Marine Corps Leaves M249 SAW for M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle.

[ChuckMK23]

Great article on Military dot com.....looks like its a go that The Marine Corps will replace the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon with the more accurate and reliable M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle.

Link here:

http://www.military.com/news/article/corps-to-replace-saw-with-automatic-rifle.html

 

[Jim123]

"The M27 uses a short-stroke gas piston, which proved more reliable than the M16/M4's direct gas system in an Army dust test in late 2007."

<sigh> Just that by itself is gonna make a lot of people happy.

The second-to-last paragraph describes "about" 22x standard 30-round magazines for a basic load. Compared to three cans of belted ammo I can see some obvious pluses and minuses here. I've never done anything with Marine grunts, just with Army grunts and even then I mostly stayed out of the way. Anybody opinions?

 

[Gatordev]

"The M27 uses a short-stroke gas piston, which proved more reliable than the M16/M4's direct gas system in an Army dust test in late 2007."

<sigh> Just that by itself is gonna make a lot of people happy.

There's a lot of opinions and A LOT of noise on some gun forums about DI vs piston guns for the AR/M-16. Much of the noise is the people parrotting the people with the opinions. In that "dust test," much was made about how "bad" DI was but it seemed to be a lot of marketing, as well, mostly by H&K.

I have no dog in the fight. I'm about to finish building a piston gun and I'm curious to see how it compares, but I don't plan on living in the desert or kicking doors in to find out.

 

[Bevo16]

Volume of fire is the big issue with this weapon. M-4's/M-16's are not intended to be operated as fully automatic machine guns for hundreds of rounds at a time, the M-249 SAW was intended for just that purpose. The piston action will keep less heat and fouling out of the action, so that will be a plus. The 30 round magazine limitation has to be considered a drawback.

Hell, maybe we will get lucky and the Corps will adopt a 100/200 round drum mags, and they will eventually find their way into the surplus market at more reasonable prices.

 

[Fog]

Uninformed question: Why does the U.S. military continue buying these .223 cal. guns (w/ 55grain bullets) when they very obviously do not have the stopping power of larger calibers? I would only hunt coyotes w/ a .223, so why does our military hunt humans w/ such a light round? We don't need to return to the 150 grain 30-'06, but why not a 7mm-'08, a .260 REM or a .243 Win. at the very least?

 

[ryan1234]

Volume of fire is the big issue with this weapon. M-4's/M-16's are not intended to be operated as fully automatic machine guns for hundreds of rounds at a time, the M-249 SAW was intended for just that purpose. The piston action will keep less heat and fouling out of the action, so that will be a plus. The 30 round magazine limitation has to be considered a drawback.

Hell, maybe we will get lucky and the Corps will adopt a 100/200 round drum mags, and they will eventually find their way into the surplus market at more reasonable prices.

What do you think the long term reliability is of a 100/200 round magazine versus a belt fed box?

 

[Gatordev]

Hell, maybe we will get lucky and the Corps will adopt a 100/200 round drum mags, and they will eventually find their way into the surplus market at more reasonable prices.

Surefire has new 60 and 100 (I think) round mags for the AR platform. They're even in the various military "catalogs" that float around commands. You make a good point about the piston/auto fire thing though.

Uninformed question: Why does the U.S. military continue buying these .223 cal. guns (w/ 55grain bullets) when they very obviously do not have the stopping power of larger calibers? I would only hunt coyotes w/ a .223, so why does our military hunt humans w/ such a light round? We don't need to return to the 150 grain 30-'06, but why not a 7mm-'08, a .260 REM or a .243 Win. at the very least?

I may very well be mistaken, but I believe the standard issue ammo "over there" is 62 gr M855 penetrator ammo. Still 5.56, and I'll let people with more knowledge than me (which is minimal) comment on that.

 

[pourts]

Uninformed question: Why does the U.S. military continue buying these .223 cal. guns (w/ 55grain bullets) when they very obviously do not have the stopping power of larger calibers? I would only hunt coyotes w/ a .223, so why does our military hunt humans w/ such a light round? We don't need to return to the 150 grain 30-'06, but why not a 7mm-'08, a .260 REM or a .243 Win. at the very least?

