…]
Thales Australia has launched the newest update to its F90 bullpup assault rifle, at DSEI 2017. The weapon, which is the pre-production version of the prototype F90 Export shown off at IDEX 2017, sports a host of improved features versus both the legacy AUG and the [Read More…]
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