MARS Rifle

I saw that last night and really dig it. I was always intrigued by that program back in the 1990s.

Great Small Arms Review article by Chris Bartocci from 2009:

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Slick. After seeing the side by side comparison that’s quite a size reduction. I thought it was neat but I don’t have a use for anything smaller than a standard sized ar15.

I’m sure Centurion will do it right if they follow through with them.
 
You would be able to carry about a 3/2 ratio of MARS mags per 30rd STANAG 5.56 mags.

This is what most of the money from MHS should have been spent on, not SIG M17s.

If you’re designing a 9mm handgun in the 21st century, you’re way behind the times. Utter waste for military.

That MARS cartridge would be sick in something like an MP7, but I like the commonality of controls and training in a Micro M4 format better looking at it from an organizational perspective.
 
Probably one of the most interesting things TFB ever did was their "modern PDW" comparison:



While at this point, the Colt MARS is pretty much logistically pointless in the face of more reliable 5.56 and 300 BO shorty's,
I still believe to this day that somewhere between the failed KAC 6mm PDW and the Straight-walled MARS cartridges, there exists an optimal, practical, modern semi-auto defensive "carbine" that can deliver efficiently everything a CONUS end-user would legally (seeing as how many are keen to cite lack of necessity beyond an arbitrary yardage) require.
 
The 5.56x30 MARS exposes how inefficient 5.56x45 is, and how a lot of that powder isn’t being converted into anything. We saw that in the high-speed photography video of all the different calibers, where a good % of powder exited the muzzle on every cartridge they filmed, except 6.5 Creedmoor.

So from what we know about fleet M193 performance in 11.5” Commandos, we see anywhere from 2611-2846fps. with crazy ES (64-129fps) and SD (20-46fps).

These smaller cases like the .221 Fireball seem to have much better conversion, and the 5.56x30 MARS from an 11” barrel appears to give you very close to 5.56 10.5” barrel performance.