U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) will receive lightweight machine guns that fire the .338 Norma Magnum (NM) round which is lighter and delivers 4x the punch of a 7.62 bullet at longer ranges.
The service expects to field the .338 Norma Magnum weapon by early fiscal year 2023. It’s going to be ammo fielded for all of SOCOM’s forces as a machine gun and sniper round and for the Army in their Advanced Sniper Rifle program, Army Col. Joel Babbitt — program executive officer for SOF Warrior and all things individual gear for Special Operations Command, was quoted as saying by Military Times during the annual Special Operations Forces Industry Conference on Wednesday.
The colonel said that shooters are seeing better effects on target from the .338NM than from the .50 caliber. There’s better penetration and accuracy. “We’re killing, not just suppressing the target,” Babbitt said.
A .50 caliber machine gun or the M2 can weigh nearly 90 pounds but the prototypes they’re seeing for the Lightweight Medium Machinegun (LMG-M) are tipping the scales at 22-25 pounds.
SOCOM expects to procure the 6.5mm Creedmoor round to replace the 7.62mm sniper support rifles they currently have. It reportedly gives shooters 1.5 times the range of the current 7.62mm.
In 2019, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing won the contract to provide the Advanced Sniper rifle, a main gun, bolt-action weapon that can be configured to fire three different rounds, depending on the mission – .338 NM, .300 NM and 7.62mm.