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About 80% complete. One reason the BAR was reliable.
But unless you change the receiver considerably you have a problem making it light. Putting a light skinny barrel on it just leads to other problems.
You could shorten it and use a shorter cartridges but that adds to development time.
Obviously they did make it in shorter cartridges but they often left the receiver and bolt alone so no weight reduction.
The .250 Savage is nice round for hunting and a number of experimenters used it.
However it had a large amount of taper to it and while not as bad a 8mm Lebel or even the .303 (barely) and stacking large quantities of ammo (15 or more?) rounds in a magazine is going to call for curved magazine. Can be done but one more complication.
250 Savage was over about 20-22mm shorter than a 30-06 (depending on bullet), which certainly leaves room for a shorter/lighter receiver. But at that point you are not gaining much by trying to shrink the BAR down to the desired size.
A lot depends on what you want the new gun to do.
Like anti-personnel only or anti-vehicle (at least trucks) and tracer capability and if so, out to what range.
I like the 250 Savage exactly because it was mild, so there is no intention on my part to make it more powerful. I'm okay with 2800+ fps with 90-100 gr ammo, the barrel no longer than 20 in, and again I'm not interested in the 3000 fps value.The 250 Savage was designed to use full length barrels, around 20-24in ( 508-610mm?) It had also be designed to use an 87grain (5.64 grams) bullet to get the 'advertised' 3000fps velocity. Using a 100 grain (6.48g) bullet cost several hundred fps. Now this was with 1915 powder and mid/late 30s powder had an advantage.
But there was no reason to use the 250 Savage as is. A case with less taper could hold a bit more powder, stack better, and restore some of the lost velocity of the shorter barrel.
But more powder also means more barrel wear and more muzzle blast.
But if the US would not switch to the .276 Peterson there is little chance they would adopt and even lower powered round. neither would be compatible with the the millions of 30-05 in storage and neither would do the long range job of the machine gun.
If you get around that there may have been a number of other guns that offered more than the BAR.
Most of the Military 6.5 ammo was using 130-160 grain bullets and had a lot more room for tracer inside the bullets.Tracers - about the same as then-current 6.5mm ammo.
There is no intention on my part to suggest that the 6.35-6.5mm weapon will replace all and every automatic weapon in the countries of interest. These countries can have the 7.7-8mm 'heavy' MGs as they intend to do.Most of the Military 6.5 ammo was using 130-160 grain bullets and had a lot more room for tracer inside the bullets.
Now the Swedes came up with an 8mm round for their big machineguns because the 6.5 Swedish was not powerful enough.
Italians also came up with an 8mm machine gun round.
Japanese came up with a 7.7mm machine gun round.
6.5s don't make good AP (or metal piercing) bullets.
If you want a medium powered rifle and cartridge and you are willing to put up with a 2 cartridge supply system then there is no reason you can't do it.
Question is where is the break in the supply chain. No real bad answer. Soviets keep the 7.62 rimmed even at company level. Platoons in the 1950s got the 7.62X39s.
Kind of depends on where the heavy machine guns are located, parceled out to the companies or held at battalion level?
US Marines got 3 BARs per 13 man squad in 1944/45. The Army did not.There is no intention on my part to suggest that the 6.35-6.5mm weapon will replace all and every automatic weapon in the countries of interest. These countries can have the 7.7-8mm 'heavy' MGs as they intend to do.
Having two lightweight BARs per section/squad (ie. per 10-12 men), the heavier and often tripod-mounted automatic weapons can remain where they were. Granted, not many of the militaries will have two LW BARs available, especailly considering the huge manpower of some armies.
The Ackley improved 250 Savage blew out much of the taper for more powder capacityThe .250 Savage is nice round for hunting and a number of experimenters used it.
However it had a large amount of taper to it and while not as bad a 8mm Lebel or even the .303 (barely) and stacking large quantities of ammo (15 or more?) rounds in a magazine is going to call for curved magazine. Can be done but one more complication.
Now the squads with the same ammo bolt guns (or the US M-1) could refill the mags/belts if they were in a position where the MG was doing most of the shooting.
If your squad automatic is using different ammo?
Or if you have several squad automatics and use them in rotation to keep them cool and restrict ammo use?
I don't know which was worse.
Lack of quick change barrel.
Not having enough ammo in the squad.