Yeah I was scratching my head when I saw every soldier with a 5.56 rifle in TS. It would make sense if they were beat up M16A2s, A4s, or M4A1s, like standard U.S. military rifles, cause then the whole "they used what was available" excuse comes into play, but they had 416s and full auto piston guns. Did HK sponsor the war or something?

They even had an mp-5...yeah pistol rounds on robots.....
Shotguns may have made sense.....with slugs. the whole buckshot thing....wtf?
The DSA Fal carbine actually makes sense. Maybe FALs and G3s, rugged, powerful rifles with armor piercing ammo would be a good choice, but there just not tacticool enough.

The fact that there are (or were, depending on how you look at it) two official timelines doesn't make things any clearer. The one commonality seems to be the T-800 - in both timelines, each model seems to be impervious to damn near anything short of nuking the bastard, though even that raises a couple of questions. In the original Terminator, Reese manages to blow apart (but not completely destroy) a T-800 with a crudely constructed pipe bomb. But in Salvation, a 40mm high explosive grenade only burns away the skin covering of a T-800. You may raise your "WTF?" flags now.

Seems if you want to stop or kill a Terminator, you better have two things ready - a shotgun stocked with a lot of slugs, and access to something heavy. Like a crane. Or a M1A1 Abrams.

Or a "phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range"

Add to that that even molten steel did nothing but slow it down for a minute or so.

Why? 5.56 would have been plentiful at that point and more controllable than 7.62 from a shoulder fired weapon. The 5.56 M995 and M993 AP rounds were designed to give the M4/M16 and M249 the ability to kill enemy personnel inside light armor like combloc BRDs and BRDMs. It is very good at drilling small holes in steel.

Back on topic:

SPAS-12-There may not be a cooler looking fail-prone piece of junk anywhere. They don't even handle well. I can't think of any place other than a display case where another weapon would not serve better.

Any of the myriad of automatic weapons used without stocks and fired like pistols- unless or course the target is in the same restroom stall.

I said heavy armor not light armor. When it comes to firing a 7.62 full auto it's all about your stance.

while a big guy look at his stance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z1q8...eature=related
not leaning forward enough
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VprIh...eature=related
not leaning forward enough
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbL64...eature=related

Theres a difference between bullets made to puncture the steel helmet of a russian troop and piercing heavily armored robots and having enough energy to do damage when its through. m16s against armored vehicles? What? Most cars it does good, making it a good LE weapon. Add some armor and your screwed.

Overall, the Eagle works amazingly well in The Matrix. Not only does it look small because the agents are all actually big guys (Hugo Weaving is a solid 6'3") but it also fits the bill as to what they are all about. The agents are not necessarily about finesse when it comes right down to it.

And, interestingly enough, the film only puts the Eagle in the hands of the agents, despite the fact that the heroes have access to any gun ever for their raid. They choose more reliable hardware across the board.

Well behind the scenes explain that they wanted the Agent guns to be the most badass of the time and what better example of power in a handgun than a Desert Eagle