Titusville, Florida: On Thursday June 12, 2008 the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Material Command and the U.S. Army Vice Chief of Staff awarded C. Reed Knight Jr., owner of Knight’s Armament Company of Titusville, Florida one of the Army’s “Top Ten Greatest Inventions of 2007” award in a ceremony held in Arlington, Virginia.
The award was presented to Mr. Knight for the M110 7.62mm Semi-Automatic Sniper System (SASS) that was Type Classified by the Army in 2007.
Knight Armament Company initially won the Army program to develop and field a new sniper rifle system during 2005 in a hotly contested competition against some of the bigger and well known names in the gun industry. However, Knight’s ability to beat all others during months of rigorous army testing was partly due to the maturity of their existing design- the Mk 11 Mod 0 Sniper Rifle System officially adopted by the U.S. Navy for the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in 2000. That was when Knight’s had less than 100 employees and was located in Vero Beach, Florida. But since the Gulf War has ended, they have moved to Titusville Florida, creating 350 new job opportunities; while greatly expanding their production capability by about 10 times.
“When we read the Army’s SASS requirement prior to the 2005 competitive selection, we knew that we were already close to achieving what the Army wanted by modifying the rifle we were currently building for USSOCOM,” so said Mr. C. Reed Knight Jr., “so we designed and incorporated some new features that the Army advertised they needed.” But what is really neat about this award is that it’s the result of thousands of soldiers voting for our rifle. Nine other items also received enough votes to make this top ten ranking, but Knight’s was totally privately developed and funded whereas many others were government funded-and Knight’s was the only rifle selected.
The completeness of this “kit” was another advantage Knight’s was able to gain through its many years of supporting this type mission with specialized sniper rifles for other elite services, accessories designed for tactical dominance, state-of-the-art night vision solutions, and sound suppressors to name a few.
The M110 SASS delivers precision, rapid fire on targets,and enables execution of operational missions not possible using the current weapon system.High capacity, ammo configurable, quick change magazines enable suppressed, increased rate of fire precision lethality against personal targets and light material targets. This capability allows for more rapid and focused engagements on several targets with multiple follow-on shots. The SASS is the first U.S. Army weapon system that integrates a quick attach/detach sound suppressor to aid with Warfighter survivability.
More information on the entire line of Knights products can be found here.
