The following press release is on Bushmaster’s website:
“The ACR is being redesigned to be a superior offering to compete for the next generation US Army infantry carbine and subcompact weapon requirement and will be available to select customers in 2009.”
Given all the positive press that I’ve heard regarding the ACR, it probably has a decent shot at this requirement. How much “not invented here” sentiment will it receive from the Army, if any?
Considering my experiences with the Army and PMAG, my guess is a lot.
If Magpul (or Bushmaster) was at the Industry Day last week, they’ve got the same exposure as just about everyone else at this point. Picatinny isn’t developing a new rifle the way they were developing a new mag, so I don’t think the same “don’t from here” hurdles will have to be jumped.
In theory SCAR could have a leg up, but I’ve met as many people who hate it as love it. I’m sure FN is working 'round the clock to convince DoD that it would be easier and more cost efficient simply to expand the SOCOM order to cover all U.S. forces … that’s certainly what I’d be doing right now if I were them.
The inertia of the M4 is the real thing to beat. Once the Pentagon seriously decides it’s time for something better then the real competition will begin.
Yes, but in 2009 the M4 will be “theirs”. If there is any perceived benefit of keeping the M4 in service, it will remain. I could provide the Army with a $10 rifle that lasted 100,000 rounds without failure, shot .5 MOA out to 1000 meters, didn’t need to be cleaned, and could survive a 100 meter drop test at -100 degrees, and they would still make it fail if they wanted.
SCAR has a leg up in testing, but nothing else. This has become such a political issue that no weapon, SCAR, ACR, 416 or otherwise could possibly be swept into service without a “full and open competition.” I still have my doubts that a new weapon will be selected over a few select M4 “improvements”. If a competition is announced, IMO the weapon to beat is the 416.
I think Bushmaster is incredibly naive if they think they can have a set in stone M4 replacement contract TDP anytime before 2015.
Chances are any “trials” will run for a decade at least. Hell, the SCAR was an incredibly small trial and they’re pushing five years for a final configuration. Good luck, but I no longer expect to see a civilian ACR with you guys going this route. I’m not referring to an instant BHO AWB either, but to the time frame that will be involved in getting something as simple as base requirements.
Agreed, but where did that ever enter the conversation? I haven’t been tracking all the internet banter, so maybe I missed it…
I would expect the initial competition to begin in 12-18 months with a final “winner” selected about 18-24 months after that. After that, I completely agree that the testing and any further development will likely take years. The government is very good at spending both time and money, and they are sure to spend a lot of both in this process.
I hope this isn’t taken the wrong way. It’s too bad that Magpul couldn’t have partnered up with someone else or produced the Masada on their own. My guess is that we probably will not see a Masada/ACR for a few years, if ever.
The military procurement process is severly dicked up. The continue to blow money on crap. They can’t even get something as easy as a magazine issue resolved. I wonder just how much money they have blown on the Picatinney magazine project and what better uses there were for that money.
The hell with the ACR.
What somebody needs to do is design a whole new upper NOT related to the AR15 upper, that can fit onto the AR15 lower receiver. The manufacturer can also introduce a new item that can take the place of the AR15 lower receivers’ buffer tube to allow proper locking of the new proprietary upper receiver (because it most likely will not be using an ar bolt carrier and buffer tube assembly and needs a secure locking mechanism for the new uppers’ recoil rod/spring assembly)
Imagine having a tricked out AR18 upper than can fit onto an AR15 lower. A whole new rifle isn’t needed, the ar15 lower is perfect and you can already buy completely ambidextrous lowers if that’s what people want.
They say the AR15 is so modular, they don’t even know what that means!
Why bother? The lower is dirt cheap next to the rest of the rifle. You can buy a stripped lower for $125. What good does that do? Reuse the stuff that is the most difficult to develop (like the barrel) and manufacture. How many guys can machine a lower? Tons. How many can properly produce a barrel and bolt. Not many.
You just proved my point. Yes, the lowers are very cheap, standardized, and acceptable ergonomically.
If the object is to take away the ar15’s DI system because it’s dirty, take away the upper/ bolt carrier combo because it’s too tight in tolerances, take away the ar15 bolt because of the weak extractor, plunger ejector, small parts…
…Then why not just develop a whole new proprietary upper assembly?
You’re saying to stick with what’s harder to make, like the upper and barrel assembly, but the market and manufacturing industry does not agree with you, because it is backwards thinking.
If what you said was right then there wouldn’t be all these piston AR uppers, or whole new rifles like the ACR, XCR, SIG556, SCAR, all of which are made to satisfy what the consumer has been yelling all along, “we want a reliable ar15”.
A whole new upper for the AR15 lower is the way forward for the sake of logistics and cost.
You completely missed my point.
For the sake of this argument, I don’t consider an MRP piston, LWRC, POF or HK416 as a complete redesign of the AR15 upper. They are product improved versions, but are essentially a modified AR15. And they do exactly what you say you want to do, get rid of the DI gas system.
What you are suggesting is to create an entirely new upper, even further departing from the AR platform than the MRP, HK416, or LWRC. This was essentially what the ACR started out as. But Magpul figured out that it wasn’t worth it to design this brand new upper that is completely different from the AR, just to stick on an AR lower. Given the relative costs of the components, the lower is a marginal piece of the pie. Why constrain this great new upper you envision with a decades old lower? It’s much easier to just match your new uber upper with a new lower that is relatively easy to design and build.
