Earlier this year Winchester was awarded a $35 million dollar ammunition contract with the United States Army to provide the service 5.56, 7.62, and .50 caliber ammunition in what ended up being their first military contract following the decision for Winchester to be the operating contractor at the famous Lake City Army Ammunition Plant. Now, Winchester has just received yet another federal contract, this time from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to provide the agency with .308 Winchester/7.62×51 NATO for a 5-year term and valued at $5 million.
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Winchester Awarded $5M Ammunition Contract by FBI
The RFP (Request for Proposal) was officially awarded on July 21st, 2021 with a total contract value of $2,667,025.00 and an NTE (not to exceed) value of $4,999,000.00. The SAM.gov link listed above gives the full details of the contract but I’ve lifted out the description below to give you a general idea of what the contract is all about.
Description
Requirement is to provide .308 Winchester/7.62 x 51 NATO caliber ammunition. The contract structured as a fixed price, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity type contract for one base year and four possible additional one year options; full and open competition.
This new contract is meant to be in support of the FBI’s Sniper Program. A 169-grain Sierra BTHP projectile was picked as the projectile for this ammunition contract after much testing and evaluation by the agency. Once delivered, Winchester ammunition will be the sole source of deployment for the FBI with the .308 Winchester cartridge. According to the FBI, the load offering was considered to be the “best value product” based on the criteria put out by the agency.
To the East Alton and Oxford teams responsible for this great win, thank you for your diligent work on this competitive and highly technical project, This victory speaks to the talents and expertise of our team and I am very proud to see Winchester being selected once again by a premier national security organization such as the FBI.
– Brett Flaugher, President, Winchester.
Ammunition contracts are nothing new for one of the world’s largest small-arms ammunition producers. However, I still have to wonder how this will affect the civilian portion of the ammunition industry for Winchester. While we have recently seen an uptick in production across the board for ammunition manufacturers, several parts of the country are still struggling to find shelves stocked with reasonably priced ammunition and reloading components.
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