Daily Kos.

The US army has adopted a new more modern and advanced assault rifle (I know gun nuts HATE that term!) to replace the half century old M 16 5.56mm design.

It fires a 6.8mm round csllef a.277 Fury designed to be much longer ranged, more powerful and capable of penetrating current issue standard military body armor at up to possibly 500 meters.

The new rifle itself is currently known as the XM5, soon be be shortened to M5, or “spear” and is designed to be extremely accurate at much longer ranges than any current assault rifle. With a good scope, say about 6-8x, it is purported to be able to hit a man sized target at 800, possibly 900, meters.

As with the M16 it replaces there will be a ‘civilian version’ of the M5 made available, along with its new ammo, tho at least the civilian version of the ammo will be a little weaker as the military version requires a special bi metal casing to withstand the pressures the new round requires to meet its military specs. The military round supposedly has a muzzle velocity of 3000 fps, the civilian version has a velocity of 2750 fps, about 11/12 the velocity of the military version.

Soon gunstores across america will be selling a military designed and styled assault weapon (Scream, gun nuts, scream!) that even as a civilian version will be more powerful than police and even national guard weapons, plus longer ranged and able to defeat police and national guard body armor at hundreds of meters range, and accurate enough to hit targets reliable at that range with the addition of an easily available scope the rifle has a mount to take.

While the AR 15, the civilian version of the M16, has reigned supreme as the weapon of choice for mass shooters for years, the new M5 civilian version is likely to give it some competition due to its greater power and lethality. Fewer people hit by one will survive, making it a preferred weapon for the mass shooter looking to set a record.

Of course it will be more expensive, at least at first, so the budget constrained mass murderer will still be stuck with the AR 15 as a preferred weapon. Then again at close range the AR15 will still be as effective as before.

The release of this new weapon could hardly come at a worse time as America faces a rising tide of aspiring fascists seeking to overthrow democracy and replace it with an cult of personality dictatorship. Making a weapon available to them that can be used effectively as both a close in assault weapon or an effective sniping weapon is all too likely to embolden budding “Earl Turners” into making attacks not just on crowds of people but LEOs as well. As a sniper weapon this would vastly outperform the 5.56mm rifle used by the beltway sniper in all respects.

I can only imagine the MAGA crowd saving up and drooling to get their hands on the civilian version of the M5 Spear and the 277 fury ammo.

What a silly and juvenile commentary.  It reads like a bad press release for the Sig rifle.  We’ve covered it before.

Meh.  Whatever.  Let it go through a half century of testing in deserts and jungles before I’ll comment on it.  Eugene Stoner rules.

Now.  As for the gun and what they think about it, the commentary reads like there was nothing available before this.  For instance, there was no such thing as a Savage AR-10 shooting 6.5 Creedmoor or a S&W AR-10 shooting .308.

The gun will have its drawbacks and downsides.  It’s a new high pressure cartridge design.  The higher pressures risk throat burnout and decrease in barrel life.  It’s heavier than the AR-15.  The shooter can carry less ammunition.  It’s bulkier.  No one will carry it into the woods or prairies to hunt with it in lieu of a bolt action rifle, especially when the better rifle manufacturers are looking for ways to cut weight such as carbon fiber barrels.  And finally, it won’t have the accuracy to hunt or do long range precision shooting.

I predict its market will be limited, but either way, if you wanted this sort of thing, you could have had it ever since Stoner designed his AR-10 before he ever designed the AR-15.

In a way it’s a good thing that collectivists are such awful gun writers.  They have no idea what they’re talking about, that that works to our advantage.