Naval Surface Warfare Center – Crane in Indiana is responsible for the testing and procurement of USSOCOM’s weapons. One of the projects they have been working on for SOCOM is the Suppressor Upper Receiver Group, an upgrade of the M4A1 Lower Receiver Group will allow the Warfighter’s weapon to be optimized for continuous suppressed use.
Earlier this year, the program had its second go around after an initial attempt at identifying a system failed last year. Performance parameters were adjusted from the earlier effort to more accurately reflect what was possible, and vendors submitted three sample SURG candidates each.
Unfortunately during recent testing, sample weapons were incorrectly assembled using parts from different vendor submissions, undermining the integrity of the results.
Last week, Crane contacted vendors and informed them that any offeror which had passed Phase I could resubmit three samples by 26 October in order to continue participation in the solicitation.
The government will then reaccomplish Phase I and then move on to Phases I & III with the resubmitted samples.
Additionally, Crane has outlined measures it will take to prevent future crosspollination of parts between vendor submissions.
Unfortunately, this information has not been made public via Fed Biz Opps as was the case with the original solicitation, which catalogued 11 updates.
Interestingly, United States Army Special Operations Command, the largest SOF component, is not one of the stakeholders for this capability. Hopefully, this program will result in a new Suppressed URG for the requesting warfighting community which includes other SOCOM components. As of now, USASOC plans to stick with its current suppressor capability, provided by SureFire.
Tags: NSWC-Crane
You know what would be funny? If their co-mingled franken upper turned out to be pretty friggin awesome.
SURG is like a bad penny…
I don’t want to sound too critical, but if I can’t trust you to keep the various vendors submissions separated and accounted for, how can I trust you to make an informed decision on which one is better, and articulate why?
Reading SSD post: *Forest Whitaker face*
Reading this comment: *Drake pointing yes face*
Nice.
The link “Suppressor Upper Receiver Group” directs to a 404 error
Anyone else picturing the Tuco at the gun shop scene from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
“I like this trigger, this ambi-mag release, this safety, this upper, these sights, and this silencer.”
Perfect reference
So I take it that means they were all DI? Because that’s about the only way you can cross pollinate the AR platform.
I don’t remember from the original solicitation if they took whole rifles as the SURG or if it was truly just the uppers. Otherwise I was thinking like geissele’s braided spring and some other lower with JP silent captured spring.
Not to be pedantic, but how would you have both a Geissele spring and JP spring in the same rifle?
In instances like this, URG includes action spring and buffer, even though they are contained in the lower receiver extension.
Hey industry we’re government and we’re fucked up you should give us more stuff for free to fuck up, so we can eventually either figure out how to get around your IP and have one of our favorite contractors build it for really cheap or we will waste all you time and money by eventually canceling the program…..