The United States Secret Service has released a requirement for a new rifle. They plan to hold an industry day April 4th, 2016 to discuss the requirement in depth with rifle manufacturers. The planned contract life is a minimum of five years and 10,000 rifles with 10 magazines each.
Based on discussions with individuals close to the requirement and documentation obtained by SSD, it seems that they are seeking a 5.56 NATO replacement for the MP-5.
Ultimately, there’s nothing shocking in the requirement. They want a 3MOA carbine with a 10-12″ barrel capable of 20k Rounds. Word is, offerers get bonus points for an adjustable gas block and folding stock.
From the Draft Statement of Work:
Dimensional Requirements:
Height (no taller than, w/o accessories) 8.5 inches
Weight (no heavier than, w/o accessories) 7.5 pounds
O/A Length (no longer than, w/stock fully extended) 34 inches
Barrel length (min – max)
10-12 inches
Rifling (5.56)
1 turn in 7 inch twist RH
The barrel shall have a minimum service life of 20,000 rounds.
Operating System
The weapon shall utilize a direct-impingement gas-operated system or a short-stroke gas piston system.
Mode of Fire.
The weapon shall be selective fire, i.e. semi-automatic and full automatic. A “burst limiter” in the full-automatic mode is not acceptable.
Fire Selector.
The fire control selector shall be ambidextrous in design, and be a single lever paddle mounted on the side of the receiver, adjacent to the rear pistol grip, thereby not requiring the shooter to significantly break their firing grip when actuating.
The fire control selector shall be a rotary type and shall have three positions; safe, semi-automatic and automatic and shall rotate manually without binding from one position to another.
While the rifle must have a Picatinny compatible free float rail, the requirements for the trigger, butt stock, pistol grip and charging handle are all very straight forward. It sounds like Mil-Spec is just fine. Backup Iron Sights must be compatible with the Aimpoint T-2.
Learn more at www.fbo.gov
Shame they didn’t ask for something in 300blk, we might have actually seen prices go down significantly if that happened and the round makes sense considering the kind of work that the Secret Service might be doing.
Could screw with inter-agency efforts if one particular agency is using a special snow-flake round.
I’m pretty sure that they already have KAC sbr’s in their inventory. Back in 2011 when that nut jumped the White House fence those KAC’s were all over the White House grounds. Not too mention their G36’s and FN P90’s. And now they want 10’000 more. Whatever, they’ll just lose them or get them stolen anyway. Lol
G36? Like to see you produce any sort of evidence they ever issued that.
Capitol Police issues G36’s. He probably assumed they were Secret Service.
Yeah, Opps . It’s hard to tell the difference between the uniform division and the police at a distance. White shirts , dark pants .
I think the 300 blackout would be ideal. Agents can have super and sub-sonic ammo loaded in mags. Have it an SBR with an optional supressor. Sadly, the people that make the decisions know little or nothing about weapons and tactics.
I dunno..this requirement appears to be pretty well thought out by somebody who seems to know their shit. It doesn’t read like an Army requirement where they present some nebulous idea of a next generation weapon and then say it has to cost the same or less than the acquisition costs of an M4.
Is there an actual mass produced 300BLK duty round out there to feed a 300BLK system?
Hornady has a few.
The Barnes 110gr TTSX is the main duty round.
I would think 300 BLK would be the perfect round, but it sounds like weight considerations are taking precedent.
They can carry a lot more 62 gr 5.56x45mm than they can 125 gr or 220 gr 300 BLK.
I doubt that ~4oz per magazine makes that much of a difference.
Just get a bunch of 9″ barreled Sig MCXs in 300blk and issue out surpressors, I can’t see how that wouldn’t meet their requirement. How many magazines is the average USSS agent expected to carry? Ammo weight probably doesn’t matter that much to them compared to say, an infantryman.
It’s missing 1″ of barrel 😀
In other news the USSS has requested Mk18s.
Round performance or preference is going to be secondary to availability and commonality. This is a nice clean request.
Unless I missed the change Secret Service still issue .357 Sigs. It’s not exactly common and has long since quit picking up steam.
Sounds like they just want a bunch of MK18’s
Their own website claims less than 5,000 agents on staff, including uniformed division.
Why 10k rifles?
Contract states “up to 10k” and that they intend to open it up to other dhs/gov agencies….
Sig I think this contract is yours to lose.
So when I was with a USSS agent he said they used our M4’s. Are they looking for a replacement for that if so why not a SCAR. I am not a fan of the SCAR nor do I know much about them. Can it meet the requirements? Can it go full auto, can it meet the round requirements, and finally do they make them in an SBR variant? My last comment is this. If the go with a piston system. Won’t the guys/gals have to be retrained on how to operate the weapon. And not get black hands as they man handle the money or the VIP they are protecting?
