Surefire offers 60 & 100 round M-16/AR-15 mags

[Ought Six]

http://www.downrange.tv/blog/new-sur...n-combat/7639/

[Brihard]

The 60 I could see- the 100, not so much. I'd be nervous of a magazine that increases the height of my weapon that much. Higher profile in the prone position. And anyone who needs a hundred rounds of sustained fire should probably be carrying something open bolt belt fed anyway.

I'll be curious to see some 'torture test' reports on these mags. I'm also curious how the quad stack mechanism works...

[Ought Six]

I believe the 100-round mag is intended for use with the Marine Corps' new Infantry Automatic Rifle, not for M4s or M16s.

A drawing of the internals:




It is one big, bulky sucker.

[Brihard]

Absolutely ridiculous size on that thing. No way.

I'm not a fan of the IAR program. My understanding is that it's intended to *replace* the M249 at squad level in the Marines, sucking the M249s up to company level as a company asset. That's a huge mistake in my mind- no IAR can match the power of a proper LMG, and a rifle squad has a small enough footprint as is. As a section commander I always use my LMG gunners as the bulwarks of my defense, covering my most essential arcs, with my rifles arrayed around as protection. My defensive disposition generally hinges on the ability of those LMGs to not only engage with direct fire, but to suppress an enemy.

It's telling, to me, that the British have already tried the IAR thing. They used the L86 LSW as a mag fed automatic weapon in their infantry sections. Canada, prior to adopting the M16 FOW, had two variants of the FAL, one of which did the same thing- mag fed automatic fire. Both Canada and, much more recently, the Brits shifted away from the LSW/IAR concept in favour of the FN Minimi as a section level LMG. I think it will be a mistake for the Marine Corps to ignore this wisdom and abandon having an LMG at fireteam level. I get the concerns about mobility, weight, etc- but having a weapon that can throw down a considerable weight of automatic fire isn't a 'nice to have', in my mind- it's a necessity. With that comes the need for a quick change barrel and an open bolt.

Back to the Surefire mags- I'll give them credit, it's a neat mechanism. Pretty simple too. I'm curious how quickly it can be disassembled and reassembled in case of an internal jam though.

[Ought Six]

Bri:

"I'm not a fan of the IAR program. My understanding is that it's intended to *replace* the M249 at squad level in the Marines, sucking the M249s up to company level as a company asset."

I have been following the M27 IAR versus M249 debate on a military forum, and I think this is not the case.

As I am sure you are aware, a U.S. Marine squad consists of a squad leader and three four-man fire teams, for a total of 13 Marines. Each fire team consists of a SAW gunner with an M249, a grenadier with an M203, and two riflemen with M16s. The M27 will replace one or two of the M249s, leaving a mix of either one M249 and two M27s or two M249s and one M27.

The M27 is considerably lighter, quicker to deploy and more accurate than the M249. For assaulting elements, its mobility and ability to be able to work in tighter quarters is considered an asset. Also, its accuracy makes it more able to suppress a point target, such as a sniper in a window. Meanwhile, the M249 is still available for serious area suppression or sustained support fire. The M27 is also expected to provide Marine recon teams with lighter, more portable firepower.

While the 100 round Surefire mag is certainly long and bulky, its competition is the Beta C-Mag 100 round double drum. I would say that the Surefire mag is no more clumsy than the Beta mag.

Beta C-Mag 100 round drum

There is also some speculation that the Marines pushed through the IAR concept with H&K 416 in mind as the winner of the competition from the beginning for other reasons. The M27 is a heavy-barreled version of the H&K 416, which has a short-stroke gas piston action similar to the AK47. The Marines have long sought to dump the direct gas impingement system the M16 uses due to reliability issues and the difficulty of cleaning the gas tube in the field. Once they have the M27 fielded, they will have a far stronger case for replacing all of their M16s and M4s with variants of the H&K 416. This may well be the true ultimate goal behind the IAR program.

[dharma]

Does it fire from an open bolt? Wouldn't cookoffs be a problem? That's not a very heavy barrel, either; how is it going to hold up under sustained fire? Why not just use the old Colt LMG design?

[Ought Six]

dh:

"Does it fire from an open bolt?"

No.
----------

"Wouldn't cookoffs be a problem?"

Yes, potentially, though the Marines are better at teaching fire discipline than the other branches.
----------

"That's not a very heavy barrel, either; how is it going to hold up under sustained fire?"

