Quote Originally Posted by pdshooter2 View Post
the most common issue is that the m118lr was developed for bolt guns..it was a top end load the was well past the m852 168 load of 2550 fps.
when the load was used in ar10's( yep they had so many armalite's you could not buy a mag in the usa for a while) and sr25's. there were no issues. when they reactivated m14's they started having issues in the summer heat. bent op rods. so instead of using the ammo where it was intended, they watered it down. first time. then they went over seas and played in the desert and again the m14 was the problem child...more bent op rods. again instead of using where intended, it was watered down again. each time it was watered down it lost some value, less velocity/less accuracy. in the end the politician approach was lets go make a nice generic load that works ok everywhere, rather than an excellent BOLT RIFLE sniper load. so now we have 175 that does a mere 2570 or so.....barely faster tan the 168 load.
while hard to get early data, shooters said it was close to 2700 fps with the 175. a hot load for sure.
Interesting. I didn't know the US ever fielded the AR10 in 7.62NATO, especially back during VN. Some foreign countries did. I'd be interested if there was a procurement at that time.