US military considering swap to Grendel uppers instead of NGSW

[OneHitWonder]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6J0ezdnjrjY

[A5BLASTER]

Looks like that's a old vid. Like a year old are lil more now.

[m796rider]

Yep, 6.8 is the caliber being considered, just have to decide which format of ammo (Sig's steel/brass ammo, GD's polymer cased, etc) and carbine/LMG system.

ETA: That's not 6.8SPC, it's a 6.8mm 115gr bullet traveling at nearly 3000 fps.

[OneHitWonder]

Looks like that's a old vid. Like a year old are lil more now.

Oh crap that was the wrong video. This one is just a few months old.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6J0ezdnjrjY

Yep, 6.8 is the caliber being considered, just have to decide which format of ammo (Sig's steel/brass ammo, GD's polymer cased, etc) and carbine/LMG system.

ETA: That's not 6.8SPC, it's a 6.8mm 115gr bullet traveling at nearly 3000 fps.

They are looking at a M5 designated upper, in 6.5 Grendel. If they get the polymer case thing worked out , it will cut the weight and add range and stopping power.

[lazyengineer]

Interesting. The video itself is... kinda terrible; they're just showing random footage of training with standard 5.56 guns; with a Robot voice talking about options.

Also, I personally think switching out the entire US Military as standard issue, from the 5.56 basis is a pretty bad idea. It's a fairly incremental improvement; for a tremendous effort and expense. For lower capacity guns that will be harder to control in full-auto. Running a Grendel in 3-gun was an eye-opener, that extra movement from that extra recoil can make a difference in just semi-auto mode. The reality is, for the density and size, 5.56 is a remarkably optimized round The power density to size it tough to beat - and particularly the diameter to power balance is outstanding. Having 30 rounds stack into such a small magazine is a remarkable achievement. All while standard 5.56 ammo is launched at well over 1000 ft-lb of energy; which is a lot. I like Grendel better for me personally and for what I do. But changing out the entire military systems to 6.5 Grendel is never going to happen. Compared to 5.56, Grendel isn't as forgiving when it comes to reliable magazines, you can't fit as many in the magazine, the recoil is harsher, and Grendel bolt and extractors are weaker with shorter lifespan.

But who knows - maybe! If they redesigned the upper and bolt to be ever so slightly bigger (without going AR10 style), that would allow building more comparable durability bolts and extractors. Honestly I don't know why they don't. A Grendel bolt is a custom bolt anyway. There's no reason you couldn't just make the barrel extension slightly larger diameter; and the hole in the upper slightly bigger; and then use everything else standard AR15 spec (even the carrier). Though, I guess that means non-standard AR upper (even though it would look indistinguishable if you did it right).

[A5BLASTER]

Oh crap that was the wrong video. This one is just a few months old.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6J0ezdnjrjY

They are looking at a M5 designated upper, in 6.5 Grendel. If they get the polymer case thing worked out , it will cut the weight and add range and stopping power.

Yea that's a click bait vid. None of that stuff is ever going to happen.

[LRRPF52]

All the computer voice videos on YT are click-bait for people who game youtube algorithms so they can get click count up, which in turn gets their ad revenue up.

They take any text and run it through that horrible voice generator, then run stolen/copied footage they've taken from somewhere else to make it look legitimate, and run the video.

I wish there was a way to filter them out of our feed.

[LRRPF52]

Closed due to clickbait youtube video.