Army Selects New Compact Sniper Rifle

[Bearcatrp]

http://kitup.military.com/2016/04/army- ... rifle.html
Didn't think a semi would qualify as a sniper rifle but guess the army knows best. Surprised H&K was selected though.

[Rip Van Winkle]

What a poorly written article. Is the DoD awarding H&K the contract for 3000 rifles, or just 30 for evaluation?

I wish they would have contacted me. I could build them onehellof a rifle for $12,000+.

That's a lot of money for a short barreled M110.

[xd ED]

...contract award to Heckler & Koch Defense Inc. – worth up to $44,500,000.00 – allows the Army to purchase a maximum total of 3,643 Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System (CSASS) units...

...$12,215 per...

ETA: went back and read some comments, of which one noted the date of the article as 1 APR...
ETA 2: It is a real deal-

Heckler & Koch Defense Inc., Ashburn, Virginia, was awarded a $44,500,000 firm-fixed-price contract with options for Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System spare parts, training, and government purpose rights. Bids were solicited via the Internet with eight received with an estimated completion date of March 30, 2022. Funding and work location will be determined with each order. Army Contracting Command, Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, is the contracting activity (W15QKN-16-D-0051).

http://www.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract-View/Article/710219

[Bearcatrp]

...contract award to Heckler & Koch Defense Inc. – worth up to $44,500,000.00 – allows the Army to purchase a maximum total of 3,643 Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System (CSASS) units...

...$12,215 per...

Hey, its tax payer money. they can afford pissing away our money. Can see why we are 20 trillion in the hole.

[LePetomane]

At least Heckler&Koch makes a fine weapon, unlike those crappy Beretta M9's that replaced the Colt 1911.

[xd ED]

At least Heckler&Koch makes a fine weapon, unlike those crappy Beretta M9's that replaced the Colt 1911.

Plus, they come up with some pretty good ads to reflect their operation:

[Bearcatrp]

I thought I read H&K was on the verge of bankruptcy late last year.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/0 ... ankruptcy/

[UnaStamus]

The contract is for an initial 30 rifles to be used for testing. If HK passes the test, then the Army will buy more to finish out the contract for the 3000+ rifles. The funny part is that KAC has the M110K3 and M110K5 systems in use right now, which are both very reliable and highly accurate. If this whole solicitation is because they want piston, they are going to be a bit annoyed because piston guns have historically had very poor performance in precision rifle testing. The LMT 308MWS beat out the HK417 for both reliability and accuracy testing for the British L129A1 DMR contract. The German Army then wanted a DMR setup and received the initial G28, which is an accurized HK417. The problem is that the G28 failed all of their accuracy reqiurements and HK was forced to rework the rifle to meet the minimum accuracy numbers. US SOCOM, particularly NAVSPEC, solicited for the FN Mk20 SSR because the Mk17 wasn't consistently accurate enough for their needs of a compact sniper rifle/sniper support rifle. The Mk20 has thus far failed to impress and it has not replaced the M110 Kilo series in NAVSPEC use from what I've heard.

Time shall tell. The HK416 has been in use by SOCOM units for a while and proven to be a decent rifle, so we will see what happens. I suspect that this solicitation is a response to the poor reception of the Mk20 SSR, but that's just conjecture on my part.

[Meta-Prometheus]

As UnaStamus has stated, things could still change with this CSASS contract. If the first phase (if you want to call it that I guess) doesn't go well, it all go back to square one or the military could ****-can the whole contract if they wanted to. The US military can be extremely picky.