The M27 is designed for short bursts of heavy volume fire, not the kind of sustained fire an interchangeable-barrel SAW can maintain.
----------

"Why not just use the old Colt LMG design? "

I assume you mean the CMG-2 (the gas piston version). It was not very reliable and generally fared poorly in testing, which is why the SEALs chose the Stoner 63 over the Colt CMG-2.

My guess is that the IAR concept had to be different enough to get past the military bureaucracy. After all, a belt-fed variant of the M16 would just be another SAW, and the military does not want to field two different SAWs. The IAR, on the other hand, could be sold as a different type of weapons system to fill a different role, and thus could be allowed to coexist with the M249.

My personal opinion is that the M16 gas impingement system, the M249 and the 5.56 NATO cartridge all are poor choices that we have managed to make work marginally well with enough tuning and tweaking. I would like to see a gas piston infantry rifle and carbine (the H&K 416 is not a bad choice), a cartridge with the ballistics of the 6.5mm Grendel but the ability to work with existing M16 mags & boltfaces, and the CIS Ultimax 100 Mk. 4 LMG for our SAW (which is serving Singapore's military quite well). But hey, I am just an armchair general, so what the hell do I know?

[Brihard]

Originally Posted by Ought Six

Bri:I have been following the M27 IAR versus M249 debate on a military forum, and I think this is not the case.

As I am sure you are aware, a U.S. Marine squad consists of a squad leader and three four-man fire teams, for a total of 13 Marines. Each fire team consists of a SAW gunner with an M249, a grenadier with an M203, and two riflemen with M16s. The M27 will replace one or two of the M249s, leaving a mix of either one M249 and two M27s or two M249s and one M27.

The M27 is considerably lighter, quicker to deploy and more accurate than the M249. For assaulting elements, its mobility and ability to be able to work in tighter quarters is considered an asset. Also, its accuracy makes it more able to suppress a point target, such as a sniper in a window. Meanwhile, the M249 is still available for serious area suppression or sustained support fire. The M27 is also expected to provide Marine recon teams with lighter, more portable firepower.

While the 100 round Surefire mag is certainly long and bulky, its competition is the Beta C-Mag 100 round double drum. I would say that the Surefire mag is no more clumsy than the Beta mag.

Beta C-Mag 100 round drum

There is also some speculation that the Marines pushed through the IAR concept with H&K 416 in mind as the winner of the competition from the beginning for other reasons. The M27 is a heavy-barreled version of the H&K 416, which has a short-stroke gas piston action similar to the AK47. The Marines have long sought to dump the direct gas impingement system the M16 uses due to reliability issues and the difficulty of cleaning the gas tube in the field. Once they have the M27 fielded, they will have a far stronger case for replacing all of their M16s and M4s with variants of the H&K 416. This may well be the true ultimate goal behind the IAR program.

I'm not sure just how heavy or slow to deploy you consider an M249 to be. We're not talking anything considerable here. In terms of 'quick to deploy', you're talking about unfolding the bipod- assuming you had it folded to begin with, which many don't. Is it harder to fire from the shoulder? Yup. But it's a belt fed LMG. It's going to be.

I view the tradeoff as well worth it. It's an accurate weapon. Would an IAR be more accurate? Yup, likely- but within the effective range of a 5.56mm round, I would contest that accuracy will not be the limiting factor in suppressing fire. Something like a sniper in a window is something you're going to have a number of weapons engage, including rifles firing single shots at a fairly rapid rate. In any case, the comparative accuracy of an IAR is not such an advantage that I think it overcomes the loss of firepower.

The theory of machine gunnery has seemingly been lost in a lot of cases. Machineguns can be used on point targets quite effectively, but suppressing fire is supposed to spread to some degree to create a cone of fire. It's the establishment of a beaten zone that makes the gun effective in a suppression role against anything other than a lone point target.

The M249 can be shrunk considerably in terms of size from what it is now. Here's what we've done with our latest iteration:



Note that the stock is not retracted fully, and that the stock mount is also hinged to fold fully against the side of the gun. I've used the gun, and find it much handier than the older fixed stock long barrelled version.

The IAR is a niche product seeking a role. Speaking as a junior leader in the infantry, I for one would not be comfortable giving up the considerable firepower under my command of a couple of light machineguns. I have my rifles for point accuracy. The heft of an LMG is admittedly a minor detriment, but not a serious one. It significantly adds to the firepower of the section (squad in the USMC case), and allows for suppressing fire that cannot be otherwise attained.

