https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2021/04/14/lonestar-future-weapons-forms-strategic-alliance-with-true-velocity/

For the non-government speakers here, this translates into “the General Dynamics entry was not chosen.”

Not a joglee thread.

They probably see spending cuts comming to defense and new rifle system looks like low hanging fruit to the bean counters.

Gotta pay for that diversity and white guilt training though...

OPDNNI

joglee thread

Bullpups are icky.

Doesn’t matter. We will never buy a bullpup design anyways. This is just a budget expenditure to justify future budget increases.

If I had to guess, General Dynamics - a masssssive defense contractor - wasn't interested enough in the project to devote the R&D for rapid iteration of the design vs pursuing their larger programs.

LoneStar was likely chosen as its a capable manufacturer, but small enough that its actually interested in working full time on the project:

"Lonestar Future Weapons is led by a team that includes third-generation American manufacturers with deep experience in the aerospace and defense industries. Chief among them is Automatic Products Corporation, an AS9100:2015 Rev D-registered manufacturer of high-precision machined and assembled components. Established in 1957, APC operates out of a 118,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility in Garland, Texas."

The RM277 rifle is pretty awesome looking; 7.62 sized action with 20" barrel + suppressor is still a good bit shorter then a 16" 5.56 conventional rifle.



We've also seen in earlier videos that the TV 6.8 case can be easily adapted to other weapons; there was a vid of it being used in KAC's awesome 7.62 Constant Recoil LMG.

The TV 6.8 cartridge is ~15-16g per shot, whereas the SIG hybrid metal cartridge is ~21-23g. So TV offers a massive weight savings, without the proprietary action required for Textron's LSAT cased telescopic cartridge.

Very much the 'goldilocks' of the 3 ammo offerings.

I'm gonna laugh when our SOF units are still using M4s and G19s in 40 years

Interesting point on the cartridge.  However, calling that thing a suppressor is like calling the XM177E1 muzzle device a “suppressor.”  Legally, it is.  Practically, it is more of a “Everybody on the range won’t glare at me when I pull the trigger” device.

It's likely under 140 dB. That's plenty for people that are already wearing ear pro (because explosives).

Yeah the TV 'neckless' polymer case design will be a game changer. A 5.56 version would allow lowering ammo weight by 30-35%, while at the same time could increase ogive space to allow firing more streamlined projectiles, all with just a barrel change. So 7x 40rd mags of polymer ammo would weigh comparably to 7x30rd mags of brass. Or you would just have your LMG gunners less overburdened.

Their manufacturing is also compact and modular, so a much smaller factory can be set up to produce a lot of ammunition. And the machines are small enough that they can be set up at a foreign base; ie they could have one in A'stan cranking out cartridges on location, and just ship in plastic, bullets, powder, and primers in bulk.

Because the cases are polymer, not only are they lighter, but they also transfer much less heat into the weapons chamber then brass (think plastic pot handle vs bare metal pot handle) so in theory you could design weapons with lighter barrels without risking cook off.



I'm skeptical of the wisdom of the 6.8 AP cartridge, but the underlying technology thats being developed is extremely promising and will have far reaching effects once its fully matured.

Plus bullets will have to jump their entire length to get to the lands so there will be no accuracy.

Historically, I believe the issue is that ejected brass removes a lot of heat from the system that caseless or polymer cartridges don’t.  How is the TV different that way?  Especially, when we are talking .270 Win Mag ballistics.

This, alongside SOCOM's insistence on pursuing 6.5CM options for squad weapons should probably be a clue on the likelihood of a procurement of any significant number of guns off of the NGSW solicitation. Forking the FC side of the project was an early sign that something like that might happen.


Looks like GD saw the writing on the wall, sold off their bid, and "cashed out" to minimize losses. No point in spooling up for a project that's not likely to result in a service wide procurement.


Ultimately the ammunition/desired terminal ballistics (and ultimately the internal ballistics that necessitates) side of the project is probably going to end up being a bridge too far without getting into produceability and supply chain considerations. I would not be shocked if this all ended up as, in effect, an S&T style of project that merely pushes the bounds of what can be done rather than resulting in a new procurement. Sucks for the contractors that pumped tons of R&D dollars into something banking on using a procurement to drive commercial and world market sales though if it shakes out that way.

This was a misunderstanding from the caseless ammunition trials.

Caseless was found to overheat guns faster then brass cased ammo. This lead some to believe that brass was removing heat from the chamber.

Whats actually happening was that caseless - by being a hunk of burning RDX directly in the chamber - was just transferring 100% of its heat into the chamber.

Brass, by providing a thermal barrier between the burning powder and the chamber, was just transferring ~70% (no idea that actual number) of tis heat into the chamber, while the rest of the heat was retained in the brass and ejected.

Polymer, being a poor conductor of heat, just transfers much less heat into the chamber then brass.

