Was talking with a dealer today and asking him about the dry up in AK ammo. He told me that NATO is moving to 7.62X39 and that a lot of manufactures are making rifles for it. He mentioned that even Glock was making a Rifle in this caliber. Anyone else heard about this? He has about 10K rounds in battle packs still.
Nope, no way it will happen. You are talking multiple billions of dollars to convert to a antiquated round. Converting to the 7.62 x 39 would be tantamount to admitting that the Russians got it right.
[rofllmao] [nothome] I feel he was smoking crack. Millions of rounds are being sent to the mid east for starters, material prices have went up, the dollar has went down. By dividing the supply a commercial shortage was created, coupled with rising production cost what ammo is available has fetched higher prices.
That's what I thought. But this guy is .gov as well. He is not prone to making fanciful conversations. We'll see. second stage in adoption of 7.62x39 as secondary NATO round 10/18/2005 http://www.strategypage.com/messageboards/messages/1-8171.asp I don't know what they are talking about. But at least my guy isn't the only one.
Multiple billions were and continue to be spent on a round that is arguably effective as a main battle round. 5.56 was deemed effective for the scenarios expected when it was in development, time has shown those were incorrectly expected. It surprises me not at all that other rounds are being considered for the next evolution in small arms. Consider the 6.8. The jury is still out, I guess on that one. Anyway, if we are going to change horses and not go the right way (multiple choice for multiple missions) who's to say the Russians were not so far off?
Perhaps the US military will start issues AKM's to it's troops next? I can visualize it now "A Soviet Era Cast Off is Uncle Sam's New Weapon of Choice...Film at Eleven!"
I can't see this happening. Not that I would have a problem with it, I just don't see it ever happening. I like the round myself.
Since so many former Warsaw Pact countries are joining NATO or want to, maybe NATO is considering allowing the 7.62x39 round to be used for those nations to reduce the financial burden of rearming their entire military arsenal and refitting all their ammo plants. That would make sense. But I don't think there is any way NATO is going to adopt the round and replace the 5.56.
Meaning all of a sudden different countries on the battlefield get different missions to suit their weapons. That should be a clusterfuck of magnuferous proportions. That said, I am firmly convinced that one round many missions is hard to defend. The way things seem to be now, you wind up with many attachments for the AR platform, mission dependent. Seems more useful to grab the gun for the mission rather than mess with a pile of settings and attachments. Yeah, resupply would get tricky, but the caliber rules in the field. I still think the primary should be something closer to 30 cal.
But the problem is that many Warsaw pact nations are using the 5.45 now, not the 7.62. Poland had reconfigured it's weapons to fire 5.56 NATO. I personally think it is so we can arm the middle east to our liking. I don't think we want Iraq going to Russia to get it's ammo, I am thinking we would like to control that. That would make the most sense.
That is a fantastic price. I am sitting on two battlepacks of port. It has gone through the roof. I am not shooting it, just the Malaysian stuff. It shoots well. Southernammo.com has it for $109 per 1000. It's mixed though. No Indian. Some Lake City too.