Shot an MCX Soear is .277 Fury (with can, LPVO, etc) this weekend at the Sig range in Epping. It’s a beast, and imho just too dang heavy. Recoil was quite manageable with the weight of the platform but my support arm started getting tired after just 10 rds. Ammo is noticeably heavier as well. Not sure what they were going for, but ammo performance isn’t going to mean much if you can’t stabilize because your arms are shaking. What am I missing here that this is supposed to be the “everyman” rifle of the future?

At about 10 pounds nominal weight (and that's with the suppressor), it weighs about 3 pounds more than an unsuppressed M4A1.

And about the same as a bare M1 Garand.

So while it's noticeably heavier than an AR, it's not unmanageably heavy.

There are significantly heavier rifles currently/recently in use with the Army, like the M110 at ~15 pounds, or the various modernized DMR/EBR M14s at 12-15 pounds.

Not to mention the guys humping M249 SAWs at ~18 pounds, or M250 LMGs at ~15 pounds.


That's part of the reason why physical fitness and especially upper body strength is prioritized for soldiers... So they can more easily manage the weight of their small arms.

Being conditioned to be able to handle a weapon properly is part of what it means to be qualified with it. Once a shooter gets to that point, heavier actually helps with marksmanship because the greater inertia of the weight helps dampen the gun’s movement due to involuntary muscle tremors. That’s why competitors in positional shooting prefer heavier guns.

Without its scope my Winchester 52E rifle chambered for 22 Long Rifle weighs about 12 pounds. I used it for years in small bore competitions that involved strings of offhand (standing unsupported) shooting at tiny targets. The discipline also required shooting from the prone and kneeling positions with no artificial support other than a sling. All that was 50 or so years ago for me and I couldn’t do that today, but at the time there were many men older than I who were using similar rifles.

The M1 Garand was mentioned, and my Springfield M1A that weighs about 9.5 pounds unloaded is a virtual clone of the M14 rifle I was issued in Army basic training. Like the many other scrawny teenagers in my unit, I didn’t have any problem handling and qualifying as expert with it, including shooting it offhand during qualification.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Being conditioned to be able to handle a weapon properly is part of what it means to be qualified with it. Once a shooter gets to that point, heavier actually helps with marksmanship because the greater inertia of the weight helps dampen the gun’s movement due to involuntary muscle tremors. That’s why competitors in positional shooting prefer heavier guns.

Without its scope my Winchester 52E rifle chambered for 22 Long Rifle weighs about 12 pounds. I used it for years in small bore competitions that involved strings of offhand (standing unsupported) shooting at tiny targets. The discipline also required shooting from the prone and kneeling positions with no artificial support other than a sling. All that was 50 or so years ago for me and I couldn’t do that today, but at the time there were many men older than I who were using similar rifles.

The M1 Garand was mentioned, and my Springfield M1A that weighs about 9.5 pounds unloaded is a virtual clone of the M14 rifle I was issued in Army basic training. Like the many other scrawny teenagers in my unit, I didn’t have any problem handling and qualifying as expert with it, including shooting it offhand during qualification.

In the context of a contemporary issued small arm, it’s too heavy. More weight doesn’t benefit the soldier. Competition rifles and mil issue rifles are an apples to oranges comparison. Not to mention the very real and not able to be corrected issue of rail shift, which is a nonstarter.

Reading comprehension, but perhaps it was my fault for discussing concepts that were difficult to understand. I will try again.

I did not claim that extra weight benefits the soldier, but in actual fact, sometimes that’s true. Some soldiers are tasked with delivering accurate long distance fire, and then the benefit that I did my best to help people understand would apply—just as it benefits civilian precision rifle shooters. Nevertheless, my comments were just a general discussion of marksmanship, not any sort of claim that unnecessary weight benefited soldiers.

My citing the weights of the M14 and my Winchester 52E rifle were to point out that 10 pounds is hardly a crushing weight that a reasonably fit soldier (or even a high school student or raw teenaged recruit) cannot be expected to be able to handle and shoot effectively. Those examples were in response to “my support arm started getting tired after just 10 rds,” not to the general question of how much weight a soldier should be expected to have to put up with.

In addition to the marksmanship benefits of more weight which may not be particularly important for the average infantryman, there is the recoil issue. Recoil control is important for delivering accurate, and especially fast fire. It’s a fundamental truth of physics that the lighter the weapon, the more felt recoil and therefore the more difficult to fire fast and accurately. It is commonly reported, for example, that M14 rifles fired in the fully automatic load were so difficult for average shooters to control that that helped lead to the demise of the weapon.