I am willing to bet that if they are firing enough rounds out of their rifles to blacken their hands, that the least of their concerns will be keeping a VIP’s shirt clean.
I was making a sarcastic comment about the black hands. If your shooting and man handling your VIP. Then your likely hood of “friendly” fire goes up exponentially. When we went thru the PSD course before a deployment. They taught us to secure the package. Or in other words. Get the VIP to a safe location before you start shooting. Well the guys doing the protecting get the package safe. While all others return fire or initiate a firefight.
Aren’t there AR pattern short stroke piston guns out there?
And until you hit under 10inches in barrel length, your traditional DI system out performs a op rod driven (gas piston) AR.
I would take a DI over an op rod (piston) any day.
Yes, there are a few, including the Sig MCX.
Right. My point is that they won’t have to retrain much if they select a piston gun.
IF it happens (big IF, HUGE) It’s going to go to KAC and their over engineered POS.
KAC POS…LOL. You’re probably that guy that thinks Bushmaster is awesome.
KAC makes the most reliable, durable, and maintainable system for institutional use available. The SR-16 Mod 2 is simply the most refined DI gun ever made.
Nice troll, unlike you I know what I’m talking about. You on the other hand probably own a Bushmaster and wish you could purchase a KAC.
But those in the know realize KAC took a reliable design and screwed it up, which is why a do nothing agency like the USSS issues them.
I guess I’m not in the know. 15 years in SOF as a weapons guy that I converted into a pretty successful career developing weapons was a waste I guess.
Reed Knight’s sports car and tank collection that was paid for by winning competitive downselects thinks you’re probably not as smart as you think.
Smarter, I wouldn’t build a gun that allowed the bolt to be put in so it ejects INTO the upper. Willing to bet you are not “SOF” nor a “weapons guy” or you would know that. So let me burn that POS SR16.
1) Extractor springs not captive (and you will loose those)
2) Proprietary bolt
3) Proprietary firing pin
4) Proprietary barrel trunion
Now for the big ones
5) Bolt can be reversed (ejects into receiver jamming gun)
6) Extractor pin not captive (can work loose jamming gun)
7) KAC trigger goes out in semi turning the gun into full auto only (it will just take a shit on you with no warning until you rip through a mag)
So yeah SOF weapons guy if you knew anything about the SR16 you’d know those glaring deficiencies. I’ll take a GI spec’d weapon over the SR any day.
You need to go back to weapons school.
2) Proprietary bolt
4) Proprietary trunnion
That’s actually a good thing, that’s a fool-proof system for armorer. When you’re designing a mechanical product, there are tolerances, clearance that are chosen for a certain application. These are proprietary to your system anyways.
As far as I know, KAC makes very good products and helped through out the years to make what we know nowadays as the ar15 platform.
4&5 are not good things when everyone else is on a different, known standard. It’s like coming up with a measurement between inch and metric. The KAC bolt lasts as long as the regular AR bolt so why be different?
Also I just listed all of the design flaws of the SR16 yet you persist with the party line of a good product. The flaws are there, I wouldn’t buy one.
I forgot one.
8) The SR16 costs at least $1000 more than a Colt, Daniel Defense, BCM, etc.
Do nothing agency? I think the mission they have is pretty important. Maybe it’s a do everything agency that upper management has misled and has been under budgeted for a long time. At least that’s what I get from the oversight committee report
https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Oversight-USSS-Report.pdf
Here are a couple of links for you Todd.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perception
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reality
You obviously didn’t read the report. I get it, your anti KAC, you win.
I am intimately familiar with the blue ribbon report.
Bill has so much win tonight. (Starts slow clap)
I wish I had some gasoline, I’ve honestly come back several times just to watch this. I don’t have a side, I just enjoyed all of it.
MOAR KAC
Hmm, why not KAC’s SR635? 5.56mm performance with much less muzzle blast & flash.
Will this weapon be concealed on the person of a SS Agent, or just “at hand”?
If “at hand”, a MK18 would be preferred given it’s presence in the supply system and the accompanying support.
If it is to be concealed, the MCX seems the logical choice, and I bet SIG can manufacture 10-12″ barrels as required.
Not all members of the Secret Service are plain clothes agents nor are they all involved with protecting the President. There are uniformed Secret Service personnel and the Presidential detail is only one part of what they do, their original (and probably still primary) duty was to investigate counterfeiting and things related to it. Anyhow, my guess would be that a good number of these requested rifles will be going to members of the uniformed Secret Service with maybe a handful going to members of the Presidential Detail.
last 20k rounds? what does that mean? to what precision standard at what distance. meaningless ill-defined requirement