In my last post, I dove into the short-lived saga of the XM106, the US Army’s DIY automatic rifle that threw its hat into the ring against belt-fed 5.56 mm light machine guns in the 5.56 mm Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) Program. The aim? To arm infantry squads with a feather-light beast that could spit out a storm of bullets. But before we got to the XM106, there was the 6mm SAW program from ’72 to ’76, born out of the Army’s Vietnam War lessons and the looming threat of European battles. They wanted something lighter yet with a longer reach—talk about a tall order!