So, has any one here ever fired one of these? From all I've seen and heard it seems like utter trash. Looks really dumb too
There's a custom outfitter somewhere who'll rebuild a H&K SL8 into a semi-auto clone of the XM8, I think MAC on YouTube had one.
I don't know exactly how close that is, but given that the XM8 is heavily based on the G36, I'd say it would be pretty close. So I'd say, if based on the model in your picture (not the last XM8 model), it would be kind of like a weird feeling G36, all in all.
The final XM8 model, before it was abandoned, was somewhat better, had proper rails and stuff.
>>30557942
Considering the XM8 was amongst the best performing in the M4-SCAR16-XM8-G36 tests, I'd say it's performing pretty well?
Remember it's from a time when Picatinny-o'clock and modular stuff everywhere wasn't a thing. It was pretty innovative with the swappable stocks and handguards though.
>>30558132
And personally I think they look cool as fuck. Give it a stock like the new G36KV, picatinny forend, and a flat top rail and it'd be pretty damn sleek.
The problem is OP that most 5.56mm select fire rifles are basically the same from a functional perspective.
So its not worth spending the money to replace something that already does the job fine.
>>30558152
True.
People whining about service rifles in 5.56 performing like shit are either because of incompatible twist rate barrels from years of yonder, or the rifles really just being tossed around and shot daily for 30-40 years.
Unlike we're talking about things like the INSAS or Cetme-L which are truly quite shit.
>>30558178
I've always wondered, if the military has a budget it needs to spend, these ideas of "it being expensive to replace gear with small gains", cant it..use that money? Its not going anywhere else
>>30558132
I think it had the potential to be a great weapon, with a little more time and funding for refining it, plus I think it tried too many new things too fast for its time
>>30558196
>Its not going anywhere else
It is, though. Maintenance, modernization...
today, the dominant meme isn't "x requirements so we'll need y money," it's "we have y money, what can we get with it."
>>30558152
so small arms technology has essentially peaked?
>>30558132
i find it hard to believe that the fish gun outperformed scar16
>>30558271
For practical purposes. The last "revolution" wasn't in the gun itself - it was reliable optical sights - red dots and ACOGs.
Polymer CT ammo will arguably arrive eventually. Same for tracking point style smart sights, and OSS style non-baffled suppressors.
But the main stuff is all well known.
>>30558228
>>30558196
Marinefag checking in, literally if you don't spend all of your budget, they reduce it by the difference the next year. So we might not spend much one year and have x dollars left over and have to literally waste it on something so we don't loose that money next year. I remember one year the LT pulled all the NCOs aside and asked what kinda gear we would want for the company because we had like 2million to spend in 2 months. Bought a bunch of dumb shit.
>>30558311
Thank you for your service, but also fuck you for wasting my tax dollars.
>>30558311
Let's hear what "dumb shit" entitles.
>>30558132
>performing better than the SCAR 16 and M4
The gun which had problems with warping and melting during sustained fire? Pardon me if I find this questionable.
>>30558152
This, the US already has the M4 and the M16, and those are perfectly adequate guns, rather good ones even, there isn't much of a point to replace something that already does a good enough job.
The only thing I'd reconsider is having M855 as the standard rifle/carbine loading, which I'd rather see changed.
>>30558178
Oh yeah, the INSAS is a disaster, there we have something which IS broken.
>>30558207
I think it could probably have been pretty good, like a better G36, but I think those futuristic rounded lines kind of felt needless, might be able to shave a few ounces off the design without making it significantly structurally weaker.
>>30558271
I'd say that it's reached kind of a plateau, for the foreseeable future.
The M16 and M4 will probably be in use by America for another 50 years, maybe with some advancement models. And that's honestly fine, there isn't anything wrong with it.
>>30559555
it performed well until it started to melt
how is that hard to wrap your head around?
like if you had a sports car with a shitty radiator
it drives well until it overheats
>>30559555
The melty maymay started when someone magdumped multiple betamags on full auto (something that will cause most automatic weapons to experience heat issues) and the German defense minister jumped on it in the hopes it would help cement her legacy. This isn't something anyone is ever going to encounter in real life circumstances (hence why none of the other countries with g36s have any issue with them), its all political masturbation.
>>30558132
The test Colt ousted themselves by providing brand new M4s instead of the beat to shit taining M4s, new mags that weren't used to shit GI mags, the same new mags used by HK and Sig , given to a company that conducted the same exact test under the same exact conditions, only they knew how the rifle actually worked when using the burst fire feature and didn't mark their own incompetence and inability to fully fucking depress the trigger as a failure of the rifle, which then proceeded to have the least number of Rifle and Mag related failures out of the bunch?
Are we talking about the same XM8 here?
>>30558364
We bought 3 industrial sized pressure washers to pressure wash tents. Picture a pressure washer the size of a Fiat. Bunch of shovels and shit too but those we kinda needed. Oh and a SOIL TEST KIT. We build bridges once in a while and you are supposed to "inspect the soil" before you start which literally entails stepping on it to see how soft it is. So the LT thought we could buy a soil test kit to be more operator. We never opened it in the rest of the year I was there.
I tried to fire one but fish and wildlife officers stopped me and threw it back into the river.
>>30559746
No gun should have such serious drops in accuracy after 3 mag dumps, like the G36c was discovered to have after post issuing testing.
Lo and behold, HK cocked it up and the countries that ordered it after Germany threw their bitch fit, bought the refined version of the rifle that still has issues but only after 5 mag dumps.
>>30558295
Then you're not terribly smart. SCAR 16 is a piece of shit.
>>30557942
Seems like a gun that came 10 years too late or designed 10 years too early
>>30559878
>SCAR 16 is a piece of shit
.t salty poorfag
