SIG FURY 6.8 ammo ammunition
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Last month the Army awarded SIG SAUER a contract to build its next generation squad weapons, the XM5 rifle and XM250 machine gun. Both firearms are built around a uniquely designed new cartridge SIG calls the 277 SIG FURY. It’s a “hybrid” design that combines a traditional brass case with a steel base to handle the high pressures the 6.8×51 round will produce.

While SIG will manufacture the new ammo for the Army, so will Winchester at Lake City. Now the Army has awarded Olin Winchester a contract to design the new production facility at Lake City so it can supply the ammo the Army will need for decades to come.

Here’s Olin Winchester’s press release . . .

Olin Winchester LLC, the largest manufacturer of small caliber ammunition for the U.S. military, today announced that the U.S. Army has awarded the company a $15 million cost-plus contract for the design of the Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) ammunition manufacturing facility.

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.

Lake City Ammunition Plant

“Winchester is honored to have been awarded this NGSW ammunition manufacturing facility design project at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant,” said Brett Flaugher, President of Winchester. “The ultimate design will incorporate best practices, key learnings, and stakeholder input to create a state-of-the-art production facility which delivers the U.S. Army an optimal manufacturing solution for NGSW ammunition. The NGSW ammunition produced at Lake City’s new facility will equip the American Warfighter for success on the battlefield for generations to come, helping to ensure the nation’s security and defense.”

Lake City recently announced a recruitment campaign aimed at hiring its Next Generation workforce.

“These skilled individuals will form the crucial first generation of the Winchester NGSW ammunition production team at Lake City,” said Mr. Flaugher. “This team’s focus will be to ensure every round of 6.8mm ammunition produced at Lake City is Warfighter ready.”

And if you think the Army will be dumping all of its M4’s, M249’s, or M240’s any time soon, think again . . .

For the second time in two months, Oxford-based Olin Winchester has been awarded a contract to provide ammunition for the U.S. Army.

An announcement was made Friday that the company has been awarded a $51.8 million modification to a contract W52P1J-21-C-0016 to manufacture 5.56 mm, 7.62 mm and .50 caliber ammunition. 

The additional ammo under the contract extension will be manufactured in Winchester’s Oxford, Mississippi plant.

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38 COMMENTS

  1. OK , ALL A RIGHT A , MORE AMMO PLEASE . LOOK OUT PAPER TARGETS .
    HAVE SEEN ALOTS OF WINCHESTER 22 LR ON SHELVES , THANKS

  2. I don’t even like steel cased ammo in any caliber. If it’s military I like brass, copper and lead.

    • Two months ago, I was in the Las Vegas Bass Pro perusing the ammo section, and saw 150-rd “range pack” boxes of Winchester 9mm target ball, with the same look as classic “white box” but in kraft (unbleached) boxes. I thought it was simply Winchester’s way off shaving off manufacturing costs by using cheaper boxes, but it turned out to be steel case(!) pistol ammo. U.S. made steel case! They had some sort of coating that prevented good movement in double-stack mags and bound them up, so the stuff was only good for single-stack mags (like 1911 or CA 10-rd Glocks). I was a bit peeved, to say the least, because there was no mention of steel case on the printed exterior of the boxes. Deceptive, and not what I expected from Winchester.

      I learned my lesson years ago…brass is king. Aluminum is an acceptable option. Steel is a hard pass unless there’s absolutely nothing else.

      • Haz,

        Steel….the indoor range to which I belong forbids steel. The Rod and Gun club policy is “leave your brass on the ground if you like, but pick up your steel and take it away”.

        I have some steel, not much. Will probably only use it when the zombies show up. At that point, nobody will care.

      • Has,
        That is Winchesters “Forged” line of steel case ammo.
        It is pure garbage because of that stupid coating.
        Buy some Russian Tula or Wolf steelcase.
        Or even some of the stuff coming in from other formerly communist countries.
        It’s cheap and reliable, excellent for plinking.
        I’ve put many cases of that stuff through my CZ scorpion and A.R. 15’s.
        If you do a lot of rapid fire it is the only way to afford to shoot a lot of ammunition

      • Fair point Haz, I experienced the same thing with Winchester steel-cased 9mm. I found that the magazine for my Springfield XDM WOULD NOT feed that stuff. I sold that stupid gun and bought a S&W M&P 9. The magazine from the S&W feeds steel case like a dream, not a single malfunction over a 1,000 rds. The distinction between the two mags is the coating used on them. The XDM was stainless steel and the S&W has some sort of black paint or Teflon coating. Makes all the difference in the world. I decided that owning a gun that couldn’t eat steel case could be a liability.