In the case of the ACR they did just that: they ditched the lower and upper and basically kept the barrel.
And the ACR, SCAR, and XCR do make my point perfectly: Those companies didn’t want to constrain their design to work with the AR lower, they created an entirely new firearm. POF, HK, LWRC, and the MRP piston products kept as much as they could (the barrels, bolts (sometimes), upper receivers (sometimes), FSB’s, CH’s, etc.) They did exactly what I would predict someone that wanted to ditch the DI system would do: replace as little as possible with piston components.
Well now that I have a better understanding of what’s being said, then yes, I agree. I agree that if a whole new upper is to be built, it’s better not to restrict the design into a perimeter that may require cutting corners from an engineering standpoint.
I’m just a little too obsessed with logistics and cost.
Derivatives and new products both have their place. It’s mostly about up front cost, bottom line performance, and time to market.
The ACR program will probably end up costing millions of dollars to implement. But by the time it’s done it will be a weapon with features that just can’t be matched by an AR derivative. But a derivative like the MRP can get you close for a few hundred thousand dollars (I don’t know how much either program costs, but the MRP is likely a fraction of what the ACR is). The MRP will be an improvement over the standard MRP (to some but not all), but it won’t have some of the features that the ACR does. It’s up to the user to define what the value of each feature is to them.
Short version is that you can bring a derivative of an existing product to market faster and with less up front expense than an entirely new product. However, the derivative will rarely match the performance or features of the new product.
I will be following the ACR development closely. It’s one of the few American designs that can compete head to head with the foreign competition. And competition is always good. Interest in ‘Black Rifles’ has led to a real boom in new products, for which we should all be thankful.
Nick: you produce the rifle and I’ll do the rest. I’ll take 10,000 to start.
Let’s see, $10 times 10,000 is $100,000. Sell the rifles for $1,000 each without even making an effort nets me … carry the two … um … $9,900,000 profit.
I’ll tell you what, just because I like to think of myself as a fair businessman and not a greedy bastard. I’ll pay you [i]$20[/i] per rifle – twice your asking price! – if you give me a five year exclusive as distributor in the U.S. and internationally.
SCAR has a leg up in testing, but nothing else. This has become such a political issue that no weapon, SCAR, ACR, 416 or otherwise could possibly be swept into service without a “full and open competition.” I still have my doubts that a new weapon will be selected over a few select M4 “improvements”. If a competition is announced, IMO the weapon to beat is the 416.
I don’t disagree with any of that. I spoke to another company today that was present for the Industry Day thing last week and they, too, are of the opinion that it’s going to be more about who gets the contract to build M4s … at least in the short term.
The politics of the M16 saga are well known, and the M14 vs FN FAL (T48) was a real political hot potato in it’s day. I think that even when the FAL was adopted by England in the late 1950’s (?) it created a firestorm of criticism because a “non-British” weapon was selected.
Seems that in recent years the selection of a general-issue infantry rifle can’t be accomplished without a painful, drawn-out process (both technical and political). Didn’t the M1 Garand have to jump through some hoops also?
I’m not so sure they’re going to have the money at that point to adopt a new rifle anyways, so the point is probably moot.
The XM8, 416, ACR, whatever, all of them not needed.
All these same boring designs, wasting money on “interim solutions” until a new leap forward is made.
Technology already leaped! What’s happening with the LSAT program? Last I saw, there was footage of the 5.56mm telescopic LMG being shot on video.
Why not create a rifle that uses 5.56mm telescopic? A rifle that uses the same material used on the LMG to keep the weight down, a simple yet unorthodox operating system that truly defines what Project Salvo was all about, bigger ~50rd magazines, etc, etc, etc.
The military is always bullshitting, spending money on things it shouldn’t.
Seriously, I read some where about the how 5.56mm telescopic or caseless rifles & LMG’s should be adopted by 2015. It’s 2008, does the military REALLY need to spend millions on something they’re going to scrap in around seven years!?
Tell me that’s not a waste of money.
Hasn’t technology pretty much hit a wall with respect to the traditional bullet-firing small arm? Everything is essentially variations on a theme with limits on what you can do with a metal projectile propelled by expanding gasses.
I’m not saying the next step is the “phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range”, but how many more breakthroughs are possible with existing technology?
One way or the other, the basic technology of firearms: Propellant, projectile, lock, stock and barrel has been around for 500+ years. Significant advances could be made in any of those to introduce a new generation of weapons, but invariably there are lots of things that sound great on paper, but making them functional/pivotal/relevant requires a lot of dead-ends and more than a little luck.
New whiz-bang ideas have a way of being neat, but remain limited in one generation, only to solve a significant problem in the next. There is no realistic replacement for, or revolution of, the “fire” arm in mine or my children’s lifetime.
I’m not entirely convinced that energy weapons are all that unless energy could be recharged fairly easily. Like the self-contained cartridge 150 years ago, the next great leap forward would probably be to replace gun powder as a propellant, but not easily done. A gaussian (electro-magnetic) system that didn’t require huge amounts of power might be an interesting choice but then you are strategically reliant on stored/available electric power.
I’m less convinced about the need to replace the AR in the inventory until something significantly better is viable. In the meantime, a few improvements might extend its life-span for a reasonable cost.
Of course they did not select a non British weapon. They did not select the FAL – they selected the L1A1, which had been dignified with being britified and becoming the “inch pattern” 