According to the Polish Ministry of Defense they are to purchase 150 sniper rifles.

The sniper rifle of choice is the Sako TRG M10 in .338 Lapua Magnum.

Competition came from the national ZM Tarnów company. It is not known which rifle they chose to compete with, but you can see their line of products here. My guess it was the Alex-338 8.6 mm rifle, which is – too me – a very strange looking rifle.

However, the product ZM Tarnow offered did not meet the requirements and my understanding is that it’s due to technical reasons.

All photos: Sako TRG M10 during TFB testing earlier this year. The rifle is barrelled in  .308 Win on this occasion, and has an Ase Utra BoreLok with an SL7i sound suppressor. Kahles 624i optics (great optic!) with Spuhr mount and Atlas bipod. This is such a great setup. 

According to Defence 24 the the offer has been selected on the basis of the following criteria:

Price – weight of 55

Technical and operational parameters of the rifle – weight of 15,

Technical parameters of the night-vision attachment – weight of 15,

Technical parameters of the thermal-vision attachment – weight of 15.

Firstly I think it’s interesting to see how much weight the price got.

Secondly, and perhaps more surprising, is how much weight the night-vision and thermal-vision attachment got, one third of the total package.

The Sako rifles and ammunition will be delivered via a Polish company called Ibcol.

The Polish Defense already have some Sako TRG-22 (.308 Win) rifles.

Below: Pia Clerté with a SAKO TRG M10 during pre-Christmas TFB testing. This has nothing to do with the Polish tender, but the rifle is the same. You can follow her on Twitter if you like. 

The new tender included 150 “packages”, which includes the .338 Lapua Magnum bolt-action rifle with a rifle scope (for daylight) and night and thermal vision attachments.

50,000 rounds of 8,6×70 mm, more commonly known as .338 Lapua Magnum.

Another great win for Finnish engineering.

Below: Ammunition from GGG, Lapua, Norma and Prvi Partizan.

Again, according to Defence 24, the rifle specification should allow the user to:

Act against enemy personnel protected by ballistic cover at distances of at least 1,200 meters;

Act against (destroy) light armored vehicles, with the use of the special purpose rounds, at distance of at least 1 200 meters;

Conduct sniper training with the use of the .338 rifles, in a system with replaceable 7.62 mm barrel compatible with the .308 Win. rounds

As you can see, multi-caliber systems seems to be a must to win a tender. So I’m a bit surprised that AI AX from Accuracy International was not in the competition.

As you may remember, recently the AI AX won the tender in Lithuania. Reminder of the details in this TFB article if you like.

For optics, the specification should allow the user to:

Detect the target (silhouette of a standing person) at distance of at least: 2 thousand meters with the use of solely the optics; 1.5 thousand meters with the use of the scope with thermal vision extension attached; 1.2 thousand meters with the use of the scope with night vision extension attached;

Recognize the target (silhouette of a standing person) at distance of at least 1 500 meters with the use of the optical sight; 500 meters with the use of the scope and the thermal vision sight; 400 meters with the use of the scope and the night vision sight.

Identify the target (silhouette of a standing person) at distance of at least: 1200 meters with the use of solely the optics; 250 meters with the use of the scope and the thermal vision sight; 200 meters with the use of the scope and the night vision sight.

Unfortunately there’s no mentioning at all which optics, mounts and NV and thermal they have chosen.

There’s no mentioning of sound suppressors either, but that could be outside this tender.

Please comment below if you know which brands and models they are looking at or have chosen.

The total deal is worth around 7.6 million U.S. dollars.