      • Picked up a bunch of that in 9mm a while ago (price was too good to be true). If you lube the cases (rims especially) it feeds fine but still substantially more dirty and is the only ammo I have ever used where inconsistent accuracy is not entirely my own fault. Negatives aside it was 10cpr cheaper than blazer brass at the time and has let me get more trigger time with any mistakes I make magnified.

      • I use the Winchester Forged ammo in my Glock 17/19/48. It runs great for me. We typically train with downloaded magazines (more reloads), so maybe it’d have a problem under full spring tension. It’s a little cheaper, and I don’t feel bad not being able to recover my brass when the range doesn’t allow it.

      • Um, hey TTAG, where’s my follow-up reply I posted here a couple of hours ago? No “Awaiting Moderation” tag, so why was it deleted??

        This comment section machinery is really getting annoying.

    • Great – you have an opinion.
      How do you plan to contain 80,000 PSI from this round without a steel base?

    • JW,

      What is it that you do not like about Winchester? I shot a lot of their range 9mm. Never a problem. Always looking to learn.

      • Personally I find most of their factory .308 loads to be hotter than necessary. In a group of 5 out of my deer rifle there will almost always be at least one shot that will fly wide. In comparison, my brother’s hand-loads might produce 1 flyer in 50 shots.

        • that “one flyer” is probably your first shot of the group.
          quite common for cold bore to do that, and also a clean bore.
          it has nothing to do with the ammo.

      • Winchester white box is typically very dirty and you will get an occasional FTF. At least you get to practice malfunction drills.

  4. That thing looks a lot like a .270 Win Mag would look…… bet thatthing flies fast and far, and likely quite ccurately. When can WE get those? If its good enough for our Doughboys, it should be good enough for us.Right?

  8. I say let the army work out the teething on this for the rest of us, hopefully there isn’t much so our guys can make it home okay.

    In terms of the ramped capacity, I’m curious how many rounds that actually comes out to be. Lets knock say $20M off the top for new tooling then we’re left with about $30M. I’m not super sure their contract includes delivery, but lets say it doesn’t and lets say that they’re making it for .15 a round which is probably high. That’s roughly 6 rounds per buck or 180 million rounds. Not a bad stash.

  9. SIG is giving serious under the desk treatment to some very greedy officials. Beretta and General Dynamics produced a shorter, lighter, more reliable platform called the RM277 (Chambered in comparable .277 lower pressure cartridge). It uses polymer casings reducing weight by 40% and think of how much cheaper poly case ammo is to produce! Way easier and cost effective compared to hybrid steel crimped to brass cases. This stuff has been ticking me off since they chose the P320 over the M9A3. Didn’t even test the M9A3, they sent them straight back to Beretta. It would have saved the military millions and in backwards compatibility, it’s also a superior product. If they wanted plastic even the Glocks are better than the P320.

    • well … the fact that the US military contracts anything from foreign manufacturers pisses me off.

    • As I recall, the M9A3 didn’t meet the requirements for accommodating smaller hands, which also pushed Glock out of the running. If you’re going to win, try making what is requested instead of tweaking your current products just a little to but still not meeting requirements.
      The lower pressures of the RM277 needed a longer barrel, so it was a bullpup to meet the length requirements. There are lots of negatives to a bullpup, so the M5 might have won on other factors.

    • Inclined to largely agree on the rifle, perhaps slightly less so on the pistol. Why would the army want a 33-34oz pistol in the first place? Submitting a new M9 was phoning it home so they got sent packing.

      In terms of Glock, yeah that’s likely another story. Really for a handgun it’s probably “good enough” outside of say SOCOM’s special needs but it’s not like they haven’t ever bought their own gear anyways.

      As I’ve said before, I’m curious about longevity. I mean 80K PSI seems to me almost certain to indicate teething problems.

      In engineering there’s a concept called the mean time between failure. It’s effectively an estimation of how long a part (most commonly associated by average people with hard drives probably) will last. The thing is to get an accurate idea of that you have to have large sample sizes. Going back to hard drives that could be thousands of disks. I really doubt that we’ll know the real virtues and limits of a system like this until then. Then again the same could just as easily be said about plastic cased ammo as well. Two piece cases exist as of now and are in production, while I can’t really say the same for even moderate pressured rounds in plastic.

      It may have also been the proposed rifle was a bullpup. I suspect that’s gonna be a love it or hate it thing with nothing in between really.

  10. well … the fact that the US military contracts anything from foreign manufacturers pisses me off.

  11. How smart is it to have ONE military small arms ammo plant (which uses powder produced in ONE plant (in FL)). All eggs in one basket?

  13. That’s why I say we have no hope for change except by force. This country has been taken over by corrupt politicians for over 45 years. Everyone one that in government from the past 45 years has baggage. They all need to be put on trial and investigated.i do home work ….. 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐤.𝐜𝐨𝐦

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