Travis McGee
Member
I was just at the SHOT Show, and met some very interesting folks. The most interesting was Sgt. "Name Withheld", of the 5th SFG. He is the chief sniper for the SF's middle east QRF, (which has gone through several name changes lately). N.W. has done 4 tours in several ME countries since 9-11, and knows first hand where of he speaks.
He personally carries an SR-25 in 7.62. This is sort of like an AR-10 with a SIR-type quad rail mount forward. It sports a big (looks like) 8X15 or so Leupold on top. The night scope mounts forward of the day scope on the rail when needed. A fairly bulky IR laser/illuminator is on the right rail. A Harris bipod is forward. A pistol grip is behind the bipod. (He showed us pictures, that's how I saw all this stuff.)
I met him because he was at the SOCOM sniper competition last week, and placed well (against bolt guns) with his combat-proven SR-25. The folks who beat him had the product of the booth I was strap-hanging in on the butts of their rifles, and he wanted one. That's how I met him. He was out at SHOT looking for team gear. (Kasey Beltz of Accu-Shot liked my book enough that he invited me to sell my books out of his booth. Was I lucky or what? Thanks Kasey!)
[Accu-Shot is an up-down mono-pod that attaches to the standard swivel mount on the back of most rifles. The winners at the SOCOM shoot had them, and N.W. wants them for his QRF company's snipers, that's how we met. We had everybody from the CIA to the IDF to the USSS to the SFs in our booth buying them, I kid you not.]
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Anyhoooo.... Getting to the main point. N.W.'s SF company has racked up beoucoups missions of the CQB variety, taking down structures from the outside, and killing all the bad guys inside. He moves close behind the entry team, he is not a distant stand-off kind of sniper. He often ends up using his .308 SR-25 for CQB, helping to secure buildings "in under 2 minutes." (He uses the flipped-up lens caps of his big scope as his "battle sights" for inside work. They have special markings on them.)
He goes in right behind the entry guys, because he says it's very common that as a structure is secured, they will take rifle fire from other buildings several hundred yards away. The M-4 guys can't do much to suppress that fire, but his SR-25 quickly puts a stop to it, firing from the newly taken building.
In fact, he says that with the IR illuminator, his spotter can see the "trace" of his bullets. The boat tail end of a Sierra Match King is shiny brass, and it reflects back the IR illumination, and is seen in the NODs as a clear green light. Cool huh?!
(BTW, he wants the oddball extra-tall Accu-Shot monopod, because they usually fire from flat roofs, from behind a low curb-like parapet. They use the Harris bipod fully extended to see over this typical parapet, while using it for cover, firing at other buildings.)
Now, on to the main point: he is adamant that 5.56 out of an M-4 is not an adequate man-stopping round for their purposes. He says that he cannot count the times a bad guy has been stitched 3-4-5 times across the chest, has crumpled down, been bypassed, and then recovered and fired again at the SFs! They DO NOT TRUST the 5.56 to kill a man or put him down definitively in a fast-paced keep-moving CQB environment. N.W. says "308 kills 'em, 556 wounds 'em." He says the current 556 out of an M-4 makes "icepick wounds."
At this point, his SF QRF company is attempting to ad-hoc and piecemeal cobble together a full loadout of 6.8mm uppers. He laughs about begging for more 6.8mm uppers to "test & evaluate," which is in fact code for putting them to immediate use in combat.
Another visitor to the booth at another time was an older gentleman from Crane Indiana, a govt. small arms ordnance type. He says the Army is NOT putting in any serious quantity orders for 6.8mm uppers. He says the SFs are doing this all on their own, begging for scraps and odds and ends. This confirms what K.E. says about begging for "T&E" 6.8mm uppers.
Apparently the Army doesn't want to hear what the SF guys think about the 5.56. They use it frequently in CQB, and have NO faith in it. Not when you and the bad guy are in the same room or hall or stairwell. The 5.56 might suit "Big Army" when the enemy is not so close, but at room distance in extremely fast paced ops, when you must shoot fast and move on, it's not working, according to N.W.
These SFs want the 6.8s even with their greatly reduced mag capacity, a sign of their strong desire to dump the 5.56mm. The ordnance guy from Crane (N.W. and him were never at the booth at the same time) pointed out that the 6.8 may not feed reliably from a 5.56 mag. The double stack mag is designed to work tightly packed with rounds touching tops and bottoms. Spaced out in a mag, half way between double and single stacked, the rounds are pushed hard outward, causing binding. That was a point the ordnance man made, that N.W. didn't mention.
