Barrett XM-109 25mm "Payload Rifle"

[Ball Zack]

Today I read an article about the US army's new XM-107 .50cal sniper rifle.  It is essentially an upgraded version of the Barrett M-82A1, that is currently being tested by US troops in Iraq.

But in this article they mentioned a new rifle that will enter the testing phase pretty soon.  It is known as the Barrett XM-109 25mm "Payload Rifle".  It too is a modified version of the M-82A1 Barrett 50cal, only it has been rechambered to fire the same 25mm ammunition used in the chain gun of the Bradely fighting vehicle.  The M-82 design was beefed up with a larger more effective 3 chamber (the M-82 used a 2 chamber design) muzzle break, and strengthened internal parts.  The magazine only carries 5 rounds instead of 10 because of the larger size of the 25mm ammunition.  The purpose of this rifle is to "engage and destroy light armoured targets out to 2000 meters".  And when they say "light armoured targets" they are talking about amoured personel carriers.  Imagine a sniper rifle that you can use to disable or destroy a BMP or BRDM with 4 or 5 shots.... yeah....  I want one......

[m21man]

Imagine a sniper rifle that you can use to disable or destroy a BMP or BRDM with 4 or 5 shots....

The Barret M82 is quite capable of doing this, it was used very effectively in the Gulf War. They're probably just trying to improve the range of the rifle.

[Stag]

I think the 25mm ammo used by the Bradley has a DU penetrator, So there's a possibility of a "One Shot, One Kill" weapon here.

Dampening or not, recoil will be a bitch.

Hey! I never said "whine," I said Bitch!

[Semith]

25mm?  Ouch.

Yes, I would rather be the spotter...  

[Ball Zack]

Actually you probably wouldn't rather be the spotter.  The backward blast pressure created by the 3 chamber muzzle break must be tremendous.  They said that it is so effective at reducing recoil, that when it was installed on a standard .50cal M-82, the rifle wouldn't cycle a new round because the semi-auto system on the M-82 uses the recoil of the rifle to work the action.  Supposedly the recoil felt by the shooter is only slightly higher then the .50cal version.  But I'm pretty sure that the shooter and spotter need some damn good earplugs otherwise they would most likely experience permanent lose of hearing....

Also even though the .50 cal will probably penetrate the lighter armour of a BRDM, I doubt that it could effectively ventilate a BMP in a critical area at long range.  The 25mm shouldn't have any problems with BMPs and other more heavily armoured APCs.  Also I wonder if they have an anti-personel round that would be similar in performance to the proposed OICW round.  Maybe an early precursor of this weapon to test it's effectiveness in combat?  Imagine a grenadelauncher/sniper rifle used to dispatch groups of infantry at long range......