Is 10 pounds more than necessary for adequate recoil control with the 277 Fury cartridge? I don’t know. I have no experience shooting the round in any gun, but it’s a simple fact of physics that the heavier the rifle, the less effect recoil will have on the shooter. Ten pounds is not too much heavier than the 8 pounds of one AR-15 I weighed, but the 277 cartridge is significantly more powerful than the 223 Remington ammunition I normally fire and therefore I would expect it would make it harder to fire fast and accurately from the same weight gun.

I have no opinion about whether the M7 rifle is heavier than it needs to be, but my response was to point out that 10 pounds is not unusually heavy for a rifle, and, for the benefit of the ignorant, that extra weight can have certain benefits. But for all I know, it could be slimmed down to 4-5 pounds with no ill effect on the ability of the average soldier to use it effectively in combat. I doubt that, but I’ve been wrong before.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Reading comprehension, but perhaps it was my fault for discussing concepts that were difficult to understand. I will try again.

Not difficult to understand at all. But hey I’m sure always being the smartest guy in the room is a tough cross to bear for you.

I routinely shoot with guys from Bragg who have experience with the M7 and they universally say that it’s too heavy and a POS. These aren’t support guys, but actual gunfighters. In the context of contemporary war fighting it’s too heavy. Its accuracy reports are also dismal. And the vortex optic is trash. This setup will go the way of the scar-L and the m110 and m110a1 will soldier on in its place.

There are better options for recoil control in a military issue small arm than adding weight. Incorporating Sullivan’s constant recoil, for example.

As I mentioned, recoil was definitely manageable but weight was not. Can't imagine shootin' and scootin' with this beast. Prone behind cover, sure, but mobile firepower is the way you win. I shot a Garand for several years, always offhand--it didn't balance the same as the M7 and never got me fatigued like this.

Just giving my perspective, but unless M855 and Mk262 are suddenly bouncing off of everything they hit, I see the cons far outweighing the pros of this rifle.

It seems there's a new version of the M7 that's being tested out:



Big notes are the rifle is down to about 7.5# w/suppressor. It's now a 10.5" barrel with a shorter suppressor and some extra weight savings in the lower.

It still has the same other issues that goes against common sense, but it's hard to yell at Sig for producing exactly what the Army wanted. I'd still be interested in seeing what a 5.56 would do if you used Sig's bi-metal case and high pressure so you aren't losing half you ammo and none of the weight.

The Army is supposedly looking into Badlands Munitions ShellShock ammo as well which seems to be the more efficient and less expensive way to more firepower, but my only source is a YouTube video.

Interesting. So now they're down to around the same weight with the new smaller suppressor as an unsuppressed M4A1, which addresses that concern of it being too heavy.

And in going from a 13" barrel to the lighter 10.5" barrel, they apparently only lost around 100 FPS. It's still rocking along at ~2900 FPS, which is likewise about the same as a 16" M4, just with a bullet that has twice the mass of 5.56.

Good to see that Sig is taking the feedback seriously.

More on the lighter model:

Sig Sauer’s M7 Rifle For The Army Is Now Lighter After Controversy

Excessive weight was among the lengthy criticisms of the M7 that an Army captain put forward earlier this year, prompting widespread attention.

by Joseph Trevithick, Howard Altman
Published Oct 13, 2025 4:04 PM EDT

Sig Sauer says it has been able to trim the weight of the Army’s new 6.8x51mm M7 service rifle by nearly a pound, or just over 10 percent, in response to feedback from servicemembers. The M7’s weight compared to the gun it is set to replace, the 5.56x45mm M4A1, was among the criticisms that an Army captain very publicly leveled against the gun earlier this year. Sig had subsequently issued a vehement rebuttal, but acknowledged that the design was still evolving.

Jason St. John, senior director of strategic products for the Defense Strategies Group at Sig Sauer, gave an update on the M7 rifle, as well as the companion 6.8x51mm M250 machine gun, to TWZ‘s Howard Altman on the show floor at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual symposium today. Sig Sauer has also been working on a shorter and lighter carbine variation of the M7 for the Army. Sig Sauer did show the lightened “product-improved” M7, also known as the PIE M7, at the biennial Defense and Security Equipment International (DSEI) exhibition in London earlier this year, but does not appear to have had the carbine on display at that event...

Complete article:

https://www.twz.com/land/sig-s...er-after-controversy