FN racks up $13m Army contract for work on M240 machine guns (PHOTOS)

By Chris Eger

In its ground mount configuration, such as seen with the above paratrooper, the M240B/G has a 550 to 650 round-per-minute rate of fire when cyclic. (Photos: U.S. Army)
The U.S. Army last week gave FN America the news that the South Carolina-based gun maker will continue to crank out general purpose machine guns for the service.
The one year award, valued at $13.27 million, is for work on the M240 series machine gun. The new outlay comes as a modification to a Dec. 2014 indefinite delivery contract awarded FN for the purchase M240 machine gun variants and receivers worth up to $57 million.

The U.S. variant of FN’s iconic MAG 58 belt-fed machine gun, the U.S. Army adopted the model in 7.62x5mm NATO in 1977 to replace the Vietnam-era M60 machine gun. Since then, the design has been adopted throughout the Department of Defense as well as the Coast Guard in both pistol/trigger grip M240B/G and spade-gripped M240D/H variants for use by ground troops as well as on vehicles, ships, and aircraft.
When using spade grips and a thumb-activated trigger system, such as in the above Army CH-47 helicopter, the M240D/H series typically have a higher rate of fire, ranging from 650 to 950

Source: Guns.com