The weapon’s development period between the Gulf War and the Global War on Terror isn’t discussed enough. It was an era of radical experiments and weapon design. As the era of peace ended after 9/11, a lot of these experiments faded away in favor of what troops on the ground needed immediately. Some of these experiments made it overseas, but most did not. The Barrett XM109 is one of those oft-forgotten experiments that got stuck in development hell.
There was an era of weapon design when bigger was better. I don’t just mean bullet size. In fact, the Army had the idea that the weapons of war didn’t just need to be bullets. The future would be grenades—namely, small grenades fired from various infantry weapons. Things like air burst and computer implementation were big. The most well-known of these weapons was the OICW.
The Barrett XM109 comes from that era of weapon development.
The Barrett XM109 – Why
Everyone knows Barrett. They are an unfathomably based company known for producing the first successful .50 BMG rifles. Ronnie Barrett is an absolute genius. The company now produces a variety of rifles, including some smaller caliber and extremely long-range options. A variety of their long-range rifles have been adopted by the military, including numerous .50 caliber rifles.
The Barrett XM109 was developed after the military adopted .50-caliber rifles. Barrett wanted to produce a sniper rifle that complimented the OICW and would fire 25x59mm grenades. The idea was to create an infantry, man-portable weapon that could engage light armored vehicles and shut them down.
Typical anti-armor weapons rely on rather large launchers and recoilless rifles. While they are man-portable, they do have some downsides. They have a range limited to 1,000 meters. When fired, they generate backblast, which means they can’t be used inside a building or near most of the cover. It’s also easy to locate and spot a guy firing a recoilless rifle. Also, you get one shot before you ditch a disposable tube, or you take the time to reload something like a Carl Gustav or SMAW.
An anti-armor sniper rifle allows the shooter to hide and engage an armored vehicle from up to 2,000 meters with ease, with a maximum range of 3,600 meters. The XM109 could also be used against entrenched positions to decimate numerous forms of cover and more. Plus, it was semi-automatic, which gives the shooter faster follow-up shots and magazine-fed reloading.
Breaking Down the Barrett XM109
Barrett didn’t produce an entirely new rifle. Rather, they produced an upper that could be mated to M82 rifles. The M82 rifles were already in military service and used for anti-material purposes. In theory, the user could swap uppers to convert a .50 cal M82 into an XM109 with its 25mm grenade. That’s handy for troops and simplifies logistics.
Like the M82, the system uses a short recoil operation to feed the massive cartridges reliably. The weapon featured a fairly short 17.6-inch barrel. The total weight was 33.2 pounds and was 46 inches long. It’s certainly a big weapon, and a heavy one, but could still be transported by a single troop, with one other helping carry ammo.
The AXM109 would use the BORS or Barrett Optical Ranging System. The XM7 wasn’t the first gun to include a computer in the optic. The BORS was a bit simpler than the current option. The BORS is a tool added to an optic. It mounts to the top of the optic and provides tons of data to the man holding the weapon.
This made it easy to account for temperature, barometric pressure, and range. The computer gave the shooter that information. The BORS system would be programmed to the XM109 round to allow for it to account for the cartridge’s likely unique ballistic profile.
The XM109 series came with a bipod, carry handle, Picatinny rail, and similar standard Barrett goodies. It also had a massive muzzle brake with hopes of reducing recoil.
The Problem
The XM109 suffered from a serious case of recoil. In fact, it had almost double the recoil of the M82 in .50 caliber. The term unbearable is used to describe it fairly frequently. Barrett produced 10 prototypes of the rifle, but by 2004, they pulled the guns to work on the recoil problem. As far as I can tell, they haven’t canceled the program, but they just kind of forgot about it.
It’s a neat idea, but it seems as if the idea behind grenades as projectiles has faded from the military market. Still, a grenade launching sniper rifle sounds rad.
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