And how much did that cost?
By all accounts I had read, it looked like the US military was set to switch to the XM-8 assault rifle. James, however, says the military has canceled the program. The reason is that it fired the same round: new platform, same lethality issues. I was hoping personally that the US military would adopt the XM-8 in 6.8SPC. My real preference would have been for 6.5 Grendel, but the military probably would not have been interested. Any way, here’s hoping this motivated H&K to make a semi-automatic civilian version since the military ain’t buying.
November 4th, 2005 at 11:07 am
The only place that the XM-8 ever had a chance was with the Counterstrike kiddies and gun-BBS hobbyists on the ‘net.
Those in the know had pronounced it DOA long ago.
As for HK making a civvie version, well, don’t hold your breath.
November 4th, 2005 at 1:12 pm
“As for HK making a civvie version, well, don’t hold your breath.”
Yea from what I have heard they don’t cater to the civi market.
November 4th, 2005 at 2:48 pm
Whatever happened to the OICW?
November 4th, 2005 at 2:55 pm
Too big. Too clumsy. Weighed too much. Scrapped.
November 4th, 2005 at 8:03 pm
The XM-8 was aka OICW Increment One. Increment Two was the high speed grenade launcher thing. The program slipt when it became obvious that the grenade launcher part was to big and to slow in developing.
And I’m still holding out for the 7x43mm, aka the .280 Brit. From everything I’ve heard, it did extremely well in the tests back in the 50s, but couldn’t overcome the dual handicap of being NIH and the Army’s insistence on a full power cartridge.
November 4th, 2005 at 11:22 pm
Don’t blame the 5.56mm too much. There were also ergonomic, reliability, and expense problems with the XM-8.