The Next Generation Squad Weapon System has been settled, and it’s been settled surprisingly quickly. The SIG XM7 rifle is already in the hands of soldiers who are putting it through its paces. This includes the 101st Airborne Division, the 50th Cavalry Regiment, and the West Virginia Army Guard. How is the rifle doing? Well, it depends on who you ask.
The Official Reports on the SIG XM7
According to the Army, it’s doing great! Soldiers are impressed by the rifle’s design, its ability to punch through armor, and its accuracy. The Army’s own website, Stars and Stripes, and more are all talking about how much soldiers love the rifle. It seems to be extremely successful, and testing is going great.
Lots of folks saw the point of the XM7 to be a bit silly. It seemed like a step back from the M4 to another M14-type battle rifle. The purpose of the weapon is to punch through level 4 plates. Reportedly, China is equipping its military force with modern body armor. That’s a claim the Russians made, but as we’ve seen in the Ukraine, the Ratnik armor has barely reached any of the soldiers at the front.
The XM7 fires an ultra-modern round at 80,000 PSI, which is insane. It promises to punch through recoil, offer a higher maximum range, and be quite accurate. The cost of this system is weight, ammo capacity, and a reduced combat load. A writer from Forbes was invited to shoot the gun and seemed to remark on its stiff recoil, giving one of the few mainstream criticisms of the platform.
However, not all criticism makes the front page of Stars and Stripes.
The Underground
The military doesn’t like to publish the negative aspects of a test. Too much ego and too many careers are on the line. If Congress hears how much money the Army spent on a system that doesn’t work as well, then they might be standing in front of Congress in their dress uniforms answering questions.
A long time ago, Trijicon and the Marine Corps came together to create the MDO, or machine gun day optic. Imagine an ACOG that weighs three pounds. They wanted to slap these on every M240 across the fleet. My unit was the first to get hands-on with some at a range day. We shot with them and were interviewed about them. Most of us disliked them. The reticle was complicated. The magnification was a fixed 6X, and the eye relief was atrocious, and it weighed three pounds!
There were more problems, but oddly enough, the articles and news pieces put out by the Marine Corps didn’t mention that. They touted it as the best thing since sliced bread and made us all sound like we loved it. The MDO stayed in the gun bag for the rest of my enlistment. So, how do soldiers actually feel about the gun?
The Reddit Posts About the XM7
It’s tough to say. We have some posts on Reddit. One poster, who must be fairly high-ranked because he is 50 years old, had three days with the rifle. He complained about its CQB performance, the suppressors being more of an advanced flash hider, the recoil, the folding buttstock, the left-side charging handle, and how hard it was to clean. This particular soldier didn’t have the super fancy Vortex optic but a SIG Tango6 LPVO.
It’s worth noting that while he noted problems with the gun, he didn’t seem overly critical of the weapon. His post was very detailed and insightful and worth reading for a balanced view of the rifle in the field. Just search the R/army subreddit for XM7, and it’ll pop up.
Another soldier, who claims he was quoted by several publications, claims they all left out his ten minutes of criticisms of the platform. He claims the gun had several reliability issues, mostly issues revolving around failures to extract and eject. The cases were also breaking when fired. He also claims the rails were not properly aligned.
His opinion on the fancy optic wasn’t high either. The ocular focus and diopter adjust rings moved by themselves. The optic isn’t bright enough, and one did the ‘red screen of death’ and another stopped working entirely. That coincides with an Army sniper section posting about their optic getting the red screen of death as well.
Still In Testing
I don’t want to hasten a mob of hate for the XM7. The X stands for experimental, and the rifle is still in an experimental phase. This phase is where we find and correct issues, and there are bound to be issues. It remains to be seen if this is M14 part 2 electric boogaloo. I’m not sold on the concept as a main infantry arm for every soldier. It seems like a great designated marksmen’s rifle.
I’m also happy to be wrong about that, and I have only ever shot a .308 Spear and have never handled a 6.8 XM7, so my own knowledge is very limited. Time will tell what happens next and if the XM7 will become the m7 and live up to the Army’s claims about the rifle and its performance.
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