The U.S. Army, Army Contracting Command-New Jersey at Picatinny Arsenal, NJ 07806-5000 is conducting a market survey / sources sought notice on behalf of the Project Manager Soldier Lethality (PMSL) for an M240 6.8mm conversion kit for M240B and/or M240L. Presently, the M240B and M240L machine guns are 7.62mm weapons.

From the RFI:

The conversion kit should include all hardware and instructions needed to modify a standard M240B and/or M240L to fire the 6.8mm ammunition. This will include a new barrel assembly and may include changes to the weapon powering through updates to the gas regulator, drive spring, or other means. The barrel assembly may be either of the standard barrel length (M240B) or short barrel (M240L). Information on 6.8mm ammunition type, specifications, and availability should be provided.

The winner of the US Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons program to replace the 5.56mm M4 Carbine and M249 SAW with weapons firing 6.8mm for close combat forces (XM5 & XM250) should be announced soon. From the beginning of this effort many have referred to it as an ammunition program. This Army RFI demonstrates the veracity of that claim.

While there have been several different candidate weapons involved, there were three very different ammunition types in the running until late last year. All were developed to meet the Army’s requirement to create what is essentially a 270 WSM but with a 20% weight reduction for both ammo and weapons.

The most radical type of ammunition offered up was the so-called case telescoped cartridge from Textron, a rimless technology with the projectile embedded within the case. They are no longer in the running and such a modification to the M240 desired by the Army would have been impossible.

Slightly less ambitious is True Velocity’s polymer cartridge case with its peculiar neck design where the projectile is inserted into the case. TV’s ammunition is intended to be manufactured in their proprietary machines.

Finally, SIG SAUER’s ammunition division introduced a hybrid case with a brass body and steel head. With this construction, they claim to gain an significant increase in velocity over conventional brass ammunition as well as the desired weight reduction. It can be manufactured with current machinery, but adds the step of attaching the two case components together.

However, despite Textron’s exit from the program, I will assert that there are still three candidate cartridges. Along with SIG and True Velocity, the Army is sure to have cooked something up in-house, if only for experimentation purposes to establish a baseline of 6.8 conventional, brass case ammunition.

Both the Army and industry know a lot about how such a cartridge would perform across all JPEO Ammunition’s requirements and how to manufacture it with the machines currently located at Lake City Army Ammunition Plant.

In fact, no matter which type of ammunition is elected for NGSW, it will be manufactured at Lake City Army Ammunition Plant. The program has budgeted for a new next gen ammo building there.

You’ll note that NGSW is a Carbine and SAW replacement and those are currently 5.56mm weapons. When you consider that the next gen is 6.8mm, regardless of which form it takes, is the equivalent of 270 WSM, then you realize it will outperform 7.62mm NATO. Then, you’ll ask yourself why you’d provide the Infantry Company a weapon with a shorter range which delivers less energy on target than what the Squad is carrying. From the beginning, it was a forgone conclusion that if feasible, at least some of the M240s in inventory (around 100,000 across DoD) would be rechambered to 6.8.

In fact, True Velocity demonstrated this capability in the M240 last year, and reports are that the US Army has conducted experimentation with their own 6.8mm ammunition.

This move makes complete sense and I’m glad to see the Army moving forward with it. However, since the Army has yet to announce which team has won NGSW and therefore which type of ammunition the 6.8 conversion will be required to fire, it will be more difficult for industry to offer specifics in response to the Army’s sources sought notice.

Eric Graves

Editor