"Ideal Military Rifle" 1960 Guns Digest article focusing

This is cool. People bitch at the M14 for being a 2MOA gun today but it's easy to forget what a fucking laser a 2MOA gun was in the 50s.

>>34327654


itt: no one understands accuracy

thanks anon

>>34328469

You're welcome.

Somebody posted an old article the other day and said they wanted to see this one. Just paying it forward.

interesting how much emphasis was placed on weight and the shilling of the m14 as the most accurate military rifle in the world. though that was probably true at that point in time.

>>34327481

Interesting how he notes the EM-2 cartridge was an adequate tradeoff for weight and still goes on to praise the M14's full size cartridge.

>>34328671

I sometimes wonder where we'd be in weapons development if something like the EM-2's cartridge (if not the EM-2 itself) became widely adopted instead of 7.62 NATO.

Would we have seen 7mm AR15's? Without the trials for an 'intermediate' cartridge in the 60's would development of caseless/telescoping ammunition be further ahead/common in use today?

Oooooh what if.

>>34330726

Would the AR15 have ever even come to be had the military adopted an intermediate cartridge in the first place?

With a lighter, more controllable M-14 am not sure a replacement would have been pushed into service as the initial order of M16s were.

>>34331115

The original purpose of the M16, if I'm not mistaken, was simply to replace the M1 carbine as a weapon for guards at air force bases. Colt invited Gen. Curtis LeMay to a demonstration of the system. He was so thrilled with the gun that he tried to rush an order for 80,000 new rifles. While this initial bulk purchase was blocked by Congress, McNamara quickly realized that this new rifle could be manufactured in bulk much more cheaply than M14, so he conspired with LeMay to have it adopted as the new standard infantry rifle.

>>34331189

Truth, but had the M14 been developed in the smaller caliber would they have been looking to use something lighter as an M1 carbine replacement in the first place?

I would imagine the smaller cartridge would have translated into a lighter, cheaper (slightly) M14.

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>>34330726
>>34331115
We would have seen AR-10's rechambered for the new cartridge. What would be interesting is with the M14 having to be redesigned for a proper intermediate round would have probably given more time for armalite and FN to fine tune there rifles meaning theres a chance, albeit small that the M14 never gets adopted. And in such a timeline the AR-15 is never made. An interesting thought experiment to say the least

>>34330726
>>34332098
.280 is a dead end, the Soviets would have come up with the 5.45 and NATO would have shit itself.

>>34332131
You mean the round they've all but begun to abandon? The US is looking into ammo that looks a hell of a lot like .280 as it is. I say we would have gotten it right the first go around if we had adopted .280. Supposedly the ballistics weren't great at long range, but we would have much, MUCH more room to fix that via projectile design than we do with 5.56 and we got that working decently, but we can't squeeze much more out of it.

>>34327525
>wanting to get rid of 45ACP

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>34332186
It's a silly round.

>>34332172
>Russia abandons 5.45
No.
>US Military moving to 6mm
No.

Thank you OP.

>>34332131
not likely, 5.45 was an intentional copy/upgrade/sidegrade of 5.56. I don't think they would have thought it up themselves.

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>>34332172

>You mean the round they've all but begun to abandon?

Where? Yeah, they experiment with new cartridges every now and then, but the end, the result is always the same. They aren't going to invent anything new that is so superior to 5.56 that it justifies the cost of replacement. It's simple physics. A larger round means that each individual soldier has less ammunition. Less ammo per soldier means a lower volume of fire can be achieved. A lower volume of fire means that fewer bad guys are getting shot. There is absolutely no way to overcome this immutable fact.

>but muh stopping power

If somebody doesn't go down after the first shot, guess what? There is a simple, but highly effective solution. Shoot them again. Having a larger supply of rounds allows you to do that, and it works very well.