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US Army Cancels Sub Compact Weapon Sole Source Awards

In May, the US Army issued a sources sought notice for a 9mm Sub Compact Weapon to be used by Personal Security Detachments. In June, the Army issued sole source purchase notices for numerous examples of various commercial examples of the weapon.

Earlier this week, the Army cancelled the opportunity.

This Synopsis of Contract Award is amended on 02 July 2018 to notify industry that due to changes in the Government’s requirement, this opportunity is hereby cancelled effective immediately.

The Government is in the process of establishing new requirements for the Sub Compact Weapon Program and will announce the changes on fbo.gov within the next two weeks. Vendors interested in being notified for this new opportunity are encouraged to sign up under the “Interested Vendors List” tab of this announcement.

At one point during development of this requirement, the Army is said to have considered adoption of 300 BLK weapons to fulfill the need, but decided against it as the round is not readily available within DoD or with NATO allies. However, as USSOCOM’s Personal Defense Weapon, a 300 BLK upper receiver kit fit the M4, requirement takes shape, the Army may once again look at M4 compatibility, rather than a completely new weapon.

13 Responses to “US Army Cancels Sub Compact Weapon Sole Source Awards”

  1. Joe_K says:

    Finally

    • Kyle Kata says:

      Hardly. It’ll be coming right back and for 9mm again. They’re changing the request specifications.

  2. Gerard says:

    For the pentagon the shortest distance is shaped like a cube

  3. Brian says:

    Does anyone think there is a legitimate concern with .300 blk that someone, no matter how experienced, can accidentally load a 5.56 round into their magazine? I don’t mean this as a rhetorical question, just not aware of Army SOP such as different color magazines or size of magazines or other ideas out in the wild to help the user not confuse the two rounds. I am curious what others who are more experienced do to help reduce the likelihood of this or any resources out there that people curious in integrating the .300 BLK can reference?

    • James says:

      Of more concern is 300 in a 5.56 weapon.you can probably jam a 5.56 round into a 300 chamber, but it won’t be a catastrophic failure like the 300 in the 5.56,which drops right in. There are similar rounds like the 7.62×40 Wilson Tactical that won’t fit in a 5.56 chamber, but they typically aren’t as good for subsonic loads because they require deep seating of heavy bullets which limits the ogive shapes that can be used. They are quite a bit better with light bullets though.

    • James says:

      As far as practces to prevent it, personally strict segregation of the ammo is usually enough. Initially I limited 300 to the curved D&H 20 round magazines, as both a physical and visual indicator, but feeding with 220’s wasn’t perfect, pmags worked better, and the 300 specific pmags even better so silver sharpie and the Magpul band type pulltabs are what I settled on.

    • Nick M says:

      Talk to anyone that has worked as an OC/T at a CTC about how often live finds a way in to blank only environment…

    • Agent_Orange says:

      I’ve seen otherwise well experienced shooters mix up the two when loading magazines on the square range. Some guys get to jabbering, and aren’t really paying attention when they start drawing ammo. Fortunately in all cases, a sharp eye caught the mistake before they were inserted and fired.

      Yes, it’s a training issue, and yes, it’s also a legitimate concern. Never underestimate the ability of a human being to f*ck up even the most basic of tasks.

  4. Brendan says:

    I was hoping for MBX PCC!!! Pew pew pew!!

  5. Ray Forest says:

    It will be for 9mm. While .300 is working just fine in its application with SMU’s, there will not be enough support and inertia to push .300 down as far as this program is attempting to full fill the needs statements. It will wind up in big army non SF hands and the individual training and responsibility is just not there at some of those levels.