Category: All About Guns
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M14 / XM21 Sniper Setup in Vietnam
U.S. Army Soldier with the Army Marksmanship Unit conducting rifle drills with the XM8 at Fort Benning, Ga, February 2026.
Image courtesy of the U.S. Army.
Some members of the U.S. Army will begin receiving a new XM8 carbine for testing in October 2026, a shorter, lighter version of the M7 rifle introduced under the branch’s Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) program.
The carbine version was developed by SIG Sauer as part of its joint Product Improvement Effort with the U.S. Military. The gun received the official XM8 designation and stock number from the U.S. Army in March, according to Soldier Systems.
The XM8 trims one full pound off the M7’s 8.3-pound heft. Its shorter barrel contributes to the weight savings, along with modifications to the upper receiver.
“The XM8 is just over 32 inches long overall, compared to 37 inches for the M7, with a barrel length dropped from 13 to 11 inches and its suppressor from 7 to 6 inches,” SIG Sauer product manager for rifles and suppressors Joshua Shoemaker told Task & Purpose. Other enhancements include a handguard that’s more rigid and softer recoil pad.
Its 6.8×51 mm chambering remains identical to its big brother and the M250 Automatic rifle, which was also introduced with NGSW. The XM8 wears a telescoping buttstock, rather than the M7’s side-folder.
Complete adoption of the M7/XM8 platform by all branches of the U.S. military is not in the near future, however, if ever. “The Marines have decided to stick with the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle instead of switching to the Army’s M7 Next Generation Squad Weapon Rifle,” a spokesperson for the branch told Task & Purpose in February.
The new carbine’s label has fueled some confusion among those who remember Heckler & Koch’s submission for U.S. military trials earlier this century. It was also dubbed the XM8 for testing, but the guns are unrelated and do not share the same chambering.
A story about that H&K submission appeared in American Rifleman in 2005, and explains, in “October 2003, the first 30 were sent to Aberdeen, Md…This modular family was first built and tested in the 5.56×45 mm, but it can also easily be adapted for the new Remington 6.8 mm SPC.”
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The 40mm Machine Gun!!!
Less than a year after promising they weren’t “coming for anyone’s guns,” Rhode Island lawmakers just filed 18 gun control bills — including one that would criminalize possession of firearms purchased lawfully before their last ban even takes full effect.
Remember last year, when Rhode Island Democrats rammed through a sweeping ban on modern sporting rifles — the ones they love to mislabel “assault weapons” — and swore up and down they weren’t coming for anyone’s guns? They were just regulating future sales, they said. Law-abiding owners had nothing to worry about.
Yeah. About that.
At a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing, Ocean State lawmakers dropped 18 gun control bills in a single package. Not sales restrictions. Not waiting periods. Full-on possession bans. On firearms Rhode Islanders already own. Legally. Before the prior ban has even fully kicked in.
This is exactly what gun rights advocates have been screaming about for decades. And it’s precisely what the gun control crowd has been telling us would never happen.
What’s actually in the package
The 18-bill slate is a greatest-hits album of every Democrat’s wishlist:
- A direct assault on the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) via a “public nuisance” liability scheme — the same unconstitutional trick anti-gunners have been trying to run in half a dozen states, designed to bankrupt the industry through death-by-lawsuit.
- Gun rationing (because apparently the Second Amendment comes with a monthly quota).
- Background checks on ammunition.
- Mandatory training requirements.
- Mandatory liability insurance to exercise a constitutional right. Try to imagine them requiring this for voting or speech.
- And the headline-grabber: outright possession bans on commonly-owned semiautomatic rifles.
The PLCAA-targeting bill is particularly sneaky. It would force firearms manufacturers, distributors, and retailers to implement vague, undefined “reasonable controls” over how they make, sell, and market lawful products — opening them up to ruinous litigation every time a criminal misuses a gun. Which is precisely what Congress passed PLCAA to prevent.
Here’s the tell. A possession ban isn’t a regulation on commerce. It’s the confiscation of lawfully owned property, full stop.
You followed every law when you bought your rifle. You passed the background check. You filled out the 4473. You did everything they told you to do. And now Rhode Island wants to turn you into a felon for owning the same gun they approved you to buy.
Don’t take our word for it. Here’s Rep. Teresa Tanzi, the bill’s sponsor, telling the House Judiciary Committee exactly what she has in mind for firearms her constituents legally own: “We have defined which is dangerous and we have the right to regulate it into nonexistence.”
That’s not a gun safety policy. That’s an agenda.
And it comes less than a year after Governor Dan McKee signed last year’s ban with explicit assurance that the law “allows lawful owners to possess these firearms.” McKee himself has a track record on this — last year he quietly tried to slip an assault weapons ban into his budget proposal after failing to get one through the legislature the honest way.