Dillon found that in testing TV's cases in the Minigun:

One of the concerns associated with the M134D is the way it can cook-off live rounds with brass-cased ammunition. A cook-off occurs when a cartridge sits in a hot chamber and spontaneously fires because the powder inside the case becomes hot enough to ignite.

Dillon has a 1,500-round test they run on the M134D and found brass-cased ammunition will cook-off after sitting in the chamber for anywhere from 3 to 60 seconds. Using True Velocity’s composite-cased ammunition, Dillon recorded a 20-percent lower bore temperature (thanks to the case insulating the chamber), which ultimately led them to a 2,200-round test on the ammunition. Dillon had to wait 5 minutes before one case got hot enough to melt — but the bullet never left the barrel. The absence of cook-offs in a Minigun should bring a welcome sigh of relief from end users.

So with brass, 1500rd = cook off in 3-60's

Polymer = 2200rd, no cookoff, case melted after 5 mins

We can see this in action ourselves. Take a cold gun, fire one round, pick up the brass. The brass is super hot. Thats not heat the brass removed from the gun, but rather heat that it did not manage to fully transfer to the gun prior to being ejected.

By comparison, ejected polymer cartridges are reportedly cool to the touch right after ejection, as the polymer is not able to transfer the heat of the burning powder to the exterior of the case prior to ejection.

No, the chamber is recut to seat the lands on the little mini nub of the 'neckless' cartridge design.

So does that shut the gun down until its cleaned?  Sounds like an obvious disadvantage.

I see. I had confused these with the also polymer 'cased telescopic' ammo, which definitely do have a heck of a jump.

Shoulder angle and length have a lot to do with throat life as much as velocity.  Lands that start right at the shoulder won't have it easy.

I'm not sure how the Dillon works. I know that when they have a bad primer, the rotation of the barrel auto ejects it, rather then killing the weapon.

For a conventional weapon though, it would be a non issue. 2200rd from a 6 barrel weapon = 366rd, fired in less then a minute (Dillon is 3000rpm.) No rifle is going to do that, while LMG's are open bolt, and do not chamber a round until the moment of firing (too fast to melt.)

As best I can tell you're looking at a 90° shoulder with some extra plastic to help it feed. It should be a few hundred feet per second faster.



I thought this was pretty neat. Would probably be a lot easier than flying things in already assembled.



Would also help keep a suppressed MG cool.

If the plastic ammunition works as advertised, it's a huge deal. Especially for helicopter mounted MGs.

Yeah the internal ballistics / cartridge to barrel interaction is beyond my wheelhouse to talk about authoritatively. I imagine quite bit of R&D goes into it, but they seem to have figured it out.

Heres the 6.8 TV being fired out of the KAC LMG, which apparently just requires a barrel change.

Doesn't matter in an open bolt MG, and not an issue in closed bolt weapons that don't fire 3,000 RPM.

This was my take, as well.  Maybe the suggestion is that it takes many more rounds to transfer the same amount of heat to the breech?  The same properties of the poly cartridge that keep it from absorbing heat from the breech, keep it from transferring heat to the breech as well?

Still...I don't see how this would affect barrel heat.  Would not the heat generated by powder combustion be the same?  I don't understand how a lighter barrel could be used.

NVM: Already answered while I was typing--thank you

The reduced barrel heat is apparently a function of less chamber heat radiating up towards the barrel.

Barrel Heat = chamber heat from cartridge + heat of firing bullet through the barrel.

So with polymer, the barrel is still getting the same heat of the propellant driving the bullet down the bore. It's just not getting as much heat being added from the chamber area on top of that.

Theoretically, this opens up the possibility of reducing the barrel weight of Automatic Rifles and LMG's by 20%+, as less barrel mass is required as a heat sink to prevent cookoff. So these lighter cartridges could also indirectly lead to lighter weapons as well.

How would all this tie in with the armed UAV systems? It would make sense to have one supply line for aerial weapons as well as ground troops.

I don't think any of the current UAV's use guns / autocannons. They all seem to either be ISR or armed with missiles, or developed as sort of kamikaze flying claymores like we saw in Armenia/Azrbaijan conflict.

I do think a anti drone system, using a 5.56 minigun set up to a radar fire control (like a micro version of the CIWS used on ships) would be a good defensive system against small drones. But polymer would be of marginal benefit for a ground based vehicle weapon.

Polymer is attractive for the 7.62 Miniguns on helicopters, as reduced ammo weight allows them to carry either 30% more ammo or carry more fuel. Thats why Dillon was looking into TV's polymer cases.

Depends on what exactly you mean by "ours".   I'll be shocked if we have 50 states and the same borders by then.

If we need a jump in small arms tech - say, to deal with near peer infantry - we should have been seriously working on it 25 years ago.