Looks high speed. Is that a Harris bipod?:
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2019/02/06/us-army-testing-new-squad-dmr-at-fort-bliss/
Nice.
I’d like to shoot one.
And yes, it appears to be a Harris BP.
Am I alone in think it’s kinda funny that 4-17 Infantry Battalion is testing an HK417?
Looks like even HK decided that Keymod was dead. Apparently they took a cue from Bill Geissele as well. That rail looks like something Geissele would have done. Dogbone nut, twin bolts into a barrel nut design. It’s basically a large frame MK8 from the looks of it. First HK AR type I’ve seen with a rail that looks modern.
Because it IS a Geissele rail
Very curious about feedback on that suppressor. I was all but set in getting one until a guy at Silencer Shop talked me out of it. Have to admit, the design looks pretty good and the Army seems to like it.
The change from the HK negative-space mounting system to M-LOK was at the request of the Army.
FWIW, H&K never used actual KeyMod, HKey was their own propreitary mounting system, like AI’s KeySlot.
As noted, it is a Geissele handguard. However, the barrel nut design is still H&K; like the original HK416 SMR, it uses the factory barrel nut.
Have Sig optics improved that much over something like Luepold?
Looks pretty awesome.
Yeah, how is this fundamentally different than the AR10ishes with 1-8 Leupys from 10 years ago? At least put it into a 6.5CM cartridge. You are going to need better than MG ammo to justify it, and if you are going to carry special ammo, you might as well carry something that pushes the punch a couple hundred yards further.
But…but …SR-25s though…
No.
SOCOM had a recent contract that had two parts to it: Nightforce won one half with the ATACR, SiG won the other half. From what I understand, the SiG optics are not holding up very well with SOCOM - just as their red dots have not held up to use by the FBI.
Nightforce won the 1-8 FFP and SIG the 1-6 SFP, I was wondering how the SIG’s are going to hold up.
Isn’t KAC making the M110 in 6.5 Creedmoor for SOCOM now? I get that this is a 0-800M DMR rifle with a 1-6, so 7.62x51 works and is readily accessible, but the advantages of 6.5CM over .308 are pretty substantial, and it would be nice to see the .mil adopt 6.5CM across the board for these type of weapons.
Also, I’m a little surprised they went with Sig and OSS for the optic and suppressor… The ATACR 1-8 is a MUCH better scope, and there are better, more trusted suppressors to choose from.
Exactly, Im not a fan of introducing a 7.62 NATO caliber weapon into the squad that is primarily running 5.56. The weight penalty of the ammo and the gun itself is too much for the performance you are getting. Not to mention the 2nd and 3rd order effects like logistics burden and marksmanship/recoil penalty of a .30 caliber cartridge will make training someone to be an effective DMR MUCH more difficult than training him how to use 5.56 SPR type rifle.
For those who havent had extensive experience on 7.62 NATO gas guns, something like the SASS isnt just a bigger AR. There are so many nuances you have to learn to run it at the same effectiveness as a 5.56 gun I highly doubt soldiers will get enough trigger time to make it a really effective weapon system.
Maybe this was an effort to appease the Interim Combat Service Rifle people in Benning, but simply going to a 7.62 NATO gas gun does not a DMR make.
I probably missed a bunch of stuff. Paging Jack Leuba 
This was my experience with them some time ago. The red dots I got my hands on were simple crap with few redeeming qualities at all.
I could not see how they could have advanced so far that today the .mil would find them capable.
My experience;
Anything made by Sig Europe Good, anything made to be shoulder fired by Sig USA highly questionable.
The morphing of CSASS into DMR is interesting.
All else aside, the choice for a 1-6 optic for this application is not what I would have recommended. My understanding is that it came down to cost:benefit, and since the DM is by nature a rifleman and an integral part of the squad, he has to retain the ability to do basic rifleman stuff, which often outweighs those precision tasks that he isn’t terribly well prepared for anyway. So, a relatively low cost optic was selected to fill the gap. It’s still a decent piece of glass, so at least there’s that, but putting that same optic on an M4 with M855A1 would give the user about the same level of mid-range performance (what the DMR covers anyway), at a significantly reduced weight and recoil burden. All too many people don’t realize that a critical aspect of DM employment is that he has to work alone, without a spotter, to call wind on the fly, and self-correct misses. Big part of correcting a miss is SEEING the miss, and 6x is just too low with a real-world backdrop to consistently spot impact past a couple hundred meters, especially with a heavy recoiling rifle that will likely pull observation off of the impact area.
And that’s before discussing soldier load, logistics, and chain of succession.
But hey, nobody asked me, and overall the intent is to field the NGSW (rifle and AR) anyway in the next few years, theoretically making all of this moot.
Does the German Army employ their G28E’s in a similar manner?
I know that this package was selected for cost and convenience reasons, but I think it could’ve been way better. An alternative setup that probably would’ve been more effective would be:
14.5" SR-25 CC or M110 equivalent in FDE
1-8 ATACR in Scalarworks LEAP Mount
Knights QDC can, CQB size if intended to stay on while running around inside or CRS/PRS if prone only (Anyone know when the OSS is designed to be deployed? All the time?) in FDE
Knights Precision Bipod
UBR Gen2 Stock in FDE
MOE K2+ Grip in FDE
MAWL DA in FDE
M600DF in FDE
7.62 XM1158 ADVAP
A guy can dream