The Marine Corps has a revolutionary cartridge sitting right in front of them waiting for them to scoop it up and they haven't done it yet. The same critique applies to SOCOM, SWAT Teams nationwide and the bad boys in the FBI, CIA and the other gun groups.
Why hasn't anyone adopted the 300 Black in the 115 grain for their service rifles?
It hits harder than an AK, is just as accurate as the 5.56 and you basically have a new harder hitting weapon that has the exact same manual of arms and operating features as your legacy weapon. The Marine Corps Marksmanship Unit and the Marine Corps Gunners should study the possibility and determine whether it's cost effective/is an actual improvement over the long serving 5.56. I think they'll be pleasantly surprised.
Sidenote: SOCOM/MARSOC should be all over the suppressed version of this round.
Why not? Because it would cost a fortune to replace the 5.56. While we would see it as money well spent politicians won't. Further putting the enemy physically down is less important in modern doctrine than keeping their heads down (in one place) so they can be killed by HE from above. In Afghanistan our army has been using 81mm to devastating effect. Marksmanship is less important than being able to throw as much lead into one small area. Just can't see it happening. One final thought. For every soldier or marine who is a firearms connoisseur there are a dozen who see their rifle in the same light a plumber views his wrench. That is to say we firearms bods who have interest in such things see too much and have too much knowledge.
ReplyDeleteyou're probably right but all it would take is some bubba from SOCOM/MARSOC/RANGER/SF to get his unit to take the plunge and everyone would be on board. hell they'd probably fight each other over who came up with the idea first.
Deleteyour point about supporting arms being extremely effective is spot on, but the future fight that i think is coming will negate the advantage that we have....between the fog, rain and jungle canopy grunts might not have as good a fire support as they do today.
BC is not so high as, say, 6.5 grendel or 6.5x40 Lapua. I believe that the main issue related with caliber change is taking advantage of modern and future optics, not only by specialist but by every rifleman at the squad
ReplyDeleteevery rifleman in our forces has optics...the only remaining issues surround caliber and issuing silencers to everyone.
Deletei prefer the 300 blk because we won't have to change much on th basic weapon as a matter of fact all we have to do is buy a bunch of uppers and we're set. can't do that with the others.
Why we won't change.
ReplyDeleteThe 300 Blackout is fundamentally not a more lethal option from 0 to 600 meters. This is the same argument that keeps the 6.8 SPC from being anything other than a SOCOM nitch cartridge (and the 6.8 has pretty damn good ballistics as well).
That the 300 BLK (or 6.8 SPC or 6.5 Grendel) is more lethal over a portion of that range is really the argument for widespread adoption. With the 6.5 and 6.8 option you lose rounds per magazine. With the 300 BLK you lose ballistics beyond 300 meters (which the USMC worked really hard to put into the M16A2 with that 1:7 twist barrel).
Right now the juice isn't worth the squeeze to change to a new round and maintain the same weapons platform.
wow. i missed something because i thought it was more lethal between zero to six and i specified the 115 grain offering because its ballistics matched ..definitely time to check my tables! my understanding is that everyone is running it in SBR form and that's why the performance lacks at longer ranges. in a standard rifle i really thought it matched up.
DeleteNope .300BLK is short ranged and maxes out even before 300m ,an attempt to replicate 7.62x39 balistics out of .223 case .Also aimed at subsonic loads.
DeleteCalibre itself seems not to be too accurate so Savage arms stoped devepoment as they couldn't make their guns shoot.
Ironicaly 7.65x39 case trough .222 russian in a granddad of worlds most accurate round 6PPC
you lose number of rounds carried if you use the other wildcats. my issue is that the 300 blk out perform in a real battle rifle. not an SBR but a battle rifle and 115 grains should see it effective out to longer ranges...600 should be doable and it will certainly deliver more than the 5.56 at that distance.
DeleteThe biggest problems with our service rifle is low reliability and durability. The 300blk, and 6.8 do not solve this problem because they still use more or less the same cartridge, and use the same jam prone magazines. XM8 cut jams in half by using its own unique designed magazine alone.
ReplyDeleteWhat is really needed is an entirely new designed everything. New cartridge, new bullet, new magazine, new rifle and the Army is working on developing just that with the LSAT weapons using the plastic case cartridge or case-less.
Unfortunately it has been about 2 years away from production for the last 4 years and continues to stay at almost production ready but not quite. I am not holding my breath.
