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XM2010 Enhanced Rifle

By Scott R. Gourley Center], Crane [Division], and ask to ter Magnum gives you about a 50 per- send those MK 13s downrange. [The cent increase in your range with the eflecting many lessons learned MK 13 is described as a “Crane-built same accuracy as your M24 and your Rfrom ongoing combat operations weapon.”] They performed very well. M110.” in , the U.S. Army’s new Meanwhile, the ONS kept coming, Because the Army wanted to empha- XM2010 Enhanced Sniper will and we started racking up more and size intelligent stewardship of equip- provide extended range capability more requirements for the capability, ment already in inventory, one of the while incorporating the latest weapon while we only had about eight SO- program requirements involved taking subsystem technologies for U.S. Army COM weapons for 90 days as a ‘user the receiver from the M24 and using . assessment.’ that component to build up the .300- LTC Christopher Lehner, U.S. Army “It became apparent to us that the caliber Winchester Magnum XM2010. Product Manager for Individual Weap- MK 13 was doing a great job and that In addition to offering a 50 percent ons, recently discussed the advantages the .300-caliber Winchester Magnum increase in range over 7.62 by 51 mm of the new system. was winning the ‘ridgeline-to-ridge- sniper systems, LTC Lehner noted that

“Downrange now, our and line’ fight, where we were outshoot- the new sniper weapon is much lighter are able to ask for equip- ing the with their long-range than the Army’s large .50-caliber M107 ment and gear that they don’t have weapons,” LTC Lehner said. Semi-Automatic Long Range Sniper Ri- through operational need statements That realization led to congressional fle. “The XM2010 checks in at about (ONS),” he explained. “We were get- interest and directed funding to pur- 17.5 pounds [combat ready without ting a lot of ONS asking for a sniper chase additional .300-caliber Winches- suppressor], so that’s about half as weapon that had longer range than ter Magnum weapons. The process, heavy as the M107,” he explained. our current 7.62 by 51 mm [.308-caliber which began with a “sources sought” “Plus, the M107 doesn’t have a very Winchester] M24 [Sniper Weapon Sys- notice and included a down-select tight shot group—it has about 2.5 tem] or 7.62 mm M110 [Semi-Auto- process at Aberdeen Proving Ground, minute of angle—making it an antima- matic Sniper System]. Those are both Md., led to a contract award for teriel sniper weapon. Our snipers have fine sniper weapons and ‘dead-on’ XM2010—previously designated M24E1 been using it to try to pick off human accurate to 800 meters. Sometimes you —to Remington Arms Company. targets, which is hard to do after 1,000 can get a 1,000-meter shot out of them, “We went from the release of a Re- meters because at that range the bullet but when that bullet loses its quest for Proposal to the down-select can land anywhere within a 25-inch cir- you aren’t sure where it’s going to end and actual delivery of the first weap- cle. Most chest widths are only about up.” ons in less than a year,” LTC Lehner 22 inches. But now, with the XM2010, Special Operations Command (SO- said. “That’s lightning quick for any we have a very accurate weapon out to COM), he added, “had MK 13s, which weapons acquisition process, and we 1,200 to 1,400 meters that is much were .300-caliber Winchester Mag- did it without a single protest. lighter than the M107 and can get with- nums. They had eight of them avail- “The new weapon has one minute in the human chest silhouette.” able. We were able to tap into their of angle out to 1,200 to 1,400 meters,” Along with conversion to the new resources at [Naval Surface Warfare he said. “So the .300-caliber Winches- caliber, Remington’s winning sniper ri-

March 2011 I ARMY 101 fle design features: a completely new hanced as “a game changer,” these rails provide interface options chassis () assembly, which maxi- Robert Galeazzi, chief of the Precision that you didn’t have before.” mizes the amount of physical adjust- Weapons Division within the office of One of those enablers is an AN/ ments for the sniper to provide a true Product Manager for Individual Weap- PVS-29 Clip-on Sniper Night Sight customized fit; a folding buttstock that ons, stated, “Now we have the ability fielded with the weapon to provide radically shortens the system for easier to use the scope for the entire range of day/night capability. transport and greater concealment operations. We’re also getting away The mounting rails can also be de- during movement and accommodates from mil dots, which were a ranging tached from the weapon, offering ad- the mounting of accessories via remov- capability. Now we are working on ditional weight savings when not re- able Standard 1913 Picatinny mils, where you can get your range quired for tactical operations. Rails; an improved 6.5-20 by 50 vari- and just use ‘hold offs’—for example, In addition to reiterating its ex- able power Leupold riflescope with an saying, ‘The target is now two mils up panded tactical contributions, Galeazzi enhanced reticle within the first focal and two mils left, and that’s where characterized the XM2010 as “a tech- plane and a .300-caliber Winchester you need to shoot.’ nology test bed. This is a ‘bridge-the- Magnum bullet-drop compensator; a “It’s something that the [U.S. Army] gap’ capability between what we have quick-attach/detach Advanced Arma- Sniper School is embracing and is now and where we are going in the fu- ment Corporation flash/blast/sound probably going to adopt for its future ture.” suppressor with ; a five- optic,” he added. round detachable box ; and “Another advantage is in the mount- elivery of the first small-quantity advanced corrosion-resistant coatings ing rails,” said LTC Lehner. “Espe- Dweapons to the U.S. Army took throughout the system. cially with the M24s, there are no rails place in December and was accompa- Referring to the new optic and en- to put on all of your ‘enablers.’ Now nied by a “train-the-trainer” program in which factory representatives intro- duced the new weapons to selected Army snipers. Delivery quantities will increase to 30 to 60 per month in early 2011, with priority deliveries to snipers already downrange and those preparing for deployment. “They are only going to Afghanistan because that’s where we need that ad- ditional ridgeline-to-ridgeline capabil- ity,” LTC Lehner said. Initial funding covered the conver- sion of 250 M24s to XM2010, although the quantities could increase based on additional ONS and the availability of

Photographs: U.S. Army Photographs: U.S. additional funding. (

The Army’s new XM2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle offers a 50 percent in- crease in range over 7.62 by 51 mm sniper systems and has a tighter shot group at about half the weight of the large .50-cal- iber M107 Semi-Automatic Long Range Sniper Rifle.

102 ARMY I March 2011