Dutch special forces to buy carbines chambered in 300 BLK. Robert McNamara is still dead (but the 5.56 goes marching on).
The Netherlands Maritime Special Operations Force (NL-MARSOF) are planning to purchase a new carbine chambered in the non-NATO standard 7.62x35 mm (300 BLK), with a formal tender being launched by the Netherlands' Defence Material Organisation. The tender is the first publicly known tender for the purchase of a 7.62x35 mm chambered rifle by any military. In total, the Dutch naval commandos are looking to buy 195 select-fire carbines and 1.82 million 7.62x35 mm cartridges (1,345,000 ball, 244,000 subsonic, and 231,000 lead free frangible).
Back when I was well enough to pick up brass, I was encountering many more 300 AAC Blackouts laying on the ground than before. It does seem to be gaining in popularity, despite its cost and the reason lies in its terminal ballistics, I think. This is what I was getting at when I described the upgrade of the current M-4 as "lipstick on a pig." The 5.56 does not seem to me to be the best infantry cartridge we could field. It never has. It is, thanks to Robert McNamara and the dead hand of the Army procurement system, what we still have. (I also have never liked the gas system of the AR, since it craps where it eats, making fanatical cleaning an absolute priority.)
6 comments:
I love that old BS line about needing to constantly clean the AR because it "craps where it eats". Nonsense. I'll skip rehashing the long arguments that everyone who cares has already heard and just say that I'm an incredibly lazy gun owner. I clean most of my rifles every couple of trips to the range, and by "clean" I mean run a bore snake through it twice and wipe off whatever I can reach without disassembly. My ARs all run like Swiss watches. As an experiment I allowed one of my ARs (a lightweight build which I run 3-gun and other matches with) go all season without any real cleaning. In fairness, this unit has a nickel boron coated BCG. Over 2,000 rounds later it was doing just fine. I finally gave it a good cleaning because I was in a wet, muddy match and everything I owned was a soaked and gritty mess. Even I couldn't justify putting a rifle away like that.
Anyone who wants to be shot with 5.56 please raise your hands!
Must run rifle wet. If not, change to gas piston. Problem solved, next.
Mark lll - won't confirm nor deny your experience, suffice it to say lots of those alleged problems due to not cleaning were early field models............
Anon @ 1109, perhaps you should have said anyone who wants to be shot raise your hands. I'm certainly not volunteering - for any caliber.
Which brings me to: not being a reloader, is there a significant difference between the 7.62X35 (.300 Blackout apparently) and 7/62X39? Evidently there must be since the former seems to be a more preferred round than that rooshun one...........Mile, perhaps you should have someone do an article on the pros and cons, might make a difference in choice for prospective buyers, especially due to the latter round being much easier to acquire.
If you are going to cuss McNamara, cuss MacArthur while you’re at it. If he hadn’t insisted on the M1 being re-chambered to 30-’06 because of his precious stocks of ammunition (which were depleted within 6 weeks to 6 months in 1942, depending on how you count), .276 Pedersen would be THE American cartridge, even today. The M1 would have been lighter, even with two more bangs in the en bloc, and easier for all sizes of GIs to manage. The M14 would have hung on a lot longer, and the move to a lightweight rifle in the 60’s would have kept the .276.
4120 rounds thru an AR and has not YET been cleaned other than a wipe down and punch the bore...the secret to running an AR is keep it hot and wet...like a 17 year old cheerleader after homecoming...it'll keep on running like a timex...
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