Winchester has been awarded a contract to prepare to produce the ammunition for the US Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons. The type of the new 6.8mm ammunition manufactured at the Winchester-run Lake City Army Ammunition Plant depends on the winner of the ongoing, slightly-delayed, NGSW program.

Winchester and Lake City @ TFB:

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Winchester assumed full control of the Army’s Lake City Army Ammunition Plant back in October 2020. It remains to be seen if a polymer cased round (from True Velocity) or a hybrid metal case (from SIG Sauer) will be produced. Currently, Lake City has fed into the NGSW program by providing the 6.8mm General Purpose projectiles designed by the army. The new contract will see them develop the infrastructure needed to produce the new ammunition to the scale needed by the Army as the new weapons are fielded.

Here’s Winchester Ammunition’s statement on the contract award:

Winchester, the largest manufacturer of small caliber ammunition for the U.S. military, announced that the U.S. Army has awarded the company a total of $20 million in cost-plus and firm-fixed-price contracts related to ammunition development, manufacturing facility requirements analysis and production capacity planning for the 6.8mm Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW) program.

Work will be performed at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant (LCAAP) in Independence, Missouri, the United States’ only government-owned, contractor-operated small caliber ammunition production facility. These projects were awarded under Winchester’s $8 billion contract to operate LCAAP.

“Winchester is honored to have been selected by the U.S. Army to execute NGSW program activities at Lake City,” said Brett Flaugher, president of Winchester Ammunition. “The NGSW program represents our military’s significant investment in the future U.S. Warfighter, and the work being performed under these contracts is the genesis for generations of NGSW programs to come.”