We’re pleased to announce that the company has been awarded an indefinite quantity, indefinite delivery (IDIQ) contract, valued at up to $10.6 million, by Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to supply complete receiver assemblies for the M240 machine gun over a five-year period ending in 2024. Work will be performed at FN’s Columbia, South Carolina production facility to support the U.S. Army.
For more information about FN’s military product line or current U.S. military contracts, please visit www.fnamerica.com.
Wait, does this mean they finally admitted the receiver wears out?
We’d still be using the M60 if that was thought of in the 80’s.
Considering the M60 was a big hunk of shit, and that the M240 was adopted for coaxial use in the 70s and wasn’t adopted for use in a dismounted role until the 90s, your comment leaves a lot to be desired.
Well there you go. End of comments on this subject…
True…a lot of opinion probably not a lot of experience.
As a pig driver for 3 years in the 75th ranger regiment, the only real problem I ever had with the M60 was the extractor.
It was lighter
Had a better beaten zone
More balanced
Could be used in an assault
It was harder to clean
Prone to feed problems if the rounds weren’t fed properly
Crap cast extractor
As far as the receiver, I’ll admit, hard to clean but I only ever saw 1 break and it was from a parachute jump and the jumper cut it away 100 ft up.
You could parts in backwards and it required bailing wire to hold together. Feed tray assembles was prone to breakage too.
One should remember that the Ranger Regiment has a dedicated, highly-trained civilian armorer for each battalion, and that they had a maintenance budget for weapons that probably exceeded that for a Regular Army brigade or two…
In other words, Ranger Regiment M60s were not at all the same weapons that we line dogs got stuck with. Ranger armorers found even a little bit of play in a receiver, it got coded out, and coded out with an immediate replacement. I had guns in my brigade that were on 6-8 month turnarounds for the same reason, due to budget. We’d run through, code out the worst ones, run out of money, and then the rest would have to wait until end of fiscal year. Oh, and because of that, the remaining serviceable guns would have the ever-loving snot run out of them, filling in for the broken ones.
You can’t just look at one unit or one gun; you have to look at the fleet. And, without the lavish Vietnam-era support, the M60 was a freakin’ nightmare for the Regular Army to keep running. That thing was like Kleenex; 10,000 rounds, and you’re done–Get a new one. Especially once they transitioned to Break-Free only.
Yes it was: never design parts to go in backwards, ever. Just like the McNamara M16 and powder was a nightmare. But the lower on the M16 has been improved over generations along with all other parts, while everything but the receiver was addressed on the M60E1-6. I’m not saying the 240 isn’t far better for mounted use, or the 240LW or MK48 isn’t far better than the M60 for dismount. I’m saying never addressing failure points when the wear issue was obvious (during the 80’s-early 90’s yes?) but the “can never replace the serialized receiver cause accountability” made sure it would never have a actual chance to overcome its numerous flaws. The 240 adoption was a (heavy) Easy button that was brilliant when confronted with the DOD replacement procurement nightmare. 240s are apparently wearing out and need new serialized side plates, and I’m thankful that option is finally available. I was just a Small Arms Repair contractor and enlisted end user before that. Want to talk feeler gauge specs on the rivets on WWII M2HB, because they’re terrifying. How about terminally malfunctioning 249’s with stretched receivers? Maybe the chrome feed ramp from hell on the MK19? Missing front sights on every M500/590 and half the M9’s? I’m not even touching the M16/M4 because they did pretty well, except for the one with a convoy ops turret derived wear hole in the side of the mag well. I hope my additional 30 minute contribution alleviates SSD Actual’s consternation concerning my original post.
If “they” had bothered to think about it or given a damn, the M60 would have been replaced sometime in the 1970s, and it wouldn’t have taken an end-run around the system that “they” ran in order to get a decent machinegun in the hands of the troops.
Of course, if “they” had been doing their damn jobs, we’d have probably done a full and proper testing/fielding process for a new general-purpose MG, and realized that while the M240 is a great gun, it’s just a bit too heavy for light infantry to be toting around the mountains of Central Asia. And, we might have gotten something actually appropriate to that need, instead of a weapon that’s universally acknowledged to be too damn heavy for dismounted infantry operations.
M60 was an utter POS that never should have gotten out of development, TBH. The receivers were most of the problem, too–Entirely too fragile, prone to wear, and not at all worth a damn in terms of ruggedness or reliability. If I had a nickel for every one of the bastards I had to have coded out over the course of my career, I’d have had a nice little sum to play with, in retirement.
“They” didn’t do their damn jobs, starting back in the late 1950s. M60, M73, M85, M219… None of those guns was worth a damn, and were woefully inadequate tools for the American soldier.
Wish we could get some, they won’t let us fix the bloody rivets ourselves and the outsourcing for the job… well…
Maybe Canada will buy some new receivers to replace the oval shaped rivet holes on the C6’s, which we purchased in the late 80’s.