There's not a ton written about this that I can find, but cracks are appearing in the US military's plan to replace the M4 with a heavier battle rifle designed to defeat body armor. Sig Sauer, which also holds contracts for the current generation pistol and LMG, won a contract last year to also provide the US military with a new rifle. This rifle is to be called the XM7. The civilian equivalent is the Sig Spear. Calling this thing an assault rifle is a bit of a stretch, as it is very heavy and uses heavy ammunition. It turns out that the rifle is failing to penetrate modern body armor without the use of tungsten bullets. Also its reliability is questionable.
We have electric ignition (Sparklock) systems in commercial use, they just require batteries (and are unreliable in cold weather etc) so they're generally only used on autocannon and larger systems by militaries. And hobbyist muzzleloaders for the steampunk vibes.
:the-doohickey:
yeah those are pretty cool i can see the tech becoming more reliable. my ideal next-gen firearm would be sparklock & caseless, with a battery in the magazine at the bottom of the propellent block (and a backup in the stock).
next-next-gen would be same system but now a full "smart gun" with the barrel and receiver free floating in some kind of "memory fluid" capable of tiny adjustments in response to windspeed, muscle twitching, or target data. maybe special rounds with a tiny gyrojet as a "second stage" after the propellent is used up to create a true hypervelocity round. oh and TUNGSTEN lol.
sci-fi shit though.