Long story short in the finest tradition of us government procurement we are holding out for the "revolutionary" improvement of the future over the evolutionary improvements right in front of our faces.
yeah unfortunately you're right about weapons development but that's why i'm putting forward the 300 black....
Deletequestion, i thought the reliability issue was solved when the govt copied magpuls follower design...
forget 300 black lets switch the marines to scar17's and mk48s with 175 grain Ap ammo
ReplyDeleteThank you
i would go with that but i'd prefer that it stay with in the construct of the AR platform. besides being but ugly, besides me not being sure that u wouldn't have to redo MCMAP for use with the SCAR, i also wonder what that will do to the soldiers load.
Delete7.62 rounds are heavy!
Why? 6.8 Remington SPC makes more sense for ranged engagements. However, we could just go with the MK.17s and be done with it. Big, harder hitting round, better range and it comes as a family plan with the MK.20 SSR and hot-swaps barrels.
ReplyDeleteWe just need to go back to using Battle Rifles or upgrade carbines with heavier rounds.
hey gents...cost is a factor too. having to buy only upper on our weapons is an advantage and we're not looking at the range issue properly in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteeveryone SBRs the 300 blk and they always use that shortened platform as the standard when comparing it to the 5.56. thats wrong. a 115 grain fired out of a 16 or 20 inch barrel will deliver what we need.
5.56x45 as a base cartridge is more or less a dead end trying to develop a new larger caliber out of it is more or less futile nothing great outside varmint hunting .17-.22cal ever evolved out of it.
ReplyDelete7.62x39 case on the other hand has huge development potential and also spawned a number of wildcats in .22 (.224 Ar),6mm(6PPC,6mmAR) ,6.5mm(6.5Grendel) ,.30cal (30PPC) all of them considered superbly accurate and in case of .22 ,6mm and 6.5mm also long ranged rivaling 7.62x51 and importantly all fit standard 5.56x45 magazine lenght.
Solomon, the 115gr pill can be expected to do a solid 2400 to 2450 fps from a 16 to 20" barrel. This is well below the "fragmentation" velocity of 2700 fps for 5.56 ammo to act as frangible in human flesh. Since the military is limited to FMJ (save for those special units that aren't) the wound channel would be a straight 30 cal hole. Similar in lethality to the old M1 carbine. As Dr. Martin Fackler concluded, the temporary wound cavity doesn't mean much at all when it comes to lethality, it is all about the permanent wound cavity.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes right down to it, the blackout with a 123gr bullet has the same muzzle energy as the 6.8 SPC with a 115gr bullet. Dropping the weight down in the blackout will increase velocity (and therefore energy) but it will also shed energy more quickly.
Beyond the fragmentation range of the bullets, the larger diameter blackout bullet will make a wider wound channel until it stops. The low BC of the bullet means it will shed energy and have more drop faster than the 5.56 rounds that are in use.
I ran some numbers, a 110gr Sierra pro hunter FMJ at 2450 fps muzzle will have 1489 ft/lbs of energy at the muzzle. And only 158 ft/lbs of energy at 600 meters. A 77gr SMK (cannelured) with a muzzle velocity of 2750 will have 304 ft/lbs energy remaining, in a bullet with a much better sectional density for penetration (even the HPBT acts as an FMJ at that distance due to not having enough velocity to fragment).
The real problem is the M16 platform. You can only wring so much performance out of cartridges that short. The most "lethal" I've seen pushed from the AR-15 magwell is the 30 Olympic Super Short Magnum, which duplicates 308/30-06 ballistics, but at the cost of reduced ammunition in the magazine. You could design new mags go to with the new round to fix that issue (a relatively cheap solution, mags have a limited lifespan anyways).
Everyone wants a more lethal round, but I think that a new round without a new rifle is only going to give us another set of compromises to bitch about.
ok...i'm tapping out. i get it...i'm gonna have to google that olympic super short magnum though...
Deletemy thing is i put some 300blk into a big ass wild pig and was beyond impressed with the result...it dropped the beast like it was piglet and it was good sized (not a monster but he wasn't missing any meals)...
New cartidge based on .30 Rem brass (same as 6.8spc)
ReplyDelete7x44mm 130gr SMK bullet
14 in ARMY CARBINE
yds fps ft lbs
0 2375 1628
100 2185 1378
200 1999 1153
300 1829 965
400 1665 800
22 in USMC RIFLE
yds fps ft lbs
0 2650 2027
100 2440 1718
200 2240 1448
300 2050 1213
400 1875 1014
500 1705 839
600 1550 693
700 1410 573
800 1280 472
900 1150 381