Sig Sauer develops 25-round mag for Army’s next-gen rifle

EPPING, N.H. — Soldier feedback, from the constructive to the blistering, has been instrumental in guiding weapons manufacturer Sig Sauer in its development of the M8 carbine, staff here said this week.

The M8, a compact alternative to Sig’s much-criticized M7 Next Generation Squad Weapon rifle, appears poised to take the M7’s place as the new standard weapon for soldiers , with significant weight reduction and key modifications that address troops’ concerns.

Among those changes is a 25-round magazine to replace the 20-round mag that shipped with the M7, said Josh Shoemaker, Sig’s product manager for defense.

The NGSW program marked a transition from the legacy M4 rifle’s 5.56mm ammo to the 6.8X51mm Common Cartridge, an internally designed caliber used both by the rifle and the coming M250 light machine gun. For some soldiers accustomed to the M4’s 30-round magazines, this has represented a major concern.

“Guys are coming from the 5.56mm system, where they’re used to being able to carry seven 30-round magazines into combat, so they have 210 rounds, roughly, going into a fight,” Shoemaker said in an interview. “Well, now that they’ve gone to this larger caliber, there’s 20-round magazines, so you’re reducing the volume of rounds that you have.”

Previously, Sig Sauer and the Army have emphasized that the 6.8mm round is heavier and carries greater kinetic energy and power, allowing troops to use fewer rounds to achieve the same effect on a target.

Last year, Brig. Gen. Phil Kinniery, commandant for the Army’s Infantry School and Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Georgia, told Task and Purpose that the 6.8mm ammo “stops the enemy at one round” versus the several rounds the legacy system would require.

Regardless, Shoemaker said, that purported difference can’t be seen in training; paper targets respond the same to bullets of either caliber.

Early criticism has cited ammo-management challenges in training with troops who find themselves with only 140 rounds to fire instead of the 210 they’re used to.

“Guys are having to think, ‘OK, well, how much ammo do I have left?’” Shoemaker said. “Sig has already, in a year’s time, developed a 25-round mag solution to extend some of that mag capacity out of the gate.”

It’s not clear if that 25-round magazine will immediately ship with the M8 carbine when fielding of that weapon begins in December.

Shoemaker said the alternative magazines were in early soldier evaluations and feedback and had to complete a full Army evaluation before they could be approved for use by soldiers.

“But in terms of production and manufacturing, we’re pretty much ready to go here in the next few months, to start spitting those out,” he said.

Soldier feedback also pushed Sig Sauer to design a more rigid handguard on the M8, eliminating some of the flexibility in the M7 that had presented a problem for soldiers.

“We saw that with the guys jumping out of planes, and they were like, ‘Hey, man, we’re getting a lot of flex, and then our lasers don’t line up, and we can’t hit targets at night,’” Shoemaker said. “That’s a real problem.”

The new handguard uses a newly developed insert and additional screws to reduce unwanted movement to a minimum. It will come standard on the M8.

“The M4 was in service for over 60 years, and it had a lot of iterations in between that,” Shoemaker said. “There will be continuous improvements and evolutions of that as we go along. … And as the system matures, some of that feedback gets more and more nitpicky, you know, and we love it. The smaller stuff is just as important to us as the big stuff.”

新罕布什尔州埃平——本周，这里的工作人员表示，士兵的反馈，从建设性的到尖锐的，对武器制造商西格绍尔公司开发 M8 卡宾枪起到了指导作用。

M8 是西格公司备受诟病的 M7 下一代班用步枪的紧凑型替代品，它似乎有望取代 M7 成为士兵的新标准武器，其重量大幅减轻，并进行了关键性改进，解决了士兵们的担忧。

西格公司国防产品经理乔什·舒梅克表示，其中一项变化是用 25 发弹匣取代 M7 原装的 20 发弹匣。

NGSW项目标志着M4步枪弹药从传统的5.56毫米口径过渡到6.8×51毫米通用弹药，这是一种内部设计的口径，既可用于M4步枪，也可用于即将推出的M250轻机枪。对于一些习惯使用M4 30发弹匣的士兵来说，这构成了一个重大问题。

“士兵们以前用的是5.56毫米口径的枪，习惯了带七个30发弹匣上战场，所以他们出动时大约有210发子弹，”舒梅克在一次采访中说道。“现在他们换成了这种更大口径的枪，弹匣只有20发，所以携带的子弹数量就减少了。”

此前，西格绍尔公司和陆军都强调，6.8毫米子弹更重，动能和威力更大，使部队能够用更少的子弹达到对目标的相同效果。

去年，佐治亚州本宁堡陆军步兵学校和机动卓越中心指挥官菲尔·金尼里准将告诉《任务与目标》杂志，6.8毫米弹药“只需一发就能阻止敌人”，而传统系统则需要几发子弹。

舒梅克表示，无论如何，这种所谓的差异在训练中是看不到的；纸靶对两种口径的子弹的反应都一样。

早期的批评指出，训练中弹药管理面临挑战，士兵们发现自己只有 140 发子弹可以射击，而不是他们习惯的 210 发。

“士兵们不得不考虑，‘好吧，我还剩多少弹药？’”舒梅克说。“西格公司在一年内就开发出了25发弹匣解决方案，从一开始就提高了弹匣容量。”

目前还不清楚这款 25 发弹匣是否会在 12 月 M8 卡宾枪开始列装时立即随枪一起发货。

舒梅克表示，这些替代弹匣目前正处于士兵早期评估和反馈阶段，必须完成陆军的全面评估才能批准士兵使用。

“但在生产制造方面，我们已经基本准备就绪，将在未来几个月内开始批量生产，”他说。

士兵的反馈也促使西格绍尔公司在 M8 上设计了一个更坚固的护手，消除了 M7 的一些灵活性，而这种灵活性曾给士兵带来问题。

“我们看到那些跳伞运动员也遇到过这种情况，他们说，‘嘿，伙计，我们身体晃动得太厉害了，激光瞄准器都对准不了，晚上根本打不中目标，’”舒梅克说。“这确实是个问题。”

新款护木采用新开发的嵌件和额外的螺丝，最大限度地减少了不必要的晃动。它将成为M8步枪的标配。

“M4步枪服役超过60年，期间经历了多次迭代，”舒梅克说。“随着时间的推移，它会不断改进和发展……随着系统的成熟，一些反馈意见会变得越来越吹毛求疵，你知道，而我们乐于接受这些反馈。对我们来说，细节和大问题一样重要。”