Army awards $50 million contract to Barrett
Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2021 10:50 pm
Just a comment on the pace of adoption: the Barrett MRAD was the NRA Rifle of the Year...in 2012. It was passed over in 2013 by SOCOM in favor of the Remington Arms' Modular Sniper Rifle. On July 27, 2020, of course, Remington entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in 2.5 years.
In 2013, the MRAD was selected by the Yamam, Israel's elite counter-terrorism and SWAT unit, as their long range sniper rifle. In 2018 the Israel Defense Forces adopted it.
The MRAD has been in use by the Norwegian Special Operations Forces since 2015.
New Zealand chose it as a replacement for their 7.62mm Arctic Warfare sniper rifles in 2018.
But then, we got the M16 in March 1964, and are still waiting on the selection of a new standard platform and cartridge for the U.S. Military, after about three decades of complaints over the caliber's suitability as a battle-rifle.
FWIW, almost exactly two months ago SIG delivered its final prototype offerings in the competition for the next generation of 6.8x51 squad weapons: https://www.military.com/daily-news/202 ... -army.html. Don't know what will finally be chosen, or what that 6.8 cartridge and round will ultimately look like. There have been some...innovative designs so far, some of them likely to mean that we civilian shooters may not be able to get our hands on the ammo any time soon. But if someone were to give me one of the SIG AR-style MCX rifles, I wouldn't turn it down.