Sorry for going on and on, but I thought you guys would appreciate hearing this story right from the mouth of an SF master sniper. N.W. has done four deployments in the ME since 9-11 going back to pre-Kabul, and I have 100% faith in his honesty.
He personally carries an SR-25 in 7.62. This is sort of like an AR-10 with a SIR-type quad rail mount forward. It sports a big (looks like) 8X15 or so Leupold on top. The night scope mounts forward of the day scope on the rail when needed. A fairly bulky IR laser/illuminator is on the right rail. A Harris bipod is forward. A pistol grip is behind the bipod. (He showed us pictures, that's how I saw all this stuff.)
I met him because he was at the SOCOM sniper competition last week, and placed well (against bolt guns) with his combat-proven SR-25. The folks who beat him had the product of the booth I was strap-hanging in on the butts of their rifles, and he wanted one. That's how I met him. He was out at SHOT looking for team gear. (Kasey Beltz of Accu-Shot liked my book enough that he invited me to sell my books out of his booth. Was I lucky or what? Thanks Kasey!)
[Accu-Shot is an up-down mono-pod that attaches to the standard swivel mount on the back of most rifles. The winners at the SOCOM shoot had them, and N.W. wants them for his QRF company's snipers, that's how we met. We had everybody from the CIA to the IDF to the USSS to the SFs in our booth buying them, I kid you not.]
*****************
Anyhoooo.... Getting to the main point. N.W.'s SF company has racked up beoucoups missions of the CQB variety, taking down structures from the outside, and killing all the bad guys inside. He moves close behind the entry team, he is not a distant stand-off kind of sniper. He often ends up using his .308 SR-25 for CQB, helping to secure buildings "in under 2 minutes." (He uses the flipped-up lens caps of his big scope as his "battle sights" for inside work. They have special markings on them.)
He goes in right behind the entry guys, because he says it's very common that as a structure is secured, they will take rifle fire from other buildings several hundred yards away. The M-4 guys can't do much to suppress that fire, but his SR-25 quickly puts a stop to it, firing from the newly taken building.
In fact, he says that with the IR illuminator, his spotter can see the "trace" of his bullets. The boat tail end of a Sierra Match King is shiny brass, and it reflects back the IR illumination, and is seen in the NODs as a clear green light. Cool huh?!
(BTW, he wants the oddball extra-tall Accu-Shot monopod, because they usually fire from flat roofs, from behind a low curb-like parapet. They use the Harris bipod fully extended to see over this typical parapet, while using it for cover, firing at other buildings.)
Now, on to the main point: he is adamant that 5.56 out of an M-4 is not an adequate man-stopping round for their purposes. He says that he cannot count the times a bad guy has been stitched 3-4-5 times across the chest, has crumpled down, been bypassed, and then recovered and fired again at the SFs! They DO NOT TRUST the 5.56 to kill a man or put him down definitively in a fast-paced keep-moving CQB environment. N.W. says "308 kills 'em, 556 wounds 'em." He says the current 556 out of an M-4 makes "icepick wounds."
At this point, his SF QRF company is attempting to ad-hoc and piecemeal cobble together a full loadout of 6.8mm uppers. He laughs about begging for more 6.8mm uppers to "test & evaluate," which is in fact code for putting them to immediate use in combat.
Another visitor to the booth at another time was an older gentleman from Crane Indiana, a govt. small arms ordnance type. He says the Army is NOT putting in any serious quantity orders for 6.8mm uppers. He says the SFs are doing this all on their own, begging for scraps and odds and ends. This confirms what K.E. says about begging for "T&E" 6.8mm uppers.
Apparently the Army doesn't want to hear what the SF guys think about the 5.56. They use it frequently in CQB, and have NO faith in it. Not when you and the bad guy are in the same room or hall or stairwell. The 5.56 might suit "Big Army" when the enemy is not so close, but at room distance in extremely fast paced ops, when you must shoot fast and move on, it's not working, according to N.W.
These SFs want the 6.8s even with their greatly reduced mag capacity, a sign of their strong desire to dump the 5.56mm. The ordnance guy from Crane (N.W. and him were never at the booth at the same time) pointed out that the 6.8 may not feed reliably from a 5.56 mag. The double stack mag is designed to work tightly packed with rounds touching tops and bottoms. Spaced out in a mag, half way between double and single stacked, the rounds are pushed hard outward, causing binding. That was a point the ordnance man made, that N.W. didn't mention.
Sorry for going on and on, but I thought you guys would appreciate hearing this story right from the mouth of an SF master sniper. N.W. has done four deployments in the ME since 9-11 going back to pre-Kabul, and I have 100% faith in his honesty.
