*wince*

For the article, go here: Military.com

In a nutshell, some legislative staffers are taking a field trip to Quantico to look at alternatives to the M4/M16.

This appears to me to be a way to set up the government to be more willing to change the AR platform when Colt's contract is up in the summer of 2009. Sadly, I see some problems with what they are doing. First, legislative staffers are not the ones who should make this decision. Second, this appears to be a setup by Remington to sell the 6.8 SPC cartridge. Personally, I think that the 6.8 is ballistically similar to the 7.62soviete round, and unlike the 6.5 (which, yes, I am a fan of) it is a tradeoff for the 5.56, and not an upgrade. That is, the 6.8 sacrifices effective distance for short range performance. The 6.5, OTOH, sacrifices nothing for both an increase in both range and terminal performance across the board.

My great fear is that the problems of the 5.56 and the AR will be solved by replacing it with another marginal round and questionable platform.

I could see the tests being like the sidearm trials where the parameters were set up to rule out the 1911, and make the HK USP the winner.

Why not just admit that they screwed up, and go back to the 1911A1 and M14?

Well, expect to see a lot of jockeying for position by all sorts of firearms manufacturers to get the inside track to replace the colt M4 in 2009.

Colt, btw, deserves to lose the contract for their "we don't sell to civilians" attitude. Same with H&K.

Respectfully Submitted,
-doc Russia