When the Army held the now suspended Individual Carbine trials a few years back, contractors had trouble acquiring the then new 5.56mm M855A1 Enhanced Performance Rounds for their in-house testing. The Army assisted those companies in procuring the ammunition which is still not in wide circulation, particularly for the commercial market.
Now that the Army is looking for an Interim Service Combat Rifle which fires the larger 7.62mm version of the Enhanced Performance Round, M80A1, potential vendors are in a similar situation. The Army has responded by issuing Attachment 0005, Flow Chart for EPR Commercial Sales to the solicitation on FedBizOpps. According to the program, the recommended path is to first contact the Olin-Winchester point of contact (POC) listed on Attachment 0005.
Of additional note, offerors may submit rifles with Mil Std- 1913 or M-LOK rails, with no length requirement. Additionally, as the solicitation does not specify much of anything aside from caliber and full auto capability, if an offeror submits more than one barrel length, they must submit full rifles. They cannot just submit additional upper receivers.
Tags: ICSR
Looks like the ICSR will truly be replacing the M4 eventually. I was hesitant to believe it would happen.
Here’s hoping we get a small frame, open source AR-10 for civilian clones and a unified market for the AR-10.
Or even better, just maybe, 60 years after Eugene Stoner’s work, somebody will step forth with a fresh idea.
I don’t know what kind of innovation you expect to see within 30 days.
The Army wants a COTS rifle, so it has to be available today on the market. You won’t see some amazing hidden invention in 30 days.
By eventually you mean in the late 20s, early 30s, right?
yeah, I mean there are 500,000 M4’s set aside for active duty Army personnel.
It takes time to build and replace those, but I see it happening one day.
Enlisted can get a half month’s pay taken away for farting in formation, but those responsible for ineffective fashion camo and now this idiotic burden of a rifle/ammo in 7.62 NATO have zero accountability for putting the aforementioned enlisted at severe risk of injury or death.
A flowchart to purchase legal small arms ammunition? Government work at its finest.
Whichever idiot in the 5-sided clown college is driving this (and it’s not GEN Milley) needs to be smacked in the face with each of the submissions at least 100 times per weapons system.
This is a disgraceful waste of money and won’t solve any of the actual problems, like hitting a target or knowing how to operate an assigned weapon.
It’s a solution in need of a problem.
So just so I got this right. One of the major reasons for this push is to have a round that is capable of penetrating the high end ceramic armor. Which to my understanding M855A1 and M80A1.
Neither M80A1 or M855A1 will defeat Level IV armor,
Even when loaded to 3,400fps in a .300 win mag, M80A1 did not defeat Level IV @ 45′ away.
Now, apparently the new XM1158 ADVAP is supposed to improve upon the already existing Tungsten core M993 and M995…
Which begs the questions a) why is the rifle being tested with M80A1, as it does not defeat Level IV, and not being tested with the ADVAP? b) why can’t ADVAP be tailored to 5.56?
ADVAP can be tailored to 5.56 per Milleys own words.
M80A1 is the test bed because it will be the standard issue round until ADVAP is finished.
7.62 will eventually be replaced by a new intermediate caliber.
Eventually is the key word there.
The ammunition study doesn’t complete until 2020-2022, so this rifle will be 7.62 for at least 4 years, maybe more depending on that study.
Future firearms historians:
.30-06 – too powerful
.45 ACP – too weak
.280 – too British
.308 – too powerful
.223 – too intermediate
.308 – not intermediate enough
???? – just right
It’s also about target distance.
Yeah, my comment got cut off. Meant to say neither round can. And as you said we got 993 and 995. And the whole new round being developed.
I’d love to see some company submit a 7.62 x 51mm NATO VEPR – just for the sheer shits and giggles factor….
Are current M855A1 and M80A1 barrier blind?
I remember reading an early promo .pdf for it and it had a stop motion photo of M855A1 fragmenting into two parts after penetrating a glass windshield because “it increases hit probability”. I shit you not, that was the actual reasoning (or marketing really) behind A1 not being properly barrier blind.
Now if only I could find the .pdf.
Yes both are barrier blind.
Do you happen to have any credible sources on hand? I’d be extremely thankful.
The chopping block on YouTube has done some tests that show how it acts after defeating Level III armor and it does it’s normal stuff after punching through armor.
That’s probably the best open source stuff I can offer.
Thanks. Will check out.
That must be pretty pricey ammo.
M855A1 is only a around .05c more than M855 per round.
If M80A1 follows it’ll be just a hair more than M80.
Here goes hoping we can buy surplus. Defensive ammo for under 50 cents per round was awesome during the mk318 days.
SSD what gun do you think would be the best choice for this competition to win?
I’ve seen you shoot down a few mentions of different rifles, but I am curious to know what you think is the ideal solution.
Thanks for keeping up with this stuff as well.
Due to the full auto requirement this is one I won’t call.
But that’s part of the fun with government procurement trials!!!
My moneys on the SCAR or Colt 901.
Reason I say 901 is because the CK901 has been performing very well.