#Nswc

The Civilian Marksmanship Program has an absolute unicorn up for auction, a true Mark 13 Mod 3 sniper rifle. This .300 Win Mag looks like it could tell some GWOT war stories if it could talk. It’s not every day that a gun like this is available to the public, so let’s take a look at this rifle.

The United States Special Operations Command (US SOCOM) is looking for a new variable-power rifle optic to allow users to engage targets out to 600 meters, while still preserving close-in capability. The solicitation, released last week on Fed Biz Opps, announces a Firm Fixed Price (FFP) Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) supply contract for up to $33.2 million dollars worth of the new optics. The draft requires offerors to provide 12 sample optics before December 8th of this year. The solicitation follows a pre-solicitation notice issued in July.

Naval Sea Warfare Center Crane (NSWC-Crane) has issued a pre-solicitation notice that it intends to purchase new optics for small arms. It is NSWC Crane’s intent to set requirements for three optical systems on small arms, the Miniature Aiming System – Day Optics (MAS-D) Squad – Close Quarters Sight (CQS) and Clip-On Magnifier (CM). It is anticipated the contract will purchase a minimum of 30 units and maximum is set at 39,300 units. Dollars will vary from $36,000 to $47,160,000, respectively.

In May of this year, I got the rare opportunity to travel to Heckler & Koch’s headquarters in Ashburn, VA, to take a look at some of the experimental and prototype firearms they have located there in their famous “Grey Room”. It wouldn’t be worth as much for me to just tell you about it and to snap a few foggy cell phone pictures, though, so I brought along Othais of C&Rsenal to help me take high resolution light box photos of these unique and rare firearms.