The .277 Fury Will be Another Expensive Failure

As my regular readers know, I have written multiple posts on this Substack which highlight specific examples of how the so-called “expert” and “intellectual” class in West have repeatedly shown themselves to be incompetent and clueless, especially in the past two decades. While there are many reasons behind this trend, the outcomes are usually identical- in that the opinions and decisions made by these “credentialed” cocksuckers ends up screwing the lives of other people- with almost no repercussions for these PMC parasites. We have seen this in areas as diverse as economics, public health policy, foreign policy and more. This post is going to focus on another example of their stupidity, though to be fair this mess is combination of stupidity and greed.

A few of you might have heard about this cartridge also known as the 6.8x51 mm being recently selected for the future American (and NATO) infantry rifle and squad assault weapon program. Of course, this is not the first time that the corrupt morons running procurement have vainly tried to find a replacement for 5.56x45 mm NATO and guns based around it. To be clear, I am not trying to suggest that 5.56 NATO is the perfect infantry rifle cartridge, and it was never a secret that it was less than suitable in roles such as designated marksman or even in certain environments such as dense jungles or deserts. Then again, there is no perfect cartridge and every choice has its pros and cons. The same hold true for gun actions.

With that out of the way, let us quickly go over why the 5.56 NATO has been around for six decades. Simply put, it combines a flat trajectory upto 300 m, decent terminal velocity and wounding power combined with a recoil that is light enough to make accurate selective fire possible from a handheld weapon used by an average person with some training. Its small size allows the average infantryman to carry many more rounds than the 7.62x51 mm NATO or other similar calibers. To put it bluntly, it is good enough for most situations which require a basic combat rifle or SAW. It also helps that there are a massive number of pre-existing guns chambered in that caliber as well a huge amount of existing tooling to make them.

So let me now start listing the many reasons why adopting the .277 Fury (6.8x51 mm) is a dumb idea which will likely become an expensive failure..

1] There haven’t been any significant technological advances in the area of personal firearms, especially infantry rifles and their cartridges, since the 1970s. There is a reason why the vast majority of infantry rifles and other personal firearms are still chambered in calibers developed before 1970, and this was not for lack of trying. The simple fact is there have been zero worthwhile advances in chemistry of propellants and engineering behind projectiles and cartridge cases since at least the 1960s, if not before. Similarly our understanding of metallurgy and material sciences, as it relates to the construction of firearms has not advanced much since the 1970s.

2] I would now like to highlight the two most troublesome characteristics of this new round, namely the unusually high chamber pressure it generates as well as complex construction of the cartridge necessitated by said pressure levels. While the decision to go for such an unusually high chamber pressure (80,000 psi or 551.6 MPa) was done to satisfy the borderline insane performance requirements for this round, it has the potential to create a ton of downstream problems- some of which might not become apparent until the weapons firing it are used extensively under real-life conditions.

If you have ever read the specs for enough rifle-caliber rounds, you might have also noticed a peculiar trend concerning maximum chamber pressure. To be succinct, the maximum chamber pressure of modern rifle-caliber rounds is usually between 50,000-60,000 psi and this has been the case for a bit over a century. But why? Well.. it comes down to the ease of industrial manufacture of those rounds and firearms using them. A chamber pressures above 60,000 psi make it dangerous and problematic to use brass for cartridge cases (hence the special casing for .277 ), reduces barrel bore life and requires expensive and hard-to-machine alloys for making parts of the gun exposed to those pressures. And all of this does not does translate into significant increases in real-life performance, under normal combat conditions.

3] Then there are practical reasons involving logistics. Given how much ammunition and guns are used up in real wars, it would be an incredibly dumb idea to have an expensive main battle rifle built using specialized materials and using ammunition in an obscure and finicky caliber. This is doubly so because ammunition and guns made at an industrial scale and used in less than pristine conditions can expose design flaws which were hidden during normal field trials. Let me remind you that there is not a single instance of a major battle rifle which did not go through serious teething problems when first used under real-life conditions. War has a way of exposing the hubris of weapon designers and undermining the “best” ideas.

Here is why.. consider the rather significant increase in muzzle energy (and therefore recoil) of this round when compared to its predecessor. The mores historically minded among you might remember that the shift to intermediate cartridges after WW2 was largely driven by the need to keep recoil levels (under select fire) manageable. That is why the M16, M4 and every infantry battle rifle since the 1960s was chambered in 5.56 rather than 7.62. It is also why the erstwhile USSR switched to intermediate cartridges such as 7.62x39 after WW2. While SIG has made incorporated features to make rifles firing the .277 Fury a bit more controllable, let us not forget than this round has about the same muzzle energy as a 7.62 in addition to a sharper recoil. In other words, using this round effectively will require new, expensive and complicated guns.

Which brings me to the question of the scenario where this peculiar round and guns firing it are partially adopted but experience functional and logistical issues during a real war of conflict of some sort. What will they do then? Bring back M4s and M249s from storage? If they do so, what was the point of adopting this new calibers and guns built around it? Then again, expensive boondoggles and scams which waste taxpayer money are the bread and butter of the western Military-Industrial Complex. How else would we get paper wonders such as the F-22, B-2, F-35 or new classes of destroyers which don’t work as advertised. Or what about all those high-tech drones which cost as much as manned aircraft but are far more vulnerable against an opponent with even a half-decent SAM capability? So ya.. I see that .277 Fury as another expensive bondoogle which has made some powerful people a bit richer than before.

Here is someone with similar ideas about that round. Note his comments about the 6.8 SPC which has similar performance to the .277 Fury, but was ultimately dropped by the army at its replacement for the 5.56 because it was underwhelming.

What do you think? Comments?