You're probably on to something here. There has been no historical 7.62 (NATO) option mass produced in the US. When I was in the Army, our 7.62 weapons were the M-60 (belt fed) and the M-14 sniper rifle. I don't think there's been any mass produced 7.62 options added since then.The Annoyed Man wrote:Rock River .308s......at least some of them.......also use a proprietary magazine. I might be wrong, but I suspect what's happened is that the .308/7.62 rifles have not been under anywhere near the same pressure to standardize as the .223/5.56 rifles because the .308s aren't a standard-issue military weapons platform.Dave2 wrote:Some of them are... It's the AR-10A. The regular AR-10 still uses their proprietary mags.markthenewf wrote:That being said, TAM is correct as well: AR10's are pretty tough as well. If I were doing it all over, I'd really just look into an Armalite AR10. It's an AR platform, so you can slap a lot of stuff on it (if you want) and the newer ones are also set up to take PMAGs.
(Really, why anyone would make a modern rifle that doesn't take PMAGs is beyond me, but I'm not a gun designer...)
I am just speculating here, but one of the lessons from combat in both Afghanistan and Iraq has been that the 5.56 cartridge is thought by a lot of people to be inadequate to desert and mountain warfare.....lacking the oomph at longer ranges that a .30 caliber cartridge has. Until now, AR10s are only in limited use, as a sniper/DMR type of platform. Is it possible that the defense department, desiring to retain the training and manual of arms of the AR platform, but requiring a more robust cartridge, might start swapping out M4s for M110s (or whatever they'll call them).....possibly but not necessarily in .308, or maybe in .260 Remington or something like that? If something like that were to happen, the AR10 making industry would be more or less forced into magazine standardization.
Just a thought.......
Other countries have 7.62 weapons as their primary infantry weapon (FN-FAL for example).
If every US soldier were carrying 7.62, you'd see standardization of civilian options.
My two cents.