You can carry more rounds for the same weight. Since the SAW and now this weapon are merely fire support for the squad, in my non-grunt opinion 5.56 is good enough. No need for a m240G for 12 dudes.

 

[squeeze]

I may very well be mistaken, but I believe the standard issue ammo "over there" is 62 gr M855 penetrator ammo. Still 5.56, and I'll let people with more knowledge than me (which is minimal) comment on that.

MK262 Mod 1 77gr BTHP is the ammo du jour in theater.

 

[FMRAM]

Fast mag change skills will be at a premium. I had read somewhere that the M27 design would be able to switch between open bolt and closed bolt. Anyone know if that's the case with the final product?

 

[statesman]

.308 is way to heavy... arguments have been made against 5.56

There has been talk about 6.8 SPC which might still happen, but the Army will have to adopt a new service rifle before a major caliber change will occur.

Either way I think this trend suggests that Stoner's design will still dominate the American military for years to come. HK, Barrett, etc have all come out with M16 / M4 replacement options based on the Stoner design. Both SSP as opposed to DI, but still very much the same design.

 

[Bevo16]

MK262 Mod 1 77gr BTHP is the ammo du jour in theater.

Only gotta kill 'em once.

 

[Gatordev]

MK262 Mod 1 77gr BTHP is the ammo du jour in theater.

Wow, pricey. Thanks for the correction. That's what I get for reading the internet.

 

[Junkball]

I think the adoption of the M27 as a SAW supplement was the USMC's roundabout way of fielding the carbine they wanted, HK416, without calling it a spade. That view has been echoed here, and elsewhere.
Note that SAW will still be available at the platoon level.


"But accuracy seems to be the key to the M27's effectiveness, Clark said. The auto rifle is already showing signs that it could to be twice as accurate as the Marine M16A4." (from the military.com article)

I don't really see how this could be accurate, as they are comparing a rifle with a 20" barrel to a carbine with a 16.5" barrel, the only real difference being the gas system. The acceptance standard for the M16 is supposedly 4-6 MOA or something along those lines, and the -416 is supposed to be capable of 1-2 MOA (according to HK), but one would have to think that in practice, the rifle would have the advantage.

 

[Sapper!]

Surefire has new 60 and 100 (I think) round mags for the AR platform. They're even in the various military "catalogs" that float around commands. You make a good point about the piston/auto fire thing though.



I may very well be mistaken, but I believe the standard issue ammo "over there" is 62 gr M855 penetrator ammo. Still 5.56, and I'll let people with more knowledge than me (which is minimal) comment on that.

My last deployment we got no 62 green tip stuff at all. Standard ball ammo, I had some loads I made up before hand that I worked up for a NATO chamber, did them with 69 hornadys and it was the tits shooting out past 300m. Also had to field my own ACOG out there as we only had 4 in theatre issued. Kind of a joke really. The upside of being a combat engineer was having plenty of bang to haul around. Either way our standard load out was having a PAIR of M240B for every squad. Any terrain we were in there was one with each of my fire teams.

OIF 2004 we got the 62 grain stuff though. It didn't make much difference there as I was with TF Baghdad and anytime a fire fight broke out the trucks were nearby with M240s. They'd rock out while we got cover. Sadly, my brand new model out of the box took a round right through the gas chamber while I was returning fire and I got a clapped out model. As well as my M4 taking a beating and I swapped out for the A2 by FN. Which I must also say was much more accurate with a full length barrell. Or at least I seemed to stay on target better because the front sight blade was much more narrow looking down the A2, could have been mental.

I can't say enough about having a larger round available. For instance I had to stop a car after an IED strike that was about 600m out, piece of cake with the M240. Saw a guy try to do the same with a M249 and he accidentally shot the guy standing about 10 m to the side.

When I was up in the valley in OEF the SDMs were getting a 7.62 AR variant issued out. Later on down in RC south saw quite a few marines toting M14s as well. 04 OIF army was giving one to each platoon as well but I'm sure we couldn't wield them nearly as well as those Marines. The few I saw shoot were some dead eyes. My point is there is definitely a NEED for a large caliber weapon for both suppression and accuracy.

FWIW from reading about the M27 I think it will be a great rifle and it seems to fit the bill replacing the M249 nicely.

Preparing to be corrected by Statesman now!! Just kidding man...but I know you'll have some good input on the caliber issue.