#7.62X51

Geissele has taken the step from manufacturing accessories, to making the guns themselves: The company released its new VSASS semiautomatic sniper rifle system at the Modern Day Marine 2017 industry demonstration. News of the new rifle was first broken by Soldier Systems Daily, via an article available at this link. The VSASS (which stands for Very-long-range Semi-Automatic Sniper System) is a Stoner-type direct gas impingement system built from the ground up by Geissele, utilizing very few off-the-shelf components. It sports a number of refinements, including an extended length barrel extension, hardened steel cam pin raceway, cobalt alloy cam pin, and other improvements to the operating group. Many internal surfaces are coated in the durable solid lubricant by Nano Composite Coatings, which appears to be owned by Bill Geissele. The VSASS uses SR-25 magazines, as well as Geissele’s SSA-E trigger. It weighs 12.3 pounds unloaded and without optic, according to the Soldier Systems article, with variants chambered for .260 Remington, 6.5 Creedmoor, and 7.62x51mm NATO.

Kalashnikov Concern recently released a new English language video regarding their PL-15K compact pistol, MP-444 pistol, AM-17 and AMB-17 compact assault rifles, and SVCh semiautomatic sniper rifle. By way of a walkthrough from Kalashnikov Concern technical consultant Vladimir Onokoy, the video offers English speakers an important look at the technical features of the new weapons, which were until now something of a mystery to those on this side of the language barrier. The video is embedded below, followed by a written summary:

The day many of you have been waiting for has come (and gone): The Desert Tech MDR has finally been released to the US consumer marlet after more than four years of development. Desert Tech announced the gun’s official release in a monthly update on their website, citing the first delivery of the rifle made on July 21st:

Yes, the M4 Carbine will be replaced by a 7.62mm Interim Combat Service Rifle, and also no it won’t. Ah, I see I need to explain.

This is a guest post by Zain from Pakistan

IWI US just posted this on their Facebook page.

Back in January, I wrote about the new Stag 10 and 10S rifles that were introduced by Stag Arms. These guns are .308 Win/7.62×51 chambered rifles using the semi-automatic AR-style platform. Since that time, the company released additional information and specifications on the rifles. The following details are the most current information on the guns.

World War II, as the name implies, was a tremendous conflict with gigantic leaps forward in both technologies and the tactics that went along with them. As a result of the conflict, infantry-troops carried, shoulder-fired semi-automatic firearms became the norm, first inspired by the fielding of the Garand and later perfected by the Nazis and Soviets.

This looks like a whole lot of fun to shoot. It is based off of the G3 rifle and made select fire and belt fed. It can use an adapter to allow the use of G3 magazines or drums. This one looks to be an H&K 21 chambered in 7.62x51mm. There are other versions in 5.56x45mm and 12.7×99 aka .50bmg. I can’t imagine a .50bmg belt fed H&K 25. That seems monstrous. The rate of fire for .308 is only about 800 rounds/min where the .50bmg is 450 rounds/min.

The frothing, boiling cauldron that is India’s collective rifle development and procurement entities has shifted again. Just two weeks ago, we reported to you that India had restarted its search for a 7.62x51mm foreign assault rifle to replace the INSAS. Now, we learn from IHS Jane’s that the Excalibur rifle – an improved INSAS – is slated to be adopted as an interim measure, while a new 7.62x39mm rifle (with 5.56mm conversion kit!) is to be sought from foreign manufacturers.

It feels like déjà vu: India has once again issued a Request For Information (RFI) for a new rifle, this time in 7.62x51mm NATO caliber. The RFI was reportedly issued on the 27th of September, making it two and a half months between the nation’s government announcing they were preparing the document, and actually issuing it. DefenseWorld reports on the RFI’s contents:

Kalashnikov Concern’s newest weapon releases have received quite a lot of attention since they were first shown off at the ARMY 2016 military and technology forum in Moscow, and as the conference winds down, I want to take a more thorough pass through four of these new products from the company. Since we published announcements for three of these new weapons, Maxim Popenker, gun expert and TFB contributor, has published more detailed descriptions of the RPK-16, MA, and SVK rifles on his website, Modern Firearms. Let’s take a look at what he has to teach us about these new weapons:

Often overlooked due to its smaller-caliber sibling, the original AR-10 was a fantastic weapon systems. In fact, if not for the thin barrel (later fixed), it may have likely supplanted the M14 within the US arsenal. For better or worse, it did not come to pass.

Shouldn’t “Modern Full Power Calibers” be its own series? No, because then there would only be two episodes! So instead, we’re rolling today’s two most popular full power .30 cal rounds into the series on intermediates, primarily as comparison pieces. There are really two pieces of information I want to disseminate with this, which are the answers to “how do these full power rounds compare with intermediate calibers?” and “how do they compare against each other?”

Previously, courtesy of The Wound Channel we got our first looks at the stellar ballistics of the 7.62mm M80A1 EPR round, which proved to combine excellent fragmentation with good armor penetration and barrier blind characteristics, while being extremely consistent. Now, TFB has received ten M80A1 cartridges, so I decided to dissect one of them to take measurements of the new round and its 130gr EPR projectile.