Barrett scoops up big $50 million SOCOM Advanced Sniper Rifle contract

By Chris Eger

Barrett’s bolt-action modular .30-caliber MRAD rifle, foreground, will join the M107 .50-caliber semi-auto, background, in wide-spread U.S. military service. (Photo: Barrett)
Tennessee-based Barrett Firearms on Monday got a nod from the U.S. Special Operations Command for new Advanced Sniper Rifles.
The $49.9 million five-year, indefinite-quantity, firm-fixed-price contract announcement is slim on details other than that is for the ASR program. The program itself was identified in SOCOM’s FY19 budget justification book as part of an effort to continue “development of enhanced capabilities to improve performance” of “individual sniper weapons to engage out to 1500 meters.”
A 2018 solicitation described the ASR as a “modular, multi-caliber, bolt-action sniper rifle” chambered in 7.62×51 mm NATO, .300 Norma Magnum, and .338 Norma Magnum with caliber conversions capable at the user-level.
The broad requirements point to Barrett’s MRAD platform, a bolt-action rifle with a monolithic upper receiver that is available in a range of calibers including all those mentioned in the military’s solicitation. Caliber conversion kits for the MRAD use a separate barrel assembly and bolt.
The company has already had some success with shopping the MRAD to the Pentagon, as they announced a Defense Department contract for the rifle in .300 PRC last December.
Barrett later on Tuesday confirmed

Source: Guns.com