During a video introducing some new products published on 31 August, Bill Geissele announced that Geissele’s submission to US SOCOM’s MRGG-S (Mid-Range Gas Gun) program had been selected. The new rifle appears to have beaten out rival designs from other down-selected companies, including FN and LMT.

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Geissele noted that while in-house the rifle had been known as Project Joy, SOCOM’s designation for it is the Mk1 Mod0. The MRGG program was launched more than three years ago with Sniper (MRGG-S) and Assault (MRGG-A) elements. It’s currently unclear if Geissele have also been selected for the MRGG-A requirement, it appears that MRGG-A testing is still ongoing with multi-day testing planned for March 2024.

Bill Geissele introduces the MRGG-S Mk1 Mod0 (Geissele Automatics)

SOCOM’s objective statement for the MRGG-S states a requirement for a “more accurate and increased range sniper support rifle, with a threshold accuracy requirement of 1.0 Minute of Angle (MOA) at 100 yards and an objective accuracy requirement of 0.5 MOA at 100 yards”. SOCOM wanted a semi-automatic rifle with a 20-inch barrel, weighing less than 10.5 lbs, firing 6.5 Creedmoor. The rifle had to be capable of 1 MOA accuracy after firing 5,000 rounds.

A close-up of a representative target showing the rifle’s groupings (Geissele Automatics)

Introducing the rifle, Bill Geissele said “I believe this is history… we competed against the titans of the gun industry.” Geissele’s rifle surpassed SOCOM’s requirements with 25,000 rounds put through various test rifles, three guns underwent a barrel-life test where 6,400 rounds were fired from the rifles. Holding up a paper target Geissele explained that typical accuracy for the rifle averages 0.5 MOA and that during one stage of testing SOCOM fired 240 rounds at the rate of one round per second repeatedly.

Geissele Mid-Range Gas Gun, (MRGG), 6.5 Creedmoor (Geissele Automatics)

The rifle has a cold hammer forged from CRMOV steel, chrome-line barrel and is paired with Geissele’s double wall ‘Super Night Owl‘ suppressor made from Nanoweapon-coated titanium. The rifle has a free-float M-LOK handguard and upper and lower receivers machined from aircraft-grade aluminum. It is fully ambidextrous and features the Geissele Super Semi-Automatic Enhanced (SSA-E™) trigger.

Close-up of the MRGG-S Mk1 Mod0’s receiver – mounted with a Night Force optic (Geissele Automatics)

Specifications for Geissele’s MRGG-S rifle: