7mm-08 "bassault" rifle?

[Samarkand]

Hello, High Roaders...er, is that High Roadies? I've been a lurker and sometime poster on various gun forums over the years. My practical experience with firearms is fairly limited--a couple revolver/pistol sessions at an Israeli firing range, a visit to a .22 oriented rifle range here at home--due to certain factors that limited my exposure to firearms (being Canadian, living in a city, and a uncertain as to whether I have enough mental focus to really handle a firearm safely). So, yes, keyboard commando with a penchant for checking out world.guns.ru every so often, but at least aware of it!

I've been following the "5.56 is good/bad/okay" argument for a while, and have read about the intermediate cartridge developments like the Grendel and SPC. Recently I came across the 7mm-08 being described as having less recoil than regular 7.62 NATO. I'm wondering if this cartridge could be adapted for use in a "bassault rifle"--a modernized G3/FAL type weapon, only capable of controllable full automatic fire. Perhaps using a fragmenting round based on the West German 7.62x51mm bullet. Just a few questions:

1) Could the lower recoil of the 7-08 allow such a weapon to work in typical fully-automatic mode (short bursts rather than emptying the magazine)

2) Could you get a 30 round magazine, or are you stuck with the 20 rounders of 50's era battle rifles?

3) Would the ammunition weight savings of the 7-08 be negligable compared to a 6.*mm assault rifle?

4) Would 7-08 performance be degraded if used in a short-barreled carbine version--an M-4 type weapon for use in close quarters and urban fighting?

Thanks for any insights you can give on this thought experiment. Or plainly telling me I'm talking from my rear orifice.

Samarkand

 

[Deer Hunter]

Are you planning on actually trying to obtain a fully-automatic 7mm-08, or are you just theorizing the ability to turn that round into an acceptable assault weapon round?

 

[Ol` Joe]

The recoil difference is no where near enough to make a notable differance in way it would handle in a full auto weapon. It is similar to the diference between a `06 and 308 with the same bullet wgt. That is some of the reason for most countries dropping to much smaller (223) calibers or lower velocity and bullet weight cartridges (6.8mm, 7.62x39)

 

[adobewalls]

I don't know about the G3 in particular, but DSA has made 7-08 variants for their FAL as well as variants using the .6mm (.243 Win) and 6.5mm (.260 Rem).

http://www.dsarms.com/catalog-list.cfm?Category=01&Subcat=SA58 Original Series&storeid=1

The gun is designed for the .308 Winchester class of cartridges, so I believe you would only be looking at a rebarrel and chambering for the particular round.

Try asking your question here:

http://www.falfiles.com/forums/
http://www.warrifles.com/forums/
http://assaultweb.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

All these sites have sections dealing with the HK and CETME family of weapons and they should be able to address your question with more knowledge.

 

[Samarkand]

Theorizing, and not joking about that. Inefficient as our gun registry is in this country, fully automatic weapons are considered very very naughty. I have no wish to have some of the fine men and women of the RCMP pay me a visit.

I take it a 7mm-08 is not much of an improvement when it comes to handheld rock and roll. I should have known, otherwise it would have been considered during the experiments that produced the 6.8mm SPC. Thanks for clarifying things.

Samarkand