Way back in June of last year the US Army issued a pre-solicitation for the purchase of an additional 70,000-100,000 M4A1 carbines. The idea was that it was going to be a free-for-all and anybody, including incumbent Colt Defense could bid. The actual solicitation hit the street in August. Now, there’s an award, but it was issued at 6:20 PM and the announcement was under the innocuous title of, “GUNS, THROUGH 30MM” which is the Federal Supply Class (10) they weapons are categorized under. Too late for the daily DoD Contract award announcements. Odd? Absolutely, considering the size and commodity involved.
Here’s the content of the award notice –
Notice Type:
Award Notice
Contract Award Date:
April 20, 2012
Contract Award Number:
W56HZV12D00560001
Contract Award Dollar Amount:
$16,163,252.07
Contract Line Item Number:
0004AB
Contractor Awardee:
REMINGTON ARMS COMPANY, LLC,14 HOEFLER AVE,ILION,NY,13357-1816
Synopsis:
Added: Apr 20, 2012 6:20 pm
No Description Provided
Contracting Office Address:
U.S. ARMY CONTRACTING COMMAND, WARREN, MICHIGAN 48397-5000
There’s another award (W56HZV12D0056) to Remington Arms Company for a “Max Potential Contract Value $180,000,000.00” for the generic “GUNS, THROUGH 30MM” issued about an hour before the award mentioned above. Remember, that $180 Million is a contract ceiling and allows the Government to purchase their full requirement over multiple years without competing multiple contracts.
Notice the contract numbers. The base contract is W56HZV12D0056. The additional 0001 would denote an initial order meaning there will be more to come.
These carbines will be produced in accordance with the Colt Technical Data Package. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. In the mid-80s FN began producing the M16A2. However, access to the Colt TDP will certainly give Remington a leg up. Hopefully, these Remington guns will be better than the early FN M16s which were of low quality.
Tags: Remington
I hope Remington doesn’t outsource the manufacturing to its sister company Bushmaster Firearms.
Maybe this award will entice Colt to sell more to the civilian market.
For all intensive purposes Bushmaster exists in name only and it’s been that way for several years. The guns are made in the same New York factory as Remington.
Where do you get the information that the early FN weapons were of poor quality? We got in a split fielding of the M16A2 back in the beginning, when FN first started building them. We had about fifty-fifty Colt and FN, and as far as I could tell, the FN product was actually better than the Colt. I don’t remember ever seeing problems with them, as a matter of fact. And, since I spent a bunch of time training the armorer and supervising him, I’d have known.
Subjectively? Whenever I’ve had a choice, I’ve picked the FN product over the Colt. The barrels on the FN just seemed to shoot better for me. Hell, if FN ever starts selling to the civilian market, I will be buying one of theirs as soon as I can.
I was in 3rd Group at the time (1990). I was actually happy to see we were getting brand new guns until we started using them. Perhaps you don’t remember the receivers that had weren’t stamped with FN but rather looked like someone used a dremel tool to mark them. Or, maybe the barrels that shot out after a few hundred rounds and rusted every time we took them out. It seemed like they cut every corner they could to make up for underbidding Colt. Fortunately, we got our M4s in 94 but not after deploying to Haiti on the first rotation with the M16A2s.
FN definitely improved over time, but their first attempts left a lot to be desired.
I can’t say I ever saw or heard of anything like what you’re describing. Every FN product I ever handled or worked on was top-notch. Receivers not being stamped FN? Dremel tool marks? Are you quite sure you didn’t get stuck with depot-level refurbs, or something?
I’ll say it again: Every FN-made weapon I ever saw exhibited a better quality of finish and better accuracy than I ever saw from Colt. What you’re saying just does not ring true with my experience, period. And, I know for a fact that that early lot of M16A2s that we got back then came from some of the initial production lots because we were tasked with reporting back any problems we encountered with them. We never had any cause to report anything other than great performance.
All politics I assure you. Adcor had the best rifle in the lot when testing is the standard. The B.E.A.R rifle whipped the others hands down with zero stoppages in 6,000 rounds both semi and full. I was not suprised however to see freedom group secure the contract. I do wonder if the other 2 manufacturers required by the contract will be bushmaster and dpms……. they stand to make a great deal off this one.
eric: Don’t confuse this with the IC solicitation. This particular solicitation/award clearly stated its intent to acquire standard M4/M4A1 carbines, and nothing but standard M4/M4A1.