I've no doubt that an IAR would be more suitable in some limited cases in the current conflicts- but the Marines will be using it for a long time to come. Most of the advantages of an IAR can be achieved with newer, smaller, lighter belt fed LMGs, but most of the advantages of an LMG simply cannot be matched by an IAR. The weight of an LMG is nothing that a judicious redistribution of equipment at section/squad level can't solve, and by that soldier spending a bit more time at the gym.

[alfalfacentari]

I was a U.S. Marine MOS 0331 (M-60 machinegunner) in 1968-70; 2/4 3rd Mar. Div, northern I corps. That 7.62 (.308) machine gun used a 100 round belt weighing 6. ? lbs. Even in 5.56 (.223) this magazine seems too heavy to be ballanced???

[Ought Six]

I guess I failed to make clear that everything I said about the IAR and the rationale behind is the opinion of the USMC, not me.

Personally, my first reaction was to be against the whole IAR idea. I am well aware of the compact version of the M249/C9, and I agree that seems to negate the argument that the M27 would be somehow more maneuverable. The history of heavy-barrel closed bolt versions of issue infantry rifles is littered with failures; the FN-FAL HB, the M-14A1, the L86 LSW and so on. However, I am going to suspend judgment because we are talking about the U.S. Marine Corp here, and when they do something that seems crazy to everyone else, it generally turns out that they know exactly what the hell they are doing. So the M27 thing should be interesting to watch, and it will also be interesting to see if they pick the Surefire mag, the Beta drum, or something else.

================================================== ==========

ac:

"Even in 5.56 (.223) this magazine seems too heavy to be ballanced???"

A loaded 100 round Surefire mag weighs 3.3 pounds. Since it is hanging down from the center of gravity of the weapon, it should not effect balance too much.

[Glockd]

I started my service career about the same time the M-249 did. It was new to the Corps and we were still figuring out how to fight it effectively. Most of the senior NCO's I encountered in my early days (1985) were Vietnam vets who had experience with mass wave attacks where the SAW would have been a godsend. Most of the training I received during that time was geared towards re-fighting a jungle conflict against hoardes of attacking enemies in thick foliage. I had no doubt that the SAW would have faired very well in that kind of fight. However, the fight we now find ourselves in is quite different. Targets do not present themselves in waves, but rather as pop-ups, fleeting glimpses and shadows in hallways and down alleys. The M-249 is not optimized for this kind of fight.

Further, the Corps never really wanted a belt fed LMG in the rifle squad, preffering an updated version of the Browning BAR in that role. At the squad level that type of weapon is easiest to maintain and support, and having a weapon that can share mags and ammo with every other weapon in the squad fits that bill nicely.

I like the SAW, always have, but there were times when it was more gun than we needed, and was too much trouble to lug around. The Corps is on the right track, getting weapons into the hands of Marines that will fit the mission, not trying to make everything work all the time. I like options. The Corps has no plans to scrap the 249, only to replace it with the IAR as the mission dictates. If it were up to me, every Marine would have several weapons to chose from depending on the mission, terrain, weather, enemy forces, supporting arms etc.

As for these mags, I like the 60 rounder, but the 100 rounder seems too big, at least to lug around. However, having that much ammo on tap, in a static role is great. I dont want to carry the damn thing, but I'd love to have one in my gun if I were facing a large, heavy vehicle (dumptruck, bus, etc. ) trying to bust through my position.

[Hamilton Felix]

To the original subject:

If it's by SureFire, it will work well and it will be expensive.

Not being in the service, I see that 60 as possibly useful in a defensive AR rifle or carbine. I don't like two 30's side by side, because they unbalance the weapon. I think the Beta C-mag is "cool," but I'd much rather play with one than pack it around. The SureFire 100 is just BIG. I'm not going to get all excited about it, but I could see a SureFire 60 in a home defense carbine, standard 30's on one's LBE.

[Ought Six]

I do not even own a firearm in .223, but I like more rounds in my mag, within sane limits. That is why I got 25 round CMI mags for my M1A Squad Scout. Hopefully Surefire will come out with something interesting like a 35-40 round mag for the M1A one day.

[Hamilton Felix]

Hey, I'll drink to that!

And I like your thought. I don't think 25 rounders for my M1A or the FAL would all that much longer than the standard 20 rounders. Might even carry in some (but not all) of the same pouches and pockets.

[Ought Six]

They are about an inch and a half longer than the standard GI mags, so they will not fit in a lot of pouches. I have on my 'things to buy' list a custom chest rig from Tactical Tailor that will